New Hero Love

New story love is a special kind of love. So too is new hero love. And I adore my new hero. Or should I say, I adore my new-old hero, cause he's not really new, having made his first appearance in my Feel The Heat entry last year. However, he IS kind of new in that he actually has some internal conflict. Plus I've also given him a sympathetic in with the heroine, because in his first incarnation, apart from his astoninishingly good looks, he didn't have anything that she could admire about him. Or even like. And let's face it, if your h&h are going to be antagonistic, there has to be something there that each finds admirable about the other otherwise your love story isn't going to be very believable.

It's all about the sympathy factor. Is your character sympathetic? This is doubly important (I think) when you've got a rude hero. And my hero is one of those lazy, arrogant, sarcastic types because, sad to say, I really like those kind of heroes. Mostly because their downfall into love is so delicious...
Anyway, I think this touches on one of the seven sins that I Heart Presents listed about the comp entries - a hero who gets irrationally cross and treats everyone like dirt. This isn't alpha. This is just being an a*hole. So how to stop your sarcastic hero from coming across as a guy you'd just want to kick? Give him motivation. Why is he being so rude? Is he sick? Tired? Worried about something else? Angry? And if he's angry, why is he angry?
For dear Alex, his reason for being an ass is that he's worried about his father and having to deal with a bunch of protestors who are bothering him with what he thinks of as inconsequential problems is the last thing he wants to think about. Especially as one of the protestors is very, very attractive.
True, this isn't an excuse for his rudeness but at least there is a reason behind it. And the reason is the 'in' with the heroine because when Kate discovers it, she is immediately sympathetic. Family is important to her and she finds his concern for his father attractive.

I should confess also that the other reason I love sarcastic heroes is because they do make the dialogue fun to write. Especially when you pair them with an equally quick heroine. Oooh, yum, yum. I love my dialogue - can you tell?
So what's your favourite type of hero then? Do you like yours with lashings of sarcasm? Or are you more into the strong, silent type?

All Dressed Up

Okay, well, the partial is done. Its got its party dress on, hair has been styled, the makeup done. Now all it's waiting for is to be asked out. Don't want it to be a wallflower...

In other romantic news, the darling Dr Jax took me for a suprise wedding anniversary weekend to Waiheke Island, one of the islands in Auckland's gulf harbour. A kid free weekend and it was bliss!
Not to mention giving me a few ideas for my next wip. Yes, a writer's imagination is always working.

This wip is the infamous Kate and Alex story and I finally, finally think I've got the conflict and plot exactly as they should be (at least I think so). Waiheke is home to lots of hippy-type people as well as very rich-type people. So I can see the Modern Heat potential. Lots of beautiful vineyards, lots of five star resorts, lots of tie-dye and dream catchers. The perfect place for the child of hippy parents to take on a rich and unscrupulous property developer...

Now I've got a handle on the old action/reaction and the KISS principle with regard to conflict, I think I could make this one work. Now what I really need to concentrate on is NOT adding additional strands to my conflict but that's a whole other story...

Wherefore Art Thou Tension?

I have just realised why I've been unhappy with the last third of my wip and why the black moment feels like it comes out of the blue - there is no tension. My characters are having a lovely time now they've fallen into bed but where is the 'OMG it's all going to end in tears I just know it!' feeling? Where is the dark cloud that is rapidly lowering on the horizon? Gone, that's what.
Michelle Styles' comment on my last post about kitchens was incredibly prescient as it turns out because yes, I have lost the tension. With every scene the tension should wind tighter not release like a tightrope snapping under a heavy weight!

The good thing is that I know why my tension has snapped. It's because I've lost focus of the essential conflict - again! I got sidetracked by the reasons they were falling for each other and though that's important, it's not as important as the all reasons they shouldn't! And not just the 'I must not fall in love' but the 'why I must not fall in love'.
Not to mention the fact that I haven't dug as deeply into my conflict as I need to. My hero has been bringing up his much younger sister for the last ten years and though she's now at university, he is still finding it difficult to let her go. Why? What's he afraid of? And what does this mean for my heroine? And speaking of her, she is still trying to escape her over-protective parents. Why? What's she really afraid of and what does this mean for the hero?

So, have hauled the sorry mess back into line again by putting their essential conflict back into their scenes together. Building up that tension so that when the black moment arrives, it'll be so dark that they will be absolutely unable to see their way out of it.

I just hope to God I can! :-)

Everyone's Always in the Kitchen At Parties

Okay, so not just parties. In the process of editing and I've discovered that in every one of my mss there is always a scene where one or the other of the characters is in the kitchen making coffee. I have no idea why. No, actually, I do: it's the old 'let's have a conversation about our conflict' kind of stuff and so they have to be doing something while they're having this conversation. But for some reason these scenes are always in the kitchen and during the course of it one of the characters is making a hot drink. But why? Why the kitchen? Why coffee and not tea? Why a hot drink? Why not make food instead?

It's probably a custom thing. Whenever my h & h eventually get to go to one another's houses, offering a hot drink is the socially done thing. And since I don't drink tea, it's usually coffee. Plus, coffee gives the character something to do, grinding beans etc (especially the hero - coffee is a more manly type of drink, especially when he gets to fiddle with a gleaming, stainless steel espresso machine. Ha ha.) . But still, it's weird. This wip for example, the heroine is staying with the hero and so what does he do as soon as she arrives? Heads straight to the kitchen and goes to make coffee! Why doesn't he whip her up a souffle or something?

I really should break out and do something more radical with my dialogue scenes. At our last conference, I went to a workshop about setting scenes and about how lots of people seemed to set their dialogue in kitchens. It was suggested to try another location for interest's sake. Such as a wind tunnel. Or a mountain side. Or a boat. The problem I have with that is that kitchens/restaurants etc are the places where people normally have conversations like this. Especially deep and meaningful ones. And if you're writing Modern Heat most of the time your characters won't be in wind tunnels or mountain sides, and if they are, they're probably doing much more important stuff than talking about their conflict!

Seriously though, I should be a bit different with my scene setting. What about everyone else? What's the most unusual location you've set a scene in?

Finished

Big woots all round - I finished my story! Yep, now have 48k of...dross probably. :-) Got bogged down in the last third and I'm hoping it's not going to be as bad as I think. Dr Jax says I'm over-thinking the conflict. He's probably right. But won't know until I see what I've written.

One thing's for sure, already stuff has changed from the synopsis. Not the big things but some of the small plot points. Just goes to show how things can change once you've completed a manuscript. I guess that's why everyone says to sub the partial only once you've finished writing the whole thing. Not that I've ever done that! Maybe that's why I haven't had anything accepted yet! :-)

Anyway, the most certain thing about it is that I am going to have to do a lot of editing. If the initial draft is 48k it means that the polished ms will almost certainly be longer. Especially since I only kind of sketched the ending. Lots of work. Maybe I'll be so busy with editing it that I won't stress about the synopsis currently living in London. And considering the number of entries for the Presents competition, I suspect it will be living there for some time to come.

In the meantime, I have joined the Romance Writers of Australia in the hope of entering this baby into the Emerald Award. I know, I kind of went off contests but they sure give you something to do while you wait. Am even considering this one for the RWNZ Clendon award too.

Right, that's the end of my insights for the day. Having one's four year old daughter wake up in the middle of the night twice is not conduicive to thinking about writing sadly. What's everyone else up to?

New Publishing Opportunity

Harlequin have asked me to pass on a new publishing opportunity - they are going digital!

Carina Press will be launched in the summer of 2010 and they are looking for new authors in all sorts of genres. Submissions are open right now and you can get the details here:

Carina Press

Could be good you reckon?

Oh and if you want to hear some great editorial advice, check out Maisey's blog. She's discussing stuff she got her revision letters and that kind of comment, well, it's gold dust.

The Dangers of Self Awareness

It's been a bit of a full on weekend. Firstly it was my daughter's fourth birthday, secondly I am in the middle of Nano-ing, and thirdly I twisted my ankle right at the crucial moment of getting my daughter to come to see her birthday cake! Collapsing on the couch in a moment of extreme agony, the rest of my family thought I was having a wee nap and laughed. It was only when I went green that they suspected it wasn't just tiredness that had me stretched full length on the couch.

Anyway, trying to do the first two with the third has been a bit of a mission. Especially since all I wanted to do was sit at my desk and write my ms - apparently not a good thing with a twisted ankle that should be kept elevated.

However, I have been making respectable progress. I will be finishing it this week which will be great. The only problem with writing a novel in about a week and a half is that no doubt I'll need to spend a month editing the thing! I'm almost afraid to read what I've written - it'll be dreck I'm sure of it.

And it hasn't been all all plain sailing with the writing either. I have a big problem in that I tend to make my h&h too self aware too early. In fact I didn't even realise this was, in fact, what I was doing until Dr Jax rolled his eyes and pointed it out to me. The issue with making them self aware - ie being in love - is that if you do it too early, you run into the problem where it's not the conflict keeping them apart so much as the being in love and not wanting to be. So the focus changes from the conflict - eg, my heroine not wanting to be protected - to her not wanting to be in love. Same with the hero. He fell in love too early and so his angst stems from not wanting to be in love rather than wanting to hold on to someone who doesn't want to be held.

Tricky eh? It's my own fault really. I love angst which is why I make them self aware - the anguish of loving someone but not wanting to! O the pain! But if you have two people loving each other and yet not wanting to be in love, how does this resolve the conflict? All there is angst with nothing really progressing. Which is why I felt I was writing the same thing over and over, having my heroine constantly go over the reasons why she doesn't want to fall in love and yet nothing really happening with her real conflict.

But then, how do I include the angst and tension? You're supposed to have it right? Which is when Dr Jax pointed out that the conflict provides the tension not the 'I'm so in love and yet I can't be' kind of thing. Another Aha moment for me. So I've pulled back on the awareness, let the conflict provide the tension, and my characters will not be falling in love until right near the end. That'll teach 'em.

Caveat

I'm feeling a bit bad here. I'm really liking that people who read this blog get something from it to help in their writing, but please know that this is only my journey. And I am still travelling on it, nowhere near my destination yet. Which means that some of this stuff on here may be wrong. So please take my little lightbulb moments with a grain of salt. And let me know if I've made a mistake somewhere!

Re the whole conflict thing, when I said that conflict doesn't need to be bad, I did mean that. But only because I always thought it had to be some terrible tragedy. So it was kind of interesting to figure out that it didn't need to be. That I didn't have to pile on dead fiances/wives/family/kids. However, that doesn't mean that tragedy can't be good conflict because obviously it can. It can be very, very strong. Now, the hero I talked about in the last post, whom I gave a dead fiance to, the only reason that was him living in the past was because there wasn't anything about the heroine that tapped into my hero's conflict. Perhaps if my heroine had sworn never to play second fiddle to anyone again, that would have been better. Or if she'd decided that her next relationship would mean marriage or nothing.
Even this current WIP, my hero has had tragedy in his life. He lost his parents in an accident and so had to look after his much younger sister, but his conflict isn't to do with grief about his parents (though obviously it's in there). It's to do with responsbility and trying to do what's best for people, even though they may not agree. So his conflict becomes a culmination of his experience - looking after his sister, taking over his father's company, etc, etc, rather than a single moment of loss. And it's conflict because my heroine does NOT want someone looking after her.

But again, that's not to say that those moments of loss aren't hugely terrible and don't make good conflict. It's just you can't take them in isolation from the rest of a person's life. My last sub was an excellent example of doing just that - my heroine lost her father in an accident (yes, I have a terrible tendency to kill off my character's parents!) and that defined her character completely. It was like she'd had no life since her father died, which is not the case in real life because people move on after a tragedy (just ignore the fact that some people don't!). They don't forget, obviously, and it marks them, but it was like my heroine was stuck in some kind of time warp. And it didn't help that I'd exaggerated her living safe ways. Not good for an aspirational heroine who was supposed to be a lawyer!

So, anyway, that's my thoughts on this irritating conflict business. Really, talking about...say shoes for example is far less annoying. Or favourite books. And speaking of which, I bought Natalie Anderson's Hot Boss, Boardroom Mistress on ebook a couple of days ago and if you're looking for a sizzling reunion story then baby, you've found it!

Oh and for those of you worried about having too much sex without emotion in their stories (Jackie raises hand) here's is a great post by Sam Hunter, a Blaze author, about sexual motivation. Certainly made me think.

Conflict: Past vs Present

So, here I am in waiting no-man's-land. I am forging ahead with my wip regardless though. Even if they don't want it, it's great practise and I have to say, I'm quite enjoying writing it. I even like my heroine for a change! :-)

Anyway, I wanted to talk about a comment Janet left on my blog about conflict and how it happens in the present. I think I mentioned in the last post but I thought I'd expand a bit here. I never really got this to be honest, I mean, come on, of course conflict happens in the present. And in the past too right?

Well yes. And no. The conflict that we deal with in our stories may have been seeded in the past, but it happens only in the present. For example, the hero of my current wip has been looking after his sister for the past 12 years (this is the seed of his conflict). He's the protective sort and has been doing this quite happily with no problems. He's not conflicted about his need to protect at all.
Until he meets my heroine. Why? Because she does NOT want to be protected. So here he is, calmly going about his protective business which, he assumes, the heroine will naturally see eye to eye with since no one else has called him on this behaviour before (apart fom his sister but that's different 'cause she's his sister right?). But lo and behold, the heroine says 'I don't need protecting buddy so back off.' So instantly we have conflict. And it's happening in the present. Yes, the basis for it is the fact that he's been looking after his sister for years, but it's never been a problem for him until now.
Same with my heroine. She's escaping over-protective parents and wants to do things for herself. Not a problem, no conflict - until she meets my protective hero. And then it's conflict all the way baby!

Now, you could compare this to an earlier incarnation of this story where I (overdosing on internal conflict!) gave my hero a dead fiance. This was fine but when he met the heroine, there wasn't anything other than a dead fiance to hold him back from a relationship with her. There was nothing about the heroine in particular that made him feel conflicted - other than the fact that she was a woman and he was wary of loving again! :-) Thus, when they met, there wasn't much in the way of conflict happening - all his conflict was in the past. Does that make sense?

Anyway, that's my understanding of it and no doubt there's heaps more still learn about this angle. Anyone got any other thoughts? Might as well think about that rather than thinking about our subs/competition entries huh? ;-