The HEA Cafe

Will you marry sell me?

One thing I didn’t realize after I signed with my agent was that I would be asked to try to sell on proposal.

Okay, I had heard over and over that the unpubbed would never sell on proposal and that they shouldn’t even try. But, I had heard that from other writers in the industry, not from my agent. This is why having an agent you trust is so important. My gut told me that she was leading me down the right path (for me), so I happily followed. Listen to your gut, it’s usually right.

It took three proposals and almost exactly one year from signing with Deidre before I sold. With each proposal I wrote, I became a stronger writer. But let me tell ya, it wasn’t easy at first because I’m a pantser at heart.

And, unfortunately for the pantser, you have to include a synopsis included with your proposal. I can honestly say this was the hardest part of the process for me. But I finally figured it out with the help of two fantastic CPs and my agent.

For me, a proposal is 50-60 pages of a manuscript, an 8-10 page synopsis (usually 10. I pretty much subscribe to the “1 page for every 10,000 word” theory of writing synopses) and blurbs for any connecting books.

Selling on proposal is a decision made by you and your agent. If you’re uncomfortable as an unpubbed author with trying, that’s okay. Just be sure to discuss this with your agent. Talk about the pros and cons and realize that once the proposal is sold, you have to finish the book(s) on deadline. That pressure might be too much for your first sale. I know many a writer who let the demands of their first deadline freak them out after they sold on proposal. You’ll always be safe if you discuss your concerns/fears with your agent.  This is your career and part of his/her job is to guide you into success.

If y’all decide that you should sell on a full manuscript first, realize that in the future, you will probably be asked to sell on proposal. This is a great way to keep the money coming in and to keep fresh projects going out. Just manage your time so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.

I’m still new at all this, so I’m fumbling my way through. Writing on my contracted work in the mornings, then working on my new ideas/proposals or revising in the afternoons, seems to work for me. Once you complete your proposal, send it and forget it. Get back to your contracted work and finish it so that when you sell your next work, you will be ahead of the game.

Peace y’all!
Melissa (Mel) Francis

I write science fiction romance. You know, starships and space freighters and starports and ‘droids, and him and her kissing whilst a galaxy implodes somewhere behind (or in front of) them… that kind of stuff. So at book signings and conventions when I sit there with my bookcovers replete with starships and starports and kissing couples, I’m frequently asked about the worlds I build: the planets, the civlizations, the languages, the cultures.

And I’m often sitting there with a romantic suspense author on my left and an historical author on my right…yet rarely do they get asked about their world building.

It’s as if writers and readers feel world building is a disease only SF authors get.

It’s not. It’s a disease all authors get. At least all good authors who want to bring their readers into their books. The reality (of the unreality we create) is this, and I’m quoting writing guru Dwight Swain:

“You need to remember three key points about the world in which your story takes place:
a-Your reader has never been there.
b-It’s a sensory world.
c-It’s a subjective world.”

Notice Swain says nothing about “science fiction story” only. I don’t care that Swain penned those words in the mid 1960s (according to the copyright date on my copy of Techniques of the Selling Writer). SF existed in the 1960s, by the bucketful. But Swain recognized something that all good writers need to: your story world–no matter how common to you or your culture–is still a unique experience for your reader.

That’s why world building is not just for SFF writers. Or SFR/RSF/Futuristics writers. Or paranormal writers.

“But I’m writing a rom suspense in Orlando, Florida!” you wail. “Everyone knows what Orlando is like.”

Maybe they do, if they’ve been mouse-ified. But even if they live deep in the heart of Mouseville, they still don’t know Orlando in the same way your character does. They don’t have the same emotional responses, same memories, same experiences your character does.

So let’s go to item ‘a’: your reader has never been there. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing about Cirrus One Station (as I do), Orlando or Oshkosh. When you bring your readers into the story, it’s a new experience for them. They’ve never been to Cirrus One or Orlando or Oshkosh as you are now going to present it.

So don’t gloss over your book’s setting (apartment, shopping mall, park, grocery store) assuming the reader knows. Swain had another maxim: “Vividness outranks brevity.” That doesn’t mean you slather on oodles of description. It does mean you realize as you write that the reader has never been there before. Don’t miss a chance to use something of the setting to impart something more about your character(s).

Which brings us to ‘b’: it’s a sensory world. What are some of the things someone living in Orlando, Florida might uniquely notice? The intensity of the sunshine at midday? Trust me, Orlando in August at noon is a veritable frying pan. How about the humidity? How about the fact that it’s 98-degrees at noon and then chills down to a balmy 94-degrees by nine o’clock at night. In other words, you rarely stop sweating (at least, in August).

Or how about the plethora of out-of-state license plates on the highways? Or the sound of the breeze rustling through the palm trees. It’s nothing at all like the sound of the wind through the pines.

Sensory experiences.

Which brings us to ‘c’: it’s a subjective world. Even if your reader grew up in Orlando, s/he didn’t grow up in your character’s lime-green Crocs. I grew up outside New York City and I often feel cheated when I read novels set in that city because a character “walks through Times Square” and that’s it. That’s all the author gives us, as if we all should know exactly what that entails. Well, I’ve been through Times Square hundreds of times and if there was ever a setting that cries out that it’s a unique, sensory and subjective experience, it’s that one. Times Square on a Tuesday afternoon in December is not the same as Times Square on a Saturday night in July. And Times Square on a July Saturday night is a different subjective experience for the beat cop sweating on the corner than for the hooker lounging against the taxi. And different for the tourists from Oshkosh and the young party-goers from the suburbs of Newark.

I spent ten years as a private detective and took many a post-accident witness statement and trust me, you can have five people standing elbow to elbow on the corner and all five will remember something different about the same accident.

It’s the same with your characters and your readers. The character’s experience, perceptions and interactions with the setting you place her in is uniquely hers, filtered by the background and conflicts you give her.

So don’t short-change your readers or your characters. Bring them into your world, let them see it, taste it, hear it, smell it. Let them fear it, desire it, love it, shun it. But bring them in and make the reader feel it.

And now for a bit of BSP: Check out the Out of this World Writing Workshop this weekend:

Writing Out of this World Romance with Some of The Hottest Authors in the Science Fiction and Futuristic Genres 
October 12th, 13th, and 14th at Romance Divas

Featuring:
Susan Grant
Patti O’Shea
Linnea Sinclair
Robin D. Owens 
Gena Showalter
 
Want to know how to write out of this world romance? Romance Divas is hosting a 3-day workshop with some of the hottest names in the Science Fiction and Futuristic genres. It will take place at the Romance Diva Forum. All are welcome. To get access to the forum you will need to register. 

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

I nearly missed today’s blog because I’ve been deep into writing a short story for an anthology. It’s actually a horror short, rather than a romance, so I tend to stay out of “civilized company” during the process, since I’m not of a warm and fuzzy mindset. LOL!

I wound up writing this story longer than normal. I tend to stay in the 2,500-5,000 word range in most of my shorts, but this one wanted to be longer. That’s interesting to me, because in general, I write to word count. It’s very unlike a novelist to do that, but I came to books out of magazine article work. Word count RULES in magazine work. You have very set guidelines—500 words, 1,000 words, 1,500 words, and that’s that. Often you lose space by the editor requiring a sidebar (those little colored boxes with complimentary information.) It’s always part of the word count, like a 1,500 word assignment with two 250 word sidebars. So that tells me I only have 1,000 words to write the article, because I can’t fudge the other two. Sidebars are really important to magazine editors because of the nature of the business. When assigning an article 6-9 months ahead of publication, the editor has no clue what advertising will be purchased for that issue. With sidebars, an editor can pay for a longer piece, and then cut it at the last minute by dropping a neatly boxed word count, if someone bought a larger ad.

But in novels, an author tends to ramble along with secondary characters and subplots and the like. Short stories are difficult to write with subplots and secondary characters are often two-dimensional. But sometimes, when an idea for the story is really richly textured, it takes time and space to develop them properly. That’s how it was with this story. It just “wanted” to be longer so I could do justice to the mythos (Cthulu) and the plot. Tricky venture, that. It might be that I’ll have to cut it in half to meet the market I intended it for, and that’s going to be hard. There’s so much in the story that’s good, but it’s WAAAY too long for either magazines or the anthology I’d planned the story for.

I’ve discovered that there are few writers who excel at BOTH short stories and novels. I think that’s because it’s a whole different mind-set. Short stories are a slice of time, like a self-contained chapter of a book. But they have to arc appropriately with a defined beginning, middle and end. Sometimes, that’s really easy. Often, though, it’s HARD. A lot of book authors I know have a difficult time when asked to contribute to an anthology because it doesn’t occur to them that you can’t just write until the story’s done. You have to fit the story in the box you’re given.

Normally, I find it a challenge to do that, and once I step away from this story for a few days or a few weeks, I’ll probably find a bunch of words that don’t need to be there for the story to resolve. But for the moment, every word (in my mind) is pure gold and I don’t want to touch it for fear of ruining it.

Which is why it needs to go into a desk drawer where it can sleep and I can get distance from it.

Now, it’s time to crawl out of my hole and back into the light where I can be warm and fuzzy and write the next great romance!

Have a great Wednesday!

I’m plagiarizing myself by copying this post from The Spiced Tea Party blog, but I’m really interested in this topic, so I thought I’d put it out there for all of you as well! I have 3,000 words left to write on my current wip and I’m already destined not to finish it today…motherly love overcame writerly objectives. I had to take my 5 yr old daughter to the ‘Build a Bear workshop’ because she finally gave up the chewed remains of her last binky…
My writing group met last night. We’ve been meeting for about 5 years now and know each other pretty well. We’re an odd group, I write erotic romance, then we have literary fiction, fantasy, and inspirational mystery/suspense. So far we’ve all gotten along well. Apart from that one occasion when I almost burst into tears and left because someone kept picking on my hero

Last night we discussed that age old chestnut, ‘write what you know’ -did it mean you had to write about your life and only the things you had experienced or did it mean something more profound? Perhaps it meant write about what you believe in? We all had to stop and think about that.

For our inspirational writer it was easier, because for her, the faith element is not only what she ‘knows’ but what she strives to achieve in her life. I can totally respect that. For our literary gal, again she writes thinly veiled memoir so she really writes what she knows in the more expected sense. The fantasy writer weighed in with the thought that she always explores the journeys of women who are weak and how they become strong.

As for me…well, obviously I don’t write what I do. I’m a happily married women thank you very much . I don’t need to seek the sexual thrills my characters crave and I still don’t know how the hell I ended up with quite this erotic an imagination! So this is my take on the ‘write what you know’ thing. I write about human relationships because I am totally fascinated by how people relate to each other, the grays of sexual identity, the way people speak, or don’t speak, the way they touch, or don’t touch, the intricate dance of a courtship or a sexual relationship. 

I’ve always admired authors who write fabulous dialogue-Dorothy Dunnett is one of those writers whom I love to read because her characters are so often at cross purposes and the flaws in their communications just exacerbate the problems. I want to write as well as that when I grow up and I certainly force my characters to talk to each other. The other thing I strive to achieve is honesty between my characters about what they crave or desire or need to be happy-and ultimately, that’s what we all want really, isn’t it? Someone to love us for ourselves. 

So am I writing what I know or simply expressing my view of the world of sexual intimacy? I’m not sure, I’m certainly not trying to preach a way of life or a belief that everyone is sexually blurred. Is it even necessary for a writer to know why she writes the way she does? I’m not sure I have the answer to that one either! How about any of you? 

I thought about talking about alpha heroes or Halloween.  I even thought about expanding on the Kia Marathon, as I was really excited about gearing up for it this month.  I started out great on Monday.  I even had it in my head that I just might write the words ‘The End’ on my work-in-progress by the 31^st.

Then I got the call from day care on Monday afternoon.  Nothing serious.  My daughter had a low-grade fever and complained about her ear.  She’d had ear infections leading to tubes when she was younger so I knew the drill.  We’d watch her to make sure it didn’t get worse, manage the pain and she’d be back on her feet in a couple of days.

Ha.

Tuesday morning she woke up with gunk smeared all over the side of her face and stuck to her hair.  We got her to the doctor who told us her ear drum had busted.  Still not too serious, actually not unusual for kids who’d had tubes, but the condition is pretty painful so my daughter wanted her mommy and I wanted to comfort her.

So I didn’t get a single page written for two days.  Once my daughter was back on her feet and happily ensconced in day care I vented to my husband.  I beat myself up for not staying up later to write, even though by the end of the day my mind was mush.  I should have tried harder, I said.  I’ll never become a full-time writer until I consider my writing another job and treat it that way.

Then he pointed out that I’d taken time off my day job to take care of our daughter.  Why should writing be different?  When I started writing, I told him that even though it was important to me to chase my dream, my family still came first.  Had that changed?

I didn’t even have to think about it.  He was right and I think it’s something that writers at my stage of their career sometimes forget.  We’re working so hard to get to that full-time writer stage, to make a living with our stories, that we ignore what we’re writing about.  Life, love, family, adventure.  If you buried yourself in a room with your laptop, you’ll eventually run out of words.

I’m not saying don’t make writing a priority.  I work better if I carve out time to write every day.  Just remember that while writing might be the one of the most important things in your life, it’s not your whole life. 

Live, love, laugh and go write about it!