The HEA Cafe

I went away for the weekend to Mudgee which is a wine growing region in the Central West of New South Wales. There was a big rock concert on called A Day on the Green with some of the classic Australian rock acts of the past thirty years, like Jimmy Barnes from Cold Chisel, the Black Sorrows, Richard Clapton and the gorgeous Deborah Conway from Do- Rei-Mi. It was hot, flies were everywhere and when the sun went down, it got cold.

The only place that could accommodate several thousand people was a big field at one of the wineries. My friends and I took a picnic, some chairs and bought some wine. It was very pleasant and civilized as rock concerts for baby boomers generally are. I had a great time.

There was a family in front of where my friends and I were sitting and I spent a lot of time watching them. Couldn’t avoid it really. They were only a couple of feet away. He was a bit taller than middle height, solid, maybe of Mediterranean background with a strong hook nose which gave his face terrific character. Dark eyes. Good looking in that vaguely brooding, tough way. Dressed in cut-offs and a T-shirt but looked as though he should be in Armani.

She was a classic ice blonde. Hair in a ponytail, stylish jeans, diamond ear studs. Four kids with them, three boys, one maybe four or five the others a couple of years older. Eldest child a surly girl of about fourteen. Looked like Ice Blonde’s parents were with them too.

Tough Guy and Ice Blonde barely talked to each other. They had blank faces and empty eyes when they did communicate. Their kids were lively and Tough Guy engaged with them when needed. But she said hardly anything. I kept thinking her parents, the grandparents of the kids, kept shooting her looks filled with anxiety.

Why am I telling you all this? It falls in the category of ideas for stories. I had several scenarios worked out by the end of the night. One was the clichéd one – they are a Mafia family and she’s going slowly round the twist with nothing in her life but shopping and childcare even though she wants more; one was a bit more snazzy – he was an undercover agent trying to protect her from a mad ex husband (although that’s been done a lot too); and the last one was that she was a girl friend of convenience he’d picked up for some as yet unknown reason – something to do with the kids.

But the real story I think, was this. Their marriage was stale and about to collapse. Everyone knew it, even the kids, and everyone ignored it. So what then? Does he have an epiphany in the middle of the field and realize he has to save his marriage or see his life go down the toilet? Does she have an epiphany and realize she has to leave or go crazy? Does he go back to his city life then on Monday morning, take out his Armani suit and find himself weeping uncontrollably? Does she walk in on him weeping and silently wrap her arms around him? Do they spend the next few hours on the floor in their walk in closet telling each other all about their fears and failed dreams? Or do they make wild, bone shattering love that doesn’t help and makes her more resolved to leave?

I don’t know. But I’ll file this away and one day come back to that family in the field and ask them what happened.

What do you do with all those fragments of stories and lines of thought that can leap into your mind in a nano second, just after you see a quick sideways glance or a head turned away too quickly?

At the Romance Writers’ of Australia annual conference, Jenny Cruise and Anne Stuart were our guest speakers. They were fantastic. I had a light bulb moment in Anne Stuart’s workshop on writing Dark Contemporary romance. If you’ve read Anne’s Ice series you know she likes a dark hero. She very successfully gets into the mind of a hero as he contemplates murdering the heroine. But she’s able to redeem him in the end.

One of the techniques she uses to deepen the characterization of her heroes is to think of five things they would never do. Then she makes them do them.

What do questions do you ask your hero or heroine to make them fuller characters?

p.s for some cute pics of our conference, check out the Argh Ink blog and Notes from a Drama Queen

Lyn and everyone else - I’ve moved Lyn’s first lesson to a post of it’s own rather than leave it as a comment on the last post.

Keziah

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Now to begin! I think my material is a little different than the usual workshops about catching the eye of an edtior (or agent). I don’t think I really understood this stuff until I had sold around 3 books. So some of you may already be doing these things, but not realize it.

I think it’s always good to figure out what you’re doing right so you can do it again on purpose not by accident. Anyway, some of you will not understand all of this, but save the notes and go over them every time you’re getting ready to submit. I’m just telling you what I do. And I’ve sold over 20 books in 10 years and was a RITA finalist last year. So it must be working!!!

Now I’m trying to write 2 chapters this week amidst getting ready for weekend company, so I’ll be popping in and out and I’ve suggested that participants who post the exercises, ask other participants to respond to each other. I want you all to have the opportunity to get A LOT OF INFO and FEEDBACK this week.
SO HERE WE GO!

Tips for Pleasing an Editor—Lyn Cote

1-Understand an editor’s life and priorities– Do you realize every editor at Harlequin is responsible for around 35 authors? They do not each have a secretary. All the editors in one line share one editorial assistant. Editors are responsible for:
• reading proposals from their authors
• reading submitted and contracted manuscripts from their authors
• going through all the stages that are involved the production of a finished novel: revisions, line edits, copy edits, and galley proofs (or AAs)
• Writing back cover blurb
• collecting art information for the cover and following the cover art production schedule
• attending meetings, conferences and keeping their desks neat
• and their very last priority, reading through their slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts.

As you can see, the life of an editor is packed with details and a multitude of deadlines for many authors. Now if you are going to send a person this busy something to read, what do you think she would be most likely to read first:
• an envelope with the query letter?
• a thin manila envelope?
• a very thick Priority Mail envelope that shouts long and unsolicited manuscript?

Well if it were me, an editor with a whole lot of things to do and very little extra time at my desk, I’d choose the envelope with the query letter. Wouldn’t you?

So if you want a quick answer as to whether the editor’s interested in your project, just send a query and the first page of your manuscript or just the premise of your proposal. That is all she really needs to see. My second choice would be the thin manila envelope, containing the query letter, the first page of my proposal, and the first scene of my manuscript. That’s all an editor really needs to see to decide if she wants to read your whole manuscript.

Now if you prefer to send the whole manuscript to the slush pile, that is permissible. But you will wait a lot longer, months longer, to receive an answer.

AND believe me, if you don’t catch an editor’s attention within the first three pages or the first scene, you will not hear good news from her. So sending more is really counterproductive.

You need to send the right stuff to the right person in the right way to meet with success. That is what I am going to be teaching you in this workshop.

2-Craft a proposal that has what the editor is looking for
Immediate interest-something’s happening! who, what, when, where, how, why

For teaching purposes, I am going to start with the first few pages of my historical DORRITT first in my “Texas Star of Destiny” series for Avon Inspire which I will turn in later this year. It will debut in October 2008.

Chapter One

“Belle Vista Plantation (WHERE)
New Orleans, August 1821 (WHEN)

“You wish to marry well? By that, Jewell, you mean marry a wealthy man?” Dorritt Mott sat in her stepfather’s lavish parlor, the heavy afternoon heat weighing her down. (WHO, WHERE, WHAT, HOW)

“There can be no other meaning, sister.” Fanning herself, her younger half-sister took another promenade around the parlor. (WHO, WHERE, WHAT, HOW)

Dorritt ignored her mother’s shocked disapproval. She sensed that today was the climax of months of planning by her stepfather.” (WHO, WHY)

I’ve included a five W’s in parentheses. And I’ve chosen to begin with dialogue, I hope provocative dialogue, character -revealing dialogue—something crucial is happening in that stifling parlor. WHERE, WHEN and WHO are easy to locate.

To me, HOW deals with the condition of the characters and the setting—i.e., the heat, their emotion and activity.

The WHY is what is the underlying tension, something’s about to change, something’s in question, something’s pending.

Check your first paragraph or two and make certain that they always include these 5 W’s. AND NOTHING MORE!

Beginning writers ALWAYS tell the reader TOO MUCH.

The rule is: Only give the reader, especially an editor, the 5 W’s and keep them guessing!

DEATH TO BACKSTORY IN CHAPTER ONE!

Exercise: If you want to post your first paragraph or two (NO MORE) marked with the Five W’s and invite comments from other participants, please feel free to do that today, but ONLY MONDAY.

I will skim and pick out at least ONE which is a good example. But post yours and ask for comments, you might get some very good feedback from the other authors here.

Tomorrow we launch into the first two ESSENTIALS: Voice and How to Find and Develop Yours.

Join us here between 21 and 25 May to hear Lyn’s words of wisdom on how to please an editor.

Lyn Cote’s first Love Inspired was published in 1998. Since then she has worked with on over 20 books with 18 editors at 5 houses. And can still walk and talk at the same time! And since she is contracted through 2010, she must have figured out how to please an editor or many editors!

Get your questions ready!

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my well runs dry. I work full time, look after myself, try and maintain my relationships with friends and family and of course through all that, write. But there are times when creative energy dries up. What do you do to get it going? Meditate? Eat chocolate? Go for a walk? Pull out Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and go on an artist’s date? Tells us your way of getting back to your writing energy.