It wasn't always this way. I used to love them. I used to find them really easy. An idea would pop into my mind and five seconds later I was writing it and it would just flow and the world was full of happy bluebirds and fluffy bunnies and singing princesses. Of course afterwards I'd have to rewrite the whole story fifty times over (including the stupid beginning) but hey, at least the start went well...
Sadly this is no longer the case for me. I've started my new WIP and it's taken me a week to get the first chapter right. This is unusual for me since when things are going well I can write a chapter in a day. My problem is - I think - that the more I know about character and conflict, the easier it is for me to see when it's missing from my story. Last year I'd push through the hard bits and just write in an effort to find the story. Now I'm finding I can't do that. Now I'm realising that when it gets hard, it's usually because I'm missing something vital and if I write through, I'll only end up rewriting over and over so it's better to get it right first time round.
This beginning hate is also partly a change of process. Instead of having an idea of the set up and writing instantly, I spend a LOT of time thinking about the story first, getting it straight in my head initially. This has been great in terms of conflict etc but when I sit down to write I've sometimes got too much information in my head and I struggle to get the balance of conflict, backstory, and character right in that first chapter.
Then there's the writing away and suddenly having to stop because you've realised you haven't nailed the characters down as well as you could have. This in particular has been a real bugbear for me, especially with this WIP, probably because my sheikh and his oil baronness were so strong in my head. I always knew what they'd say in any given situation because I knew them. But this time round it's been a struggle to fix Mr Rough and Miss Prim. She was easier. But he...I just couldn't get him. It's like the difference between a statue of a man and the living, breathing reality of him. I knew his appearance, his conflict, a fair bit of backstory but he just wouldn't come to life for me. I suppose the good thing is that now I know the feeling of having a character come to life - my chessman, my sheikh - I can recognise when it's not happening and can stop and try to find the 'key' to the character. And for me that's usually figuring out their layers. ie what's the mask they wear in public (their identity) and who are they behind this mask (their essence).
Anyway, to cut a long and VERY boring story short, once I'd figured out Mr Rough's identity (after only having to write his POV twice!) the stupid statue finally began to show signs of life and now I think I have him. Just as well since his conflict is going to be an extremely tough one to write and he's going to be another dark, angry hero that I will have to break. Hehe. *rubs hands*.
Does anyone else find beginnings tough? Or is it just me??
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Marriages of Convenience - Hot or Not?
I've kind of been slack at blogging lately. And slack at Twitter. About the only social media thing I haven't been slack at is Pinterest. Sigh. I've never been one for collages for my mss but there's something about Pinterest that's just so...Hmmmm.....
Anyway, my excuse for this slackness is due to finishing Mr Sheikhypants. Which I now have. Yay. Of course it does mean that now I have to write the synopsis. Not yay. Synopses and I do not get on. I'd far rather immerse myself in my new idea. Because yeah, now the sheikh is done, I have to put him away and think about the next story, and in the interests of staying ahead of rejections, I'm going ahead with a new Presents/Modern.
This new idea has come together rather different to anything I've done before and I think it's a good thing. Instead of coming up with a set up and charging straight into it, I've actually taken the time to think about it before I start writing. Isane, right? ;-) I've decided to do a marriage of convenience story since I haven't done one before and they're always popular, with an enemies to lovers slant on it. But it isn't really the trope that's the important bit. It's the characters that matter most. And this time I've actually tried to think about who they are as people first, before I decided on their conflict.
What I find interesting about this process for me now is that it feels like the characters come together in a much more organic way rather than merely being a collection of traits and conflicts stuck together. And now I know what type of people they are, I can look back over their pasts and see what their conflict might be and how it has shaped them. All of this without writing a word of the story.
However, this is going to be a tricky story. My hero has a very dark conflict, though actually, that's not the tricky part. The tricky part is thinking of a good reason for a marriage of convenience! Anyone read any good MOC stories lately? Was the reason for the MOC plausible?? Any hints gratefully recieved...
Anyway, my excuse for this slackness is due to finishing Mr Sheikhypants. Which I now have. Yay. Of course it does mean that now I have to write the synopsis. Not yay. Synopses and I do not get on. I'd far rather immerse myself in my new idea. Because yeah, now the sheikh is done, I have to put him away and think about the next story, and in the interests of staying ahead of rejections, I'm going ahead with a new Presents/Modern.
This new idea has come together rather different to anything I've done before and I think it's a good thing. Instead of coming up with a set up and charging straight into it, I've actually taken the time to think about it before I start writing. Isane, right? ;-) I've decided to do a marriage of convenience story since I haven't done one before and they're always popular, with an enemies to lovers slant on it. But it isn't really the trope that's the important bit. It's the characters that matter most. And this time I've actually tried to think about who they are as people first, before I decided on their conflict.
What I find interesting about this process for me now is that it feels like the characters come together in a much more organic way rather than merely being a collection of traits and conflicts stuck together. And now I know what type of people they are, I can look back over their pasts and see what their conflict might be and how it has shaped them. All of this without writing a word of the story.
However, this is going to be a tricky story. My hero has a very dark conflict, though actually, that's not the tricky part. The tricky part is thinking of a good reason for a marriage of convenience! Anyone read any good MOC stories lately? Was the reason for the MOC plausible?? Any hints gratefully recieved...
Monday, March 19, 2012
Adventures at 3.30am
I am a slacker. I was going to post earlier but I've totally been recovering from the trauma of getting up at 3.30am to pitch Mr Sheikhypants to unsuspecting editors (not to mention actually writing as much of Mr Sheikhypants as I possibly could). Naturally enough I had the usual nightmare - that I'd slept through and missed the pitch. You cannot imagine my relief when I looked at the time and saw it was only 12.30am. Thank God.
Anyway, a couple of hours later I dragged my sorry self out of bed and (despite terrible worries that the power would suddenly cut out or my computer refuse to work) managed to log on. It was a wonderfully friendly experience. I've never really been in a chat situation and it was fabulous that the editors were hanging out in the waiting room chatting with everyone too.
I was last on the list and around 5am eventually got to pitch. And I'm not ashamed to say that I froze. Completely. Twice. My head was full of GMC so when one of the eds asked me how my hero would pick her up in a bar, I kind of just stared at the screen going 'huh?' Of course AFTER the pitch I thought up all kinds of fabulous things to say such as my hero does not go to bars to pick up women! But did I say that? No. However, what I did manage to do was get across his conflict which they thought was 'very emotionally powerful'. Cue yays from me!
The editors also gave me some good advice re the heroine and also that since my voice is 'light' I need to get some darkness in there - cue more yays from me since I do love the darkness.
Anyway, I think I did all right since they asked me for a partial and synopsis, which is fantastic (the partial bit, not the synopsis)!
So go the sheikh!
Anyway, a couple of hours later I dragged my sorry self out of bed and (despite terrible worries that the power would suddenly cut out or my computer refuse to work) managed to log on. It was a wonderfully friendly experience. I've never really been in a chat situation and it was fabulous that the editors were hanging out in the waiting room chatting with everyone too.
I was last on the list and around 5am eventually got to pitch. And I'm not ashamed to say that I froze. Completely. Twice. My head was full of GMC so when one of the eds asked me how my hero would pick her up in a bar, I kind of just stared at the screen going 'huh?' Of course AFTER the pitch I thought up all kinds of fabulous things to say such as my hero does not go to bars to pick up women! But did I say that? No. However, what I did manage to do was get across his conflict which they thought was 'very emotionally powerful'. Cue yays from me!
The editors also gave me some good advice re the heroine and also that since my voice is 'light' I need to get some darkness in there - cue more yays from me since I do love the darkness.
Anyway, I think I did all right since they asked me for a partial and synopsis, which is fantastic (the partial bit, not the synopsis)!
So go the sheikh!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Master Class at the Sisters
Naturally since I am the WORLD EXPERT at pitching, I am doing a post on pitching at the Sisters today. Here in fact. Of course, when I say world expert, I mean that term very loosely. Exceedingly loosely. In fact, I'm actually no expert (shock, horror), more of an enthusiastic amateur. And it's basically a post I wrote about the route I took when pitching. If you're interested...or you could have a look at this picture instead. Who is the inspiration for my blue-eyed Sheikh...
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Mr Sheikhypants Wins!
Okay so I was naughty and didn't tell anyone that I'd entered the Presents pitch on eHarlequin. I probably should have but to be honest I have been getting a little sick of announcing that no, I didn't get anywhere so I thought if no one knew and I didn't get picked then I wouldn't have to say anything.
But, well, I did get picked. And Mr Shiekhypants seems to have been a winner.
To say that I am moderately pleased would be to say that Sally Field was quietly satisfied with her Oscar win. :-)
And I have to say, I am quite shocked because it was only an 80 - 100 word blurb, plus a 250 word excerpt so you had no room at all to pitch your idea. I am also not the world's best pitcher. However, I will say that having a hook really, really helps. And some books are 'hookier' (if that's even a word!) than others. I have no idea whether that was what made it with mine, but having a tough oil baroness for a heroine helped. She was totally my hook and I shamelessly used her!
I do hope, however, that I haven't bitten off more than I can chew with doing a sheikh story...
Oh well, I guess that's me all up. I like to make it hard for myself and not play it safe. But at least it's another small step forward in this ridiculous roller-coaster ride of a journey.
But, well, I did get picked. And Mr Shiekhypants seems to have been a winner.
To say that I am moderately pleased would be to say that Sally Field was quietly satisfied with her Oscar win. :-)
And I have to say, I am quite shocked because it was only an 80 - 100 word blurb, plus a 250 word excerpt so you had no room at all to pitch your idea. I am also not the world's best pitcher. However, I will say that having a hook really, really helps. And some books are 'hookier' (if that's even a word!) than others. I have no idea whether that was what made it with mine, but having a tough oil baroness for a heroine helped. She was totally my hook and I shamelessly used her!
I do hope, however, that I haven't bitten off more than I can chew with doing a sheikh story...
Oh well, I guess that's me all up. I like to make it hard for myself and not play it safe. But at least it's another small step forward in this ridiculous roller-coaster ride of a journey.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Playing it Safe
Sometimes I wonder if I'm not making things harder for myself. I'm thinking this after reviewing some feedback for a contest I entered a while back. It was my chess playing hero's story and he didn't do all that well in the contest. Why? Because one judge HATED the story. Now, most of the other judges really liked it. They scored me really well. But this one, particular person just did not like it at all. In fact, the only thing that would have made this story better for them would be if I had never written it at all. Same with my other entry - which actually did really well but only just missed a final placing. One judge did NOT like Presents. They did NOT like alpha males. And they stated it in the feedback sheet and scored me accordingly.
So now I'm wondering if entering my writing into contests is really a good idea. I knew my chess hero wouldn't get anywhere because he's a very polarising hero. He's damaged and hard and screwed up. He's a love him or hate him kind of guy and sure enough one judge loved him and one judge hated him. Perhaps if I'd played it safe and softened him up, he would have done better in the contest. Perhaps that's what I should be doing with all my stories.
This is why I'm wondering if I'm making it harder for myself. Because I don't like safe, tried and true conflicts. I like difficult, dark conflicts. I like flawed characters. Because they're interesting and when they overcome their difficulties, the emotional pay off is that much more intense. But it IS hard to pull off and some readers just don't like reading that kind of stuff.
It's a conundrum. My chess player was, I think, the first character I've written that truly came alive to me in my head. Who made me see that my characters in previous stories were amalgams of forced together traits and conflicts, like a badly put together mosaic. But he came together really organically, as a whole person, and just leapt off the page at me. I never had to question what he would do at a particular moment in the story because I always knew, because I knew HIM as a person. He has a special place in my heart for precisely that reason and when I write now, I remember how his character came together and if I'm not feeling that way about the characters I'm currently writing then I know I have to stop and think about them some more. I must admit though that when I wrote it, I did wonder if I should pull back on him. But then to do so would have been to make him someone he wasn't and I couldn't do that.
So I guess that's my conundrum, do I play it safe with the tried and true and make it easy for myself? Or do I keep writing about the characters and conflicts that interest me and perhaps make that publication goal harder? What would you do?
So now I'm wondering if entering my writing into contests is really a good idea. I knew my chess hero wouldn't get anywhere because he's a very polarising hero. He's damaged and hard and screwed up. He's a love him or hate him kind of guy and sure enough one judge loved him and one judge hated him. Perhaps if I'd played it safe and softened him up, he would have done better in the contest. Perhaps that's what I should be doing with all my stories.
This is why I'm wondering if I'm making it harder for myself. Because I don't like safe, tried and true conflicts. I like difficult, dark conflicts. I like flawed characters. Because they're interesting and when they overcome their difficulties, the emotional pay off is that much more intense. But it IS hard to pull off and some readers just don't like reading that kind of stuff.
It's a conundrum. My chess player was, I think, the first character I've written that truly came alive to me in my head. Who made me see that my characters in previous stories were amalgams of forced together traits and conflicts, like a badly put together mosaic. But he came together really organically, as a whole person, and just leapt off the page at me. I never had to question what he would do at a particular moment in the story because I always knew, because I knew HIM as a person. He has a special place in my heart for precisely that reason and when I write now, I remember how his character came together and if I'm not feeling that way about the characters I'm currently writing then I know I have to stop and think about them some more. I must admit though that when I wrote it, I did wonder if I should pull back on him. But then to do so would have been to make him someone he wasn't and I couldn't do that.
So I guess that's my conundrum, do I play it safe with the tried and true and make it easy for myself? Or do I keep writing about the characters and conflicts that interest me and perhaps make that publication goal harder? What would you do?
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