Synopsophobia

The ed has let me know that she'll get to my chapters by the end of the week. Big yays! However, when I let her know that my synopsis is now no longer quite so correct, she requested an updated one. Not so big yays. Was this a stupid move on my part? At the moment, currently wrestling with giving her an updated one, I'm thinking that's a resounding yes! Sigh.

The main problem is that it seems to be the general consensus that the partial is more important than the synopsis. Naturally the eds want to know you have a decent story but everyone says that eds understand it can change and are a little bit willing to let things go in this area. Maybe I'm wrong but after having my previous synopsis picked to shreds, I can say that some eds pay more attention to synopses than others. And since that appears to be the case here, I need to make sure my synopsis is as good as I can get it - can't risk her not wanting to see the rest due to doing a crappy job.

Which brings me to my other main problem - I'm not very good at them. A while ago I thought I had the knack - until the ed picked it apart and I realised I didn't. It's so annoying. I know the story so well that I keep trying to include every emotional permutation, overcomplicating things, focussing on the wrong reactions, all sorts of irritating stuff. I know what you need to have in them, I'm just so paranoid about not doing a good enough job that I'm probably over compensating. Definitely a huge case of synopsophobia. I'm telling myself that the pain I'm suffering now will be worth it in the long run and that it will only benefit my story, but sadly that's not much help now.

Anyway, in much happier news, the release date of MaiseyYates' fabulous debut book for Presents/Modern is imminent and the Sisters are having a party. So do pop over for some champagne. In fact, if you love ebooks then His Virgin Acquisition will be available on the M&B site from Thursday, a whole month early! Super big yays for Maisey! You rock girl. Want to write my synopsis for me?? :-)

Missing Something Vital - The Romance!

I've been doing major edits on the wip and after a while I got to thinking that I was missing something. And you know what it was? I forgot the romance. So tied up with making sure there's conflict and tension and whatnot, that I forgot I was writing a romance and these two people have to fall in love! Argh!! Lots of argument. Lots of love scenes. But where was the swoony falling in love bit??
Doh.

Maisey's just done a lovely post about the small moments between the hero and heroine, about those moments of connection. And you need them because otherwise how will we ever get emotionally involved? Why will the black moment be so terrible? Because we can see these two people falling for each other and we know they're made for each other and yet they can't see it yet. But first we have to show the reader these two are made for each other. And that they are falling in love even if they don't realise it themselves.

I reckon that's sometimes what I have problems with. I think that if I create these moments between my characters, they will somehow know what the reader and I know, that it means luuuurve. And then that upsets all my plans because they will run a mile. But you know, just because you have a nice moment with someone doesn't mean you're instantly in love. No, you just think 'wow, what a cool guy'. It's really the build up of all these moments that leads to the realisation - unless you're writing a love at first sight story of course.

Anyway, have given them their moment of connection. And hopefully kept the significance of it from them. Actually, don't know why I'm worried about them finding out. They're both experts at lying to themselves and they continue to do so right up until the end.

So has this happened to anyone else? Got so caught up in conflict and tension on every page that you forget you're writing a romance??

Just Hanging Around

Nothing new to report here. Just twiddling my thumbs. Actually that's a lie, I started a new story. Bad, bad Jackie. I have two stories at the partial stage and one with a first chapter done so those really need finishing - I shouldn't be starting a new one! But y'know, when the new story bug hits, ya just gotta go with it.

I haven't written a linked story before but I got kind of inspired after Maisey wrote one. In my current wip my hero has a younger sister. She appeared in an earlier iteration of this story so I know her quite well - she's an unusual sort of girl. Anyway, in the wip, her part is reduced to a phone call so I was kind of feeling a bit sorry we don't see more of her, and when Maisey wrote a story concerning a younger sister I thought why not? But I'll have to get rid of some things first - she's 18 in the wip so I'll have to advance time for her (as you do when you are the god of your character's world), and she has a blue mohawk and an eyebrow piercing so I'll have to get rid of those as well. She can keep playing drums for a gothic metal band though and she's definitely keeping her talent with the violin too. This all could mean she's a tad too quirky but hey, will give it a go and see what happens. Interesting to create a story out of a past that's already set and unchangable. And interesting creating a hero for someone whose character can't be altered too much. I usually create both in tandem with each other so this is a new experience. But a good one. Now all I have to do is think of a plot! ;-)

In the meantime I have been award the Honest Scrap Award by the lovely Kerrin. I have to list ten things you may not know about me. So here they are:

1. I did fencing at university. Once. After a long afternoon at the pub.
2. I love poetry, especially ee cummings and TS Eliot.
3. I have a BA in English (no I do NOT plan to be a teacher - not that there is anything wrong with that).
4. I wrote my first romance when I was 13. The heroine was called Patricia and the hero was married to her sister. It was full of the kind of angst and torture that only 13 year old girls can possibly imagine or indeed be interested in.
5. I once entered a singing competition. The other contestants wore evening gowns. I wore Doc Martens and leggings. I did not win.
6. I got engaged in Prague, on the banks of the river. A saxophone was playing 'Autumn Leaves' nearby and afterwards we went to an ice hockey game to celebrate.
7. When I'm not reading romance, I'm reading SF and fantasy, especially anything by Iain M Banks.
8. I hated Titanic and also Twilight (don't shoot me).
9. I loved Star Wars (but only the first trilogy).
10. My plans for world domination are proceeding nicely.

I have to nominate some bloggers for this award but I think it's been around a bit so I'm going to pike out and say that if you haven't done it yet, it's your turn! :-)

Round One Edit Complete

Okay, so I've finished the first edit of my wip. Still no word from the ed on whether she likes chapters 2 and 3. I had planned not to touch it until I heard from her but couldn't keep away. Anyway, it's done now and it's in better shape than the first time round. Wondering if I've over complicated things again with the resolution but won't think about that till the second round of edits. I'm kind of tempted to polish it up but I have no idea whether the ed will want more or, if she does want more, whether she'll get me to change it again so there's kind of no point in many ways.

This story has been a nightmare to rewrite actually. It's currently in its 5th iteration and I'm so close to the characters, that whole gentle reveal thing has been really hard. Plus the fact that having no external conflict at all, the reason the two stay together in the book is all down to their choice and if they realise they're falling for each other they would run a mile! So I have to keep them lying to themselves about what they're feeling which makes for a slow build book. They don't know they're falling for each other and keep telling themselves everything's okay - until right at the end when it blows up in their faces. Don't know if that's right but that's the way it's played out. And I've realised I've got quite a few love scenes in there. Ah well, the attraction between them is the excuse they use to stay together so it's a large part of the story. And each scene does forward the conflict - I hope!

Good news for the first edit though is that I cried a little at the end. Always a sign that you've written something emotional! I didn't in the first draft - first time ever - so I knew I'd have to go back and ramp everything up. So big yays for tears! Anyone else cry when they write their happy endings?

Right, nothing to do now but wait until I hear back from the ed - whenever that will be. Oh and I'm doing a writing tip on the Sisters' blog today too. Will go up UK time. I'm thinking I might do a little something on dialogue...

The Dance of the Seven Veils

Aren't you guys fabulous? I got some great comments about the whole digging deep deal last post - really set off lots of lightbulbs for me, especially with the WIP I'm going to be subbing next. So big cheers and thanks to you all for commenting!

Anyway, that digging deep post really set me thinking about the problems I'm having with this current WIP. I know these characters so well now that I am forgetting the reader doesn't. Remember the hero burning his toast? And the digging deep we did below the surface? We found out his real fear is that he's inherently unlovable. Now the thing is, he doesn't know that in chapter 1. In fact, in chapter 1, he's fine. His life is great. It takes the whole book for him to realise that he's not fine and it's not until right at the very end that he understands why he isn't.
Make sense?

Well, imagine my burnt toast hero thinking he's not lovable in chapter 1 and that's pretty much sums up my problem with my wip. I'm revealing my characters too early. I don't have much in the way of external conflict - okay ANY external conflict - so I really wanted to get to the heart of their problems, get that conflict down on the page. I had my heroine - who doesn't want a relationship - freaking out in day two of them seeing each other. But come on, really? She's having a nice time with him sure but would she really be feeling worried? Just because you're having a nice time with a guy doesn't mean love, marriage and babies is on the cards. Especially if that's not what you want. Besides, as far as she's concerned she's having a holiday romance, there's no way she'd want anymore so freaking out about enjoying herself the second time she sees him is a bit odd wouldn't you say?

Bascially what I did was dig too deep, too early (made her too self aware if you like). Sure, you need to let the reader know she's enjoying herself, and maybe hint a little that she hasn't had so much fun with a guy for a long time (cos this is special yes?) but save the freaking out for when she really needs it.

Which brings me to my blog title. Without mentioning stripper poles and pasties, I went for the tasteful option and thought about it in terms of veils. You need to reveal your characters conflict slowly. Like the dance of the seven veils, you drop one veil at a time. Mine didn't want to do that, they wanted to drop three. Hey, my heroine went for broke and threw them ALL off, the silly girl! Anyway, slow is what you want so that by the end of the book, all the veils are down and we can see what's at the heart of the problem for these characters.

Other people have other ways of saying this. Kate Walker I think calls it the layers of the onion. I quite like the veil analogy because it's also how the characters reveal themselves to each other as well as the reader. Slowly, as trust grows between them, they allow another veil to drop, letting the other person see a deeper part of them. Not having conversations about how they hated their parents in chapter two after they've only just met (Jackie, take a bow!).

Anyway, that's just my take on it. The speed at which your dance progresses really depends on the story though. Sometimes it'll be fast, sometimes it won't. But what you don't want to is have naked characters half-way through the story because then there won't be enough conflict to get you to the end and you'll be forced to throw in a car chase or something.

So, anyone have problems with their characters throwing off veils willy nilly or is it just me?

Digging Deep - What the $@&! Does That Mean??

It is a question that has mystified the ages - what on earth do they mean by digging deep? Well, giving you a giant hint here: it's got nothing whatsoever to do with mining. Or drain laying. :-)
Now, in my journeying through the murky, disgusting swamp they call conflict, I received some valuable advice from a fellow traveller that really prompted a fantastic lightbulb moment for me about the whole digging deep thing. This may be painfully obvious to some of you but I gotta tell you, it wasn't something I had ever thought of objectively until a couple of months ago.

Right so, digging deep. What does it mean in terms of your characters? It really means examining their emotional reactions and not just the surface emotion. It's all about what's going on underneath the surface. Like an iceberg you may see the tip of it sticking out of the water but there's a giant continent sized lump of ice going on beneath the water that you may not have noticed.
For example, let's say our hero makes our heroine some toast but he burns it. Let's do some digging into his reaction to this. How does he feel about burning the toast? Maybe he's a perfectionist and feels angry that he burned it. Dig a little deeper - why is he a perfectionist? He's a perfectionist because his father was careless, broke things, lost money, didn't seem to care etc. So the hero has decided he's never going to be his Dad and he's going to make sure he does things right. But he's burned the toast which means he's been careless like his Dad, something he's sworn never to be, hence he's angry. Do some more digging - maybe he also feels guilty that by burning the toast he let the heroine down and that is also a part of his anger. Dig some more - why does he feel guilty about letting the heroine down? Perhaps because his father was so careless he let the hero down often and so the hero knows what it feels like to be let down and he doesn't want the heroine to experience that too. Deeper - why does he not want to be careless like his father? How did having a careless father make him feel? Well, it made him feel bad and he doesn't want to feel bad. We can go deeper - why did it make him feel bad? Perhaps he felt bad because he's secretly afraid that his father was careless and let him down because he just didn't care enough about the hero. And if that's true, then how does that make the hero feel about himself? Is the truth, the hero's deepest, most secret fear, really that because his father didn't seem to care about him, he's not worth loving?

Okay, so that's pretty much as deep as it gets: how does the character view themselves? Now obviously this hero doesn't going around thinking he's unlovable. That's what he's afraid of. So he'll do anything and everything to avoid having to test that fear, to make himself feel good about himself. And - in this example - he does that by being a perfectionist. In his mind, if he does everything right, takes care with everything he does, no one will ever have cause to think he's unlovable. Until he burns the toast of course.

Right, so the toast example may be a little silly. I have another example from one of my WIPs. One I just had a brainwave on due to the whole digging deep thing. I have a heroine who is in love with her best friend and has been for years. So far, her black moment has consisted of her realising he will never love her back so she tells him to get lost because it's easier than being rejected. But I'm missing one vital thing that will make this black moment even more emotional. Why does she think he'll reject her? Okay, so he doesn't want a relationship and has made that very clear. But still, what stops her from saying it? Why is rejection so hard? The answer is really very simple. She scared of being rejected because if he rejects her, it'll confirm what's she's always been afraid of facing - that she's not good enough for him. And that's at the heart of her conflict: she's afraid she's not worthy of love.
Now doesn't that pack way more of an emotional punch than simply being scared of rejection?

So, next time you're puzzling out about digging deep, think about your conflict and go right to the heart of the character first. Ask yourself how they view themselves. Not the 'hey, I'm a hugely successful billionaire, there's nothing wrong with me' surface. That's the tip of the iceberg. What's going on beneath that surface? What are they secretly afraid of finding out about themselves? And if they're not scared, then either you haven't gone deep enough or you need to give them some more conflict.

Anyone have any other thoughts on this? I'm still figuring this stuff out so if anyone has anymore lightbulbs, do share!

BTW, sometimes burnt toast is just burnt toast. ;-)

Post Birthday Blues

Took a short blog hiatus over the weekend. Had a fantastic birthday where Dr Jax whisked me away to our wonderful capital city - Wellington - for a weekend of a swish hotel, fine champagne, nice food and, best of all, no kids! My birthday present was a lovely bit of bling, something that surprised me because I'm not a blingy type of girl and yet I found myself choosing a rather gorgeous bit of sparkle. Poor Dr Jax hasn't quite recovered from the cost I fear. ;-) Also took lots of scene-setting pics since - happily - Wellington is also the setting for a new WIP. Even found my hero's apartment overlooking the waterfront! All good.

But now I'm feeling blah. Post birthday blues maybe. Now the fun of the birthday is over, I have more angst and waiting to look forward to. Do we ever get over our need for reassurance do you think? In a normal job we'd have performance appraisals, we'd have a boss to ask about whether we're performing our jobs adquately, we'd have promotions, we'd have a wage! But with writing for publication we don't get any of that. We get silence. Sometimes we'll get encouragement in the form of a letter asking for more work but more often than not we get a rejection. It's a little bit soul destroying after a while.

I guess this qualifies as my vent of the month. I was hoping to save it until further on but what the hey! Anyway, am doubting my submission, doubting the rest of the manuscript - which is complete pants let me tell you, doubting pretty much everything. Don't have any emotional reserves left to deal with the long wait. My mojo has packed her bags and gone on a long holiday into the bargain. Boring huh? Perhaps I need some more NTAI shoes...

On the up side, I have lovely CPs who deal patiently with my constant need for reassurance, though sometimes I feel like a baby bird in a nest with its mouth constantly open... ;-) How do the rest of you deal with it? Do you whine like me? Go shopping? Or is it stiff upper lip all the way?

Happy Hoo-ness

I'm talking about Hoo, knee high stockings and not giving up at the Sisters blog. Check it out if you're interested. If not then as you were. ;-)

Forty

Okay, so it looks like a particular dream I had will not be realised. I wanted to be published by the time I turned forty, and as that day is on Saturday, short of a miracle, looks like I'll have to accept that I won't be. However, I'm hoping that as I will be forty for a whole year (age tends to happen like that eh?) I might have a shot at being published when I'm forty. Always good to have goals when one is staring a significant birthday in the face.

I guess the thing I should keep in mind that although I haven't reached my goal yet, I am doing something I never thought I'd actually do. I am writing full time for a start. And I am lucky enough to be working with a fabulous editor who likes what I write. Never thought I'd be doing that when I was younger! And actually, now I think about it, I'm not sure I would have had the tenacity to do what I'm doing now when I was younger either. I might have given up after that first rejection. Certainly I didn't have the time or the discipline like I do now.

Anyway, am inching towards my goal, albeit slowly, and so my new goal is to be published by the time I'm fifty. Ten years should be plenty of time. :-)

In the meantime, for all those of you who have reached this significant milestone already, quick, give me the good stuff about how great it is being forty. And if there's nothing great about it, lie!

BTW, am also blogging at Seven Sassy Sisters on Thursday. It's a random post and I'm not sure what I'm doing yet so if you're interested check it out.

Too Many Eggs and Not Enough Baskets

I'm wondering about eggs. And baskets. And wondering if I've got too many in one place with the whole Modern Heat thing. Because that's the only line I'm targetting at the moment. Mainly because I really, really wanted to get a handle on it and doing anything else felt like changing my focus. Yeah, I'm a little bit obsessive like that.

The problem though is, yep, you guessed it, wait times. I have been inching forward, it's true. And I do feel like I'm making some progress. But it's by slow increments. And I'm such an imptatient little person that it's doing my head in. The ed has chapters 2 and 3 and my synopsis but I haven't received any answer on this yet. It hasn't been long so I shouldn't complain. But I've finished rewriting my story now and once again I am waiting.

And this time I'm wondering if I should do something different, branch out. Even - shock, horror! - try a different publisher. Thing is, I like writing Modern Heat. Even if I wasn't writing to the guidelines, my stories would still be very Modern/Modern Heat. Perhaps they'd be longer and the language would be stronger (let's face it, alphas probably wouldn't say 'god' or 'hell' or 'insert appropriate mild curse here' ALL the time) but they'd still be essentially character driven because that's what I like to write.

Still, maybe it's worth thinking about. Be nice to have more than one submission out there, I have to say. Challenge myself too. Although I do feel I'm being challenged enough in getting MH right!

Anyone else out there targetting different publishers? What do you reckon? Worth a crack?

Control, Alt, Delete...

I deleted 4k yesterday. Yep, after a whole day sweating over all those words, I decided that there was a reason I was sweating over them and that reason was because they were crap. Honestly, you'd think I would know this stuff by now but no, after two years of short category discipline, I still have periods where I'm forcing my characters to do stuff they wouldn't.

And you know what? I had an inkling I was doing something that wasn't quite right and yet I pushed on. Complained to Dr Jax later that night, that I felt I was forcing them to have a conversation they didn't want to have. And he said, "Why are you doing that? What do they want to do?" My rebuttal to this was that I knew perfectly well what my characters wanted to do but they couldn't because...because...well, they'd just have another love scene and shouldn't they be getting further along with stuff by now? Dr Jax's reply was 'So? Eventually they'll have to stop doing what they're doing and that's when the conflict happens.'.

Argh! Maybe I should get my husband to write these things instead... Anyway, the wretched man was right. I was trying to get my h&h to have a conversation that they shouldn't have been having - they've only known each other two days, waaaaay too early to be sharing stuff about their dead/hideous parents! My intention was to further their conflict without a love scene because I've been trying to avoid the whole 'sex without emotion' trap. But of course, love scenes CAN forward the conflict and up the tension so why didn't I just do that in the first place??

I have no idea. But after deleting the 4k and starting again with the love scene, it was MUCH better. Would you believe my 'deleted scenes' folder is now nearly as long as my actual ms??

So, what's your biggest deletion? Bet you can't top mine - this ms is on its third complete rewrite. ;-)

Jackie is Climbing the Mountain

Chapters 2 and 3 are now in the hands of the editor. So is my sorry excuse for a synopsis. I'm not very good at them I've decided. I hope it was better than my last one - I think it is. I concentrated entirely on the emotional growth of the romance with barely any external stuff going on, so that's the important thing. It's going to be quite an emotionally complicated story though I think. The heroine is thinking her problem with the hero will be one thing, but really that's just a cover for something that's going on underneath. There will be a deeper issue for her that she refuses to see until it all goes horribly wrong. Hmmm, usually it's my heroes who get the complicated stuff. Not this time apparently.

Anyway, the one good thing I do know is that the editor liked the conflict. She thought it was realistic, consistent and believable. Big yays for me. Apart from the fact that the emotional barriers are quite large ones. Not so big yays.

Which brings me to the part about the mountain. I'm feeling now I'm at the bottom of it and it's a very long way to the top. If the ed wants more, I have to write the rest of the story and that's feeling like a mammoth task. Maybe the pressure's getting to me, I don't know. Maybe I just need to start writing and get myself enthused. Maybe I need to refill the well a little.

Whatever it is, I'm going to leave you with a personal favourite video of mine (courtesy of Miss Maisey Yates). Please note that I actually do not want to make love to the mountain (unless it looks a lot like my hero in which case I could be persuaded).


BTW, if you want to know more about the Modern Heat winner of the last Mills and Boon contest, visit www.sevensassysisters.com. Miss Jilly Aston is in the house.

Getting Rid of the Box

So, have now rewritten chapters 2 and 3 - they're totally different to all versions of this ms. It's actually now a completely different story to the one I initially submitted. The only things that have remained the same are the names, the hero being a venture capitalist, the heroine's love of photography and the fact that it's set in London. Their backgrounds too I guess but because the conflict is much better now, the characters' reactions are totally different to what they were like in the initial sub.

The other problem I've run into is that I've also been constrained by earlier versions of this ms. This is when revisions can be such a b*tch. You change it, but not enough and the old reactions are in there, the old plot. Which now doesn't work. Sigh. I didn't want to have my big love scene too early - which was in the old plot - and so fell into the trap of making my characters do what I wanted, not why they wanted. There was no reason to keep them apart except for me not wanting them to get together...cue plot device. Luckily I have now given them their head and they are following their natural inclinations which is a happy holiday fling. Needless to say, it will not end up being a happy, holiday fling. They have conflicts which mean that flings are fine, love is not. Guess what's going to happen?

Anyway, have now got rid of the old plot that was boxing my characters in. Now, hopefully, the plot will happen much more naturally. At least, that's the plan! Going to submit my next couple of chapters to the ed this week so we'll see how it goes. But first, my old nemesis the synopsis...
Anyone want to write it for me??

Announcing - Jackie!

Yeah, it's me. If you want to know more about how I actually came to write romance (and see a photo that I spent HOURS fiddling with), then check out the Sisters' blog.

www.sevensassysisters.com

If not, then there's nothing to see here. Move along. ;-)

The Seven Sassy Sisters Strike Back

Who are the Seven Sassy Sisters? What on earth do they do? What's all this about a double life? Why is a small, knitted, blue octopus so important? Is it even possible to write both Blaze and Sweet at the same time? Who likes Stephen King and romance too? What is it about displaced Australians and Superromance? Who likes hiding out in their garden shed? And whose husband is worthy of a Presents cover?

For all the answers to these questions and more, check out www.sevensassysisters.com.

Blog launches 14th of May. Be there or be square.

P.S. the ed offered to read chapter 1 of my rewrite. So I sent it off to her and guess what? She LIKED it!! Finally, after nearly a year of getting everything wrong, I am getting something right. :-)

Revision Nightmare

I've been slack as with this blog the past couple of weeks. Mainly because I've been wrestling with these revisions. Hard. Hard. Hard. You know I say that romance writing 'aint for sissies?

IT'S TRUE!

Tears have been shed. Yes, I admit it. Tantrums have been thrown. I have said many times 'I'm giving up. I can't do this. I can't get it right. I'll never get it right.' Much swearing occured in our house as I tried to find my way into these wretched characters. I wrote a whole partial! Which will never see the light of day because it was rubbish. And why? Because it comes down to the most basic problem which was the fact that I had not nailed down my conflict. I thought I had but I didn't go deep enough and therefore I did not know how my charcters would react and so they acted inconsistently.

But. I think I've got the conflict sorted now. This is a huge caveat of course because I've thought I've had it many times before and haven't. I still don't know if the first chapter is right or not - I've thought that about all of my writing before subbing and been wrong. It feels right but then so has everything else. Ultimately, I have no idea what the editor will say.

Anyway, I've rewritten the first chapter twice, both entirely different. This is easier for me because it breaks away from the scene and characters that didn't work and makes sure I don't fall into old patterns. I'm hoping that finally I've got it. At least they're acting in a way that is true to their conflict. In the end, though, all I can do is sub it and see.

Anyone else tearing their hair out over their stupid characters?

Finding the Happy Medium

I've always been an instinctive writer. I've been writing for 25 years (not submitting I hasten to add just in case anyone has visions of Jackie stuck in a garret, toiling away), writing lots of different stuff, poems, science fiction, fantasy, literary, and romance, and all of it just kind of flowed. I had no idea about conflict, about black moments, about character arcs. I didn't bother with that kind of thing, not beause I felt I knew all about it but because I just thought I would do instinctively. And writing like that served me very well. Up to a point. It got me a letter after the Instant Seduction contest. It got me runner up in Feel the Heat. If I was a bit more instinctive it might have even sold my 'nearly there' ms. But the thing is, if you want to stay published, you need more than instinct.

Why? Because when you get a revision letter that tells you to add more internal conflict, you need to a) know what internal conflict is, and b) how to add it. And unfortunately, that's where instinct failed me and where I had to put on my big girl pants and actually knuckle down to learn craft. I really didn't want to. Knowing about character arcs and goals and motivation ruined the spark for me. But, after my partial failed at the first hurdle last year, I knew that instinct wasn't going to be enough. You can have visions of the wonderful house you'd like to build but if you don't get the framing right, it won't stand up.

So then I started unlearning 25 years of writing insinctively, re-learning all the craft stuff and actually paying attention to it. Make sure my characters had conflict, make sure they learned from each other, make sure they changed. And guess what? In the process I DID lose the spark. I was concentrating so hard on making sure everything was in place that I lost sight of my instinct. Even doing these revisions, my characters became cardboard cut-outs that I was moving around. I knew them, but they kept shifting on me (and no, they're not werewolves. Maybe it would have been easier if they were!), they kept changing.

Maisey then offered some advice (because she's good like that) - just let it all go. Write from your gut. And so, after six months of learning my craft, I put all the craft stuff aside and wrote the way I used to. By instinct. And sure enough, my characters came alive. I slipped into them and they began to speak not with the words I gave them, but as the people that they truly were.
Hello happy medium!

The idea is that I know my craft better now (and no doubt I will keep learning it) so I can see where something's going wrong. So I can plot properly. So I get the pace right and the conflict straight. And then I have to write like I don't. Easy.

Anyone else an instinctive writer and find all this craft nonsense a pain in the rear?

Revisions or What the Ed Said

So, been examining the ed's email in great depth and having a think about my story. There were a number of points that she pointed out were wrong and here are the main ones:

1. My conflict was too obvious, too early. I really needed to give hints of it, not reveal it so starkly.
2. My characters were...drum roll please...too self aware! Which is always a besetting sin of mine. I did a post about characters being too self aware actually and was quite relieved to note that I'd done it in February - at least a month after sending this partial, so I have progressed!
3. My characters thought too much about the past. They fell into old patterns and the romance didn't feel like something new and exciting.
4. The setup didn't work.

However, they did say there were some lovely moments and that my character consistency was better.

So there you have it. More bad than good really but at least they gave me some suggestions about how to fix it. I admit to feeling quite daunted about this - at least every time I read that email I do! But in the past couple of days I've been discussing suggestions for fixes with various people and now I think I have a plan of attack. Going to post more about it as I go because I got some other feedback about lack of goals that has been hugely helpful too.

Anyway, bottom line is I'm going to nail this, by jingo!!

And the Winner With Massive Revisions is....Jackie!

Yup, consensus is revisions! Lucky me! Well, I have to say, it was nothing I didn't expect. When I wrote the partial I thought it was the best I'd ever done - certainly better than the last one - but of course, over the space of five months, you learn. And once you've learned, you realise that in fact you could have done better. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Anyway, so my choices are revising or subbing something new but since they've given me the option of revising, that's what I'm going to do. It's an important skill to learn and I want to show them that I can do it. However, I do have a tendency to go to extremes - I'll either completely rewrite so it's a new story, or I won't change it enough. Argh!! Somehow I have to find a happy medium.

So if anyone out there spots a happy medium, can they send it on to me??

More About the Non-Sassiness of My Heroine

Have had a little writing hiatus over the past week or two. Actually, when I say writing hiatus I actually mean writing sulk. I went on strike in other words. Not that anyone except me was affected and certainly no one noticed. So yeah, my strike was very effective. Not. Still, it did do me good because now I'm feeling more philosophical about the NTAI, I am ready to get back into writing and I always feel much more enthused after a break.

Anyway, I have been thinking more about my non-sassy heroine and still debating about whether her non-sassiness is a good thing. She really has issues with herself and not much confidence, despite the fact that she is rich and successful. But I'm getting cold feet about her. Is she Modern Heat enough? Is she sympathetic? Or is she too unconfident for a reader to identify with? I keep wanting to pull back on her, which I hate doing because then I slip into having my characters act in ways they actually wouldn't - at least not without a personality change. It's a problem. I mean, the eds liked her well enough last year, even though they rejected it, but lots can change in a year. Will they still like her now?

It doens't help that I am also working on her polar opposite, my eco-warrior heroine. She has sass enough for both of them and I have to say, her terrier-like inability to let things go is proving to be a problem for my conflict. I hope it's strong enough to explain her actions. Then again, that could be due to my hero and his ability to get under her skin - they've got a such a strong love/hate dynamic going on that it's not bringing out the best in either of them!

Anyone else ever have doubts about their characters personalities? Did you give them their head? Or did you pull back on them?