“The Only One” Evanescence – The Open Door

I’m not going to lie. I’m feeling totally uninspired to write this Wednesday blog. I’ve gone off the reservation with my writing and into left field. I know how publishers feel about “unnecessary” background inserted into the story. And I hate unnecessary writing, but sometimes I can’t get around it. Lately, I’ve been writing short stories about my characters. Don’t know why, probably couldn’t explain it even if I had to, but sometimes, characters just have to unload emotional and physical baggage before you get down to the nitty-gritty science of constructing a manuscript. The best way for me to do that is to just listen and record it journal style.

Now, I’m not talking about getting the skinny from the characters while you’re writing the scene. You know, when you’re writing and all of a sudden something becomes so clear about this character that you had really no idea about and they light bulb finally came on and everything makes sense. Not that. I’m talking about what makes your character YOUR character. The backlog of everything that’s happened in their past that makes up their present. (Ter, don’t you DARE say that’s plotting. In fact, I’m putting my blinders on now.)

I need to know what makes my characters emotionally tick so I can write them to the best of my ability. So I have conversations with them and since we’ve visited my road rage issues of driving while conversing with characters, I don’t need to rehash that.

My latest short story was written about Kiki.

It was sort of random. A lot of our conversations come from our mutual habits. I was washing dishes and she said so deathly calm, “Just because I’m a cold-hearted bitch, doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart or feelings. It means you’re not worth it.”  There was some silence, and I know I must have looked rather odd standing at the sink while the water was running unwilling to move in case I lost my reception on the Kiki show.

“I’ll never forgive you.” I could tell she was about to lose it. The “you” wobbled as if she struggled for air. That it was painful for her to even think about it, let alone say it aloud. It was as if my heart were the one breaking as her voice cracked over the last words she spoke.

“No. Goodbye.”

Then it was eerily silent.

I contemplated this. Goodbye is such a sad word. Goodbye means forever in my world. I’ll never see you again. I’ll never talk to you. I’ll not even allow myself to think about you when I’m scared and alone. For a girl who trusts very few, this was a very telling moment about Kiki’s inner psyche. Could this be one of the most influential moments in Kiki’s past coming to light for me? She felt so lost. So insecure. And numb. The scariest part of it all, she was just numb and knew she’d have to stay that way for the rest of her life.

I had to get this all down.

Matty seems to know when I’m on a mission. He followed behind me as I barely took enough time to turn the faucet off and dry my hands and skittered right into the living room to pull out my notebook.

“What are you doing?”

I didn’t look up as I searched for a pen. Why is it when you need a pen, you can’t find one but when you don’t need one, you’ve got them running out of your ears? “I have to write something down.”

“Right now?” I could tell he was confused. He often is when dealing with me and my odd moments of writing clarity. Especially when I hop out of the shower like a mad woman and dash into the bedroom for my journal.

“I can’t explain. Somehow, I tuned into my character and I can’t lose this thought. This is THE moment!”

He sighed. I found a pen and squealed happily as I wrote down everything that happened in my head. He turned the TV louder as if he could hear my thoughts and didn’t like it.

Too bad. If he stayed long enough he might have heard the real good stuff that might interest him.

So, I’ve been working on this emotional clarity with Kiki (because Sadie is a mess mentally and making me a basketcase); and I’m wondering if there is anyone else out there that writes short stories about their manuscript characters to get to know them better? What little weird extra steps do you take to get to know your characters better? If you’re a reader, do you prefer stand alones or series? And what turns you on and off to the main characters in a book?

Sorry, I totally didn’t have a point today. I’ll try harder next week. Maybe.

Okay, last week I said men cannot communicate–the whole Helen Keller analogy which I found amusing, but to which diplomat Terri had to point out: it’s not that men cannot communicate; it’s that they communicate differently.

No kidding.

Romance novels would be a lot shorter if men only knew how to communicate with women. I mean, I enjoy bickering (and bantering) as much as the next girl, but admit it, it’s still annoying. Sometimes it really feels like they’re just not listening.
 
I mean, that’s why we read romances, right? For the fantasy that at the end of 400 pages, this imperfect guy has effectively communicated to the long-tolerating heroine that he does indeed love her and will cherish her forever—and he couldn’t possibly live without her. You know, because he listened to her and it finally sunk in that, hey, this is important, perhaps I should tell her how I really feel so she doesn’t wonder anymore.
 
This is the epitome of the Female Fantasy. Not Johnny Depp mowing our lawn in tiny shorts, with sweat glistening off all those rippling muscles; but Johnny Depp listening and saying, “Yes, darling, I do love you. I always have. And yes, I will pick up my dishes and put them in the dishwasher. I’ll do that right now and not wait for a commercial during the game….”
 
The ideal, I admit, is somewhat different than the reality. We don’t really communicate effectively.
 
Talking with a man about anything is a lot like trying to build a house with two very different sets of blueprints. You both want the house; and hell, you both agreed on the type of house you wanted. From there, it’s a matter of details—and with women, we always have way too many details, whereas men stick with the bare bones of a situation. If you give them too much information, their solution is not going to be the one you’re looking for.
 
Let me illustrate this:
 
Dear Walter:

I hope you can help me here. The other day I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn’t gone more than a mile down the road when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband’s help.

When I got home I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor lady. I am 32, my husband is 34, and we have been married for twelve years. When I confronted him, he admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him.

He was let go from his job six months ago, and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant.

He won’t go to counseling and I’m afraid I can’t get through to him anymore.

Can you please help?

Sincerely,
Distraught in North Carolina

Dear Distraught:

A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line.

If it is clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires.

If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber.

I hope this helps.
Walter
 

I think you can see what I’m saying. To a woman, everything is important. To a man, a more manageable amount is important. Like golf, sex, and beer.
 
Now I only bring this up because it’s very important that dialogue sound authentic. Writers are told to read their sentences (especially dialogue) aloud as a revision tactic. There are a dozen different reasons why I may put down a book, but dialogue is in the top two. The banter of a book definitely lends itself to making the pace virtually un-put-downable.
 
So we all admit the Groveling Scene is ever so important in the novel, but it is definitely a make-or-break scene. Because he has to be remorseful without looking pathetic and he has to appear sensitive without making everyone wonder if he’s secretly gay. He has to tell the heroine what she wants to hear without losing his masculine voice. So I’m curious: how do you all write dialogue for the opposite sex?
 
When Christina Dodd writes the hero’s dialogue, she says she thinks of what the woman would say, then dumbs it down. *grins* A tip not without merit. (Did I say that out loud? I hope Jack didn’t hear that.) I mean, sure, he’s the hero and he deserves a great line, and I’m aware women don’t actually think a man would say anything close to the kind of declaration found in a romance novel, but I want the realm of plausibility here. I mean, I have been in romantic moments where the man I’m with makes a particularly profound and rather delicious statement, and my first reaction is: did I just hallucinate what he just said? Because he sounded just like Mr. Darcy, oh, I could swoon right now. Then I usually hold up a finger to stop him and say, “Hold just a second. I have paper, I need to write this down. It’d be perfect in this book….”
 
What is your tip for writing dialogue for the opposite sex? Is it the Jennifer Cruisie approach (“Men think cleanly. Write cleanly.”) or is it the Christina Dodd Tongue-in-Cheek?
 
Me, I’m not sure which approach I use. I don’t write my male-lead dialogue very cleanly, that’s for sure, but I don’t think I make him sound like he rides the short bus either. And there have been some speeches I’ve written where you might wonder if he’s hoarding some Barbara Streisand albums. Mostly, my technique is to think of my Banter Guy and pretend he’s who my heroine is having a conversation with. Every once in a while, I get it right. And occasionally I’ve had CPs say, “OMG, your hero is so damned annoying, I’m going upstairs right now to smother my husband!”

Clearly when I read an email like that, I know my work is done.

I got stuck in an airport this weekend. Of course — has anyone flown recently without getting stuck in an airport? Since I had time to kill, and had finished the one book I’d brought in my carry-on, I wandered through one of the bookstore. I spotted a brand new book by one of my very favorite authors and without a second thought and I grabbed it and raced for the checkout stand.

I read and read, as fast as I could. The beginning was light and sweet and funny and made me smile. Most of this author’s books start like this. And then they get deeper and deeper, and more and more angsty, until I cry my heart out and finally go back to smiling. So when I got half way through, I thought, okay, now we’re getting to the good stuff. The deep stuff. The things holding them apart that they will have to overcome and break my heart while doing it.

And then I got to the 2/3 point, and I thought, okay, now we must be getting to the good stuff.

And then I got to the 3/4 point, and I thought, okay, now we must be getting to the good stuff.

And then I got to about the 7/8 point in the book, and a black moment came out of nowhere. Nowhere. It was entirely external, had little-to-no connection to the plot, and then the book was over.

I felt cheated.

Here’s how the plot went:

1. Boy meets girl. They don’t particularly like each other, so there’s a bit of of witty and funny dialogue.

2. Another boy notices girl. Boy gets jealous. They quickly work through this misunderstanding.

3. Boy and Girl realize they are attracted to each other.

4. Boy and Girl fall in love, and have mediocre sex.

5. They get married.

Anyone else notice a huge, gaping hole in this plot? Anything missing?  Nothing was holding the two apart. Nothing internal, nothing external (minus the awkward, external black moment at the end). They simply fell in love. And it was cute, in a sappy, gag-me sort of way.

But there was no conflict. None.

And I realized that I think the reason I love angst so much is because I love internal conflict. I love deep conflict. I love the push and pull and struggle between two people trying to navigate their emotions and relationship. That’s what makes my heart ache, what makes me root for the characters. And without it, nothing was the same.

So what kind of conflict do you like? What book had the most conflict, or what kinds of conflict do you like to right? Do you focus on more on the internal, the external, or do you like an even split? Which do you prefer to read? Are you sorely disappointed when there isn’t enough conflict?

It dawned on me this weekend that we’ve been adding all these specialty personal to this crew, but no one to do the real sailor work. This ship doesn’t run itself, after all. Well, sometimes I think it does, goodness knows we’re not the manual labor types. 

To make sure this ship stays ship-shape and on course (do we have a course?), I’ve lined up some experienced and responsible sailors. Salt of the Earth (water?) and sturdy as a brand new rigging.  These men certainly look like they know their way round a swinging hammock.

I know most of you have procrastinated on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. I often wonder how the world communicated before cell phones and wall posts. Who would have thought that reading something as trivial as what someone ate for dinner could be so interesting? I’m just poking fun, but I have to admit, when SEP confirmed me as a friend, I got a little light headed. Face book has allowed me to reconnect with some high school friends, and old acquaintances. I’ve enjoyed catching up on the lives of people I haven’t seen in over 20 years. However, I have received a few messages with comments about my pursuit of a writer’s dream. Some of them were very interesting and supportive, but then a few, not so much. I even reconnected with a friend from high school who is a published author. How cool is that?

2. As therapy for all the nasty mean things my brother did to  me as a child, and the way Jody Mulky treated me when I made the pee wee cheerleading squad, not to mention that Chris Thomas turned me down when I asked him to junior prom. I have issues to work out, and by cracky I’m doing it in the pages of a book, and it’s going to be good.

3. I am a cover art whore and my cover is going to be good. It’s going to picture a half naked, dark skinned man with no chest hair, a tattoo around his bicep, and a dark brooding look in his eyes. If I get lucky maybe, a Ducati will be in the background. I know that most writers never get a choice with their cover art, but after the publisher finds out about the childhood trauma I endured, they’ll make an exception.

4. I have 21 years of experience as a nurse. In those 21 years, I’ve interacted with people of all lifestyles, in every stage of life and death. I could write a book for every years worth of experience. I’ve lived it, now it’s time to share the joy and heartache.

5. I have the choice of picking out a cool pen name-an alter ego so to speak.

6. I have the opportunity to meet cool writer buddies.

7. To have the opportunity to travel, and experience other cultures, and meet other writers in all walks of life.

8. The opportunity to change a person’s negative energy toward the romance genre.

9. To be able to say I wrote a book as a way of obtaining a personal goal.

10. To create a cast of characters that resonate in the reader’s mind long after they close the cover.

What are your reasons for writing a book? Have you ever used a character or a scene to work out some personal issues? Does anyone else have a cover art fetish?

First of all, I wanted to post the winner for the autographed book from last week’s Jessica Andersen visit.

Renee Lynn Scott! 

Email me with your snail mail addy and I’ll have Jess send you your autographed book!

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When I started my WIP, I intended for it to be the first of five books about a group of six fighters.  But, I’m having some second thoughts. 

Not because I don’t find them interesting.  I do.  But my hero and heroine’s story, the interactions between them, take up so much of the book that I’ve had a hard time zeroing in on any of the other characters.  At least not all five of the other characters.

So, I’ve been kicking around the idea of scaling it back to just three other fighters, for a total of four.  It serves my purpose in a few ways, might allow me to really dig deeper in the leftovers.  Who knows?  I’m still mushing it around in my head.

Made me start thinking about stories with large ensemble casts, though, to see how they manage it and to see what I was doing differently.  JR Ward and Sherrilyn Kenyon both have ongoing series with enough characters that they could play basketball and still have alternates.  Yet, their characters all remain unique.  Julia Quinn did it with her Bridgertons, though she definitely kept the number of Bridgertons in any given book to a minimum, rarely wrangling the entire crew.  In big series, I wonder if it’s hard to get them all together and all characterized without relying on past stories to do your work for you.

JR Ward and Jessica Andersen use a bunch of different POVs in their books.  Some people complain that this slows down the story between the H/H.  I disagree.  I like having a bunch of people’s heads.  Makes me feel like I’ve got a wider view of the story.

But there are authors that are strictly one hero’s and one heroine’s POV in their book, with few secondaries.  It seems this happens a lot in historicals.  The casts are smaller, more focused on the relationship between him and her.

I wonder what you guys think.  Do you like big ensemble casts of characters or do you prefer the smaller groups?  Do you mind having the secondary characters’ POVs or do you think it distracts from the main story between the H/H?  Do your preferences change for urban fantasy or erotica/erotic romance (or any other genre)?   Who does a big cast well?  Who does one on one well?  Thoughts?

Music of the week: “Black Dahlia” Hollywood Undead- Swan Songs

In my defense today- I ain’t right. Seriously.

The death of villains is a necessary evil in fiction. This is old news for regulars of the blog, but I’m the resident character killer. I don’t reserve killing just for the villains. When I feel like I need a change, I axe a character. Anyway that I can find and a few inventive ways depends how I’m feeling at the moment and where my characters are in their growth arc. My general policy is while I’m writing, “whatever works”. 

My thought process behind killing characters is simple. If the story is stalling, you need sex or a murder. You can’t always manage sex (well, okay, I can always manage some sex but if you have sex every 5 pages, my paranormal suspense is going to have a lot of purple prose in it after the first 10 sex scenes and I can only think of a few different ways to describe splinters in your back from the door), but you can always manage a murder or two without killing the story as a whole. There is a little perverted part of my brain that extracts a little joy each time a character dies knowing that it’s going to going into the trickle effect of emotional drama. I can’t figure out why.

Not that I put a lot of thought into why. Because I’m sure if I did, I would find something extremely wrong with that. Fictional or not. See the beginning of the blog- I ain’t right. It’s why I’m a writer.

Even before Hellion gifted me with the most wonderful of books, “Cause of Death- A writer’s guide to death, murder and forensic medicine.” (by Keith D. Wilson, M.D.), I was thinking up ways a character could die. I have quite a few favorites in my repertoire. Once I killed an informant by throwing him into a shark tank. I rather enjoyed that one. Drowning. Suffocating. Bleeding out slowly. Mallet to the temple. Pit bulls. Car explosions.  But really in the comments the other day, I got to thinking about all the weird things you could do with killing off a character. All the accidental, quirky, random deaths that happen in the fictional world. I think my favorite part about the fictional world is that I may not know every gruesome detail that goes into writing a death, but I can use my imagination enough to get close. So close that if I put enough detail into it, you can look past my little indiscretions.

So, death by chocolate frosting? A total possibility if you get a little kinky in the sack and someone accidentally chokes (or maybe not so accidentally). Crushed glass pieces in his mashed potatoes? Could happen. I mean, those damned neighbor kids are always bouncing their basketball into your kitchen window and breaking it- you can’t help that some of it landed in your bowl as you were mashing them. Loose board on the top step leading into the basement? I swear, I’ve been bitching at him for two months to fix it.

It’s so unfortunate that vehicles have gotten so technically smart. Siphoning out the brake fluid would’ve been a wonderful option as well. Can’t cut the brake line either. Or loosen the lug nuts. It’s a shame. Really. Taking a gun and killing a villain is so uninspired. Watching his car drive off a cliff could make my character’s night.

Let’s think about it.

Well, you don’t have to think about it. I’ll think about it for you.

Say your character needs a method to get rid of someone, maybe of the opposite sex. If you want it to look accidental, well you gotta think of something very creative. I’ll use Kiki as my example of a villainous heroine. (She’s a professional problem solver. Not a professional killer. I assure you, there is a difference.)

Kiki is only an example. She’s the closest thing in my character list that I can use without pulling her too far from her characterization.

Kiki has a target that needs professional quieting but it needs to look like an accident. She can think about it. Make her plans, watch her mark, learn his routine. She can walk up to him at happy hour at his usual spot, short black dress barely covering her ass as she leans over the bar and asks for a vodka on the rocks. She can look at him playfully over her shoulder and flash him her devastatingly fake smile like she’s really interested and turn him onto her. He could be charmed easily by her easy demeanor, the way she playfully chews her bottom lip and fiddles with his silk tie. She could score a night with him by just whispering in his ear. Once they got back to his house, she could make it look like he had a drug overdose. Wouldn’t be hard. He has a possession charge from three years prior that was swept under the rug since daddy is in politics. She watched him acquire two eight balls and a sack of pills at lunch. Kiki would be willing to do some lines in order to get the job done.

But that would be too easy for my Kiki. She’s sneaky like a ninja. All business. No fun.  She doesn’t really like to get dressed up and wear a wig out into public. She complains that wigs are itchy and cramp her style. Sadie is more mischievous. In a few years, she would be ripe for this sort of job. Even enjoy it.

Kiki would wait in her car outside the bar, follow him to his house, wait until he goes to sleep and break into his house. Easy to do when you can disable an alarm with a gadget. Easy to do when you can pick a lock like you’re magic. Easy to do when there is no guard animal to sound a wake up call. Easy to do when your target has no neighbors close by and a house shaded almost completely in trees. I can almost hear Kiki tsking.

In fact, Kiki thinks to herself, “It’s truly a pity he hasn’t taken the time to make sure the batteries in his carbon monoxide detectors are good. Even more a pity when this scum sucker doesn’t wake up in the morning.” And once the plan is set, get out and go about business as usual.

Clean. Efficient. Quiet.

Kiki will be sitting at her breakfast bar with a cup of coffee and reading the paper while the guy’s alarm is blaring. By the time his office calls, she’s already in the shower getting ready for her routine day. When his secretary drops by and finds him non-responsive, Kiki’s driving across town to her office building. Just a few minutes inside the house has the secretary feeling nauseous. She calls 911 but it was too late before she even walked through the door. The ambulance speeds past Kiki’s car on it’s way to the emergency. And Kiki graciously pulls over to let them past and continues on her way like nothing happened.

You might think this is difficult to think up but think about this from a writer’s standpoint. Is there anything your hero or heroine might be allergic to? Did you know that certain wines to people with severe sulfate allergies can kill in just a few minutes without interference of an EpiPen? (Truly one of my biggest fears. And that is notfor future reference, MM. I’ve got my eyes on you, you sneaky pirate.) Fears? You know, if your heroine is claustrophobic and gets trapped in an elevator with no one there to buffer her panic, she could send herself into a monstrous panic attack and have cardiac arrest. Someone who is afraid of the water and can’t swim could accidentally be flipped into the water while you’re speeding around on the boat.  Accidental deaths are waiting just around the corner everywhere for your expendable characters. You just have to tap into them in the fictional world.

I know most of you are in the business of writing (or reading!) the HEA or HFN (I prefer HFN) but what is the most unusual murder scene you’ve read? Saw on one of those crime shows? Imagined up to write in your WIP? And pretty pretty please can someone gift me the wonderful “Armed and Dangerous” book for my birthday? Or Christmas? I’ve been a good girl all year. I swear- cross my heart.

No takers? C’mon, it’s not like I’m going to practice on you.

Dang, I guess I could hit up Santa for the book. It’s never too early for a Christmas list…

The more I read romances, the less I read them. And it’s not because I don’t enjoy reading the same story archetype (beauty and the beast, wallflower and the rake, et al), because I do. I’m the person who upon seeing yet another romantic comedy being offered on the big screen, will gleefully fork over $6 (matinee, you know) to see it. 9 times out of 10, I’ll even buy the movie. It’s not the repetitive nature of how love is presented to me that annoys me.

It’s the dukes.

No offense to duke lovers out there—they do cut a fine figure in their clothes and on horseback—but I simply cannot stand to read about another one of them. Especially any who happen to live in circa 1815. Why? Because there were a small finite number of dukes in England/Scotland, but there are like a million (only a slight exaggeration) literary dukes. It’s not possible. And none of them are related to the King; how is that even possible? It’s not. One of these guys has to be…. *waves hand* I just can’t stand it. And I can’t stand when they send these dukes—FIRST sons—off to fight in wars or spy for their country or the 101 other new and exciting ways to endanger their lives when it was so imperative they keep the line going. No, no, no.

I’m told time and again this is not the point. After all, you don’t read a historical novel for the history (what a weird concept!) but for the fantasy of pretending you’re being romanced by Mr. Darcy. Who you’ll notice was not a duke.

Whatever. If the fantasy is not the historical aspect, what is it then? It can’t be the duke aspect. That’s completely ridiculous. I mean, Prince Charles is the Duke of Cornwall—do you fantasize about him? No, you don’t. And he’s not going to spy for his country, you can bet on it. He does play a mean round of polo—now if I could get a historical novel about a duke obsessed with polo, that I’d believe!

Okay, okay, back on track. I think I may have figured it out. I believe the duke is simply a stereotype for the stuffy Brit we all have pictured in our heads who is reserved to the point of painful. Some say the historical setting sets the books far enough away from reality that we can forget about what life is really like. Back in the good old days before epidurals and flushing toilets. Whatever. Some readers need that separation, I suppose. Me, I’m with Jane Austen. Jane was not writing historicals when she created her novels. She was writing about the contemporary quirks of her day. And then she inserted a man into the midst who suffered foot and mouth disease, a bumbling, uncharming boy next door who paled next to shinier charming men like Wickham. She gave us the guy we’ve been imitating ever since: the Hero with the Inability to Communicate.

Honestly that was what was so perfect about Darcy. He is every inch a man. A flawed, flawed man. Now Eliza Bennet is rather flawed herself, which is how we prefer our heroines. (And I rather enjoy the fact that I don’t remember her once staring in a mirror and making a mental list of her attributes. Brilliant girl.)

It’s the Hero with the Inability to Communicate that is the heart and soul of every romance novel. Not the dukes. Not the knights. Not the FBI agent. That’s just the hair color on the Ken doll. The fantasy is simple: you take a man who is not able to communicate with a woman and by the end of a book, he is able to communicate with her.

It’s like every love story is essentially The Miracle Worker, with the Annie Sullivan character played by the heroine. And honestly it’s a miracle the heroine doesn’t smother the dumb bastard in his sleep before we get to the end of the book. I mean, how hard is it to listen and ask thoughtful questions? How hard is it to do the one thing we asked? Yes, yes, I want you to call me every flipping day, all right. 

Of course, there is the flipside to that coin. Why are all these smart, innovative heroines picking these dumb bastards to begin with? Every last jack of them has the Nice Guy Friend who they don’t give the time of day to, but the Hero Who Can’t Communicate is the one they keep making out in corners with. I must spend 2/3rds of every book, going, “Why is this bright, intelligent, clever, witty girl acting like an idiot over this guy who cannot say what she so desperately needs to hear?”

Perhaps that’s the one truth that all romance novels keep honest: love doesn’t make anyone particularly bright.

But still, romance novels resolve nicely, do they not? Yes, he’s a dumb bastard; yes, her intelligence is questionable; yes, the village idiot would have caught on by now and told the heroine what she needed to hear—but in the end, our fantasy is fulfilled. Mr. Hoof and Mouth Disease finally gets the big epiphany. He finally says the right thing—and best of all, he means it. And if he’s a truly remarkable, deserving hero, he shows her all the right things, because as every writer will tell you: you show, don’t tell.

And maybe that’s the lesson women learn in every romance novel. We want to read about a hero who says the right thing—the sappy Edward Cullen thing—because men never do it in real life, and yet, at the end of novels, heroines learn it’s not what the hero said that matters, it’s how he shows her he loves her that’s the real proof.

What fantasy (or truth) do you look for your romances to provide? Does the duke thing bother anyone else whatsoever? At all? (I don’t have this problem with earls or viscounts, just dukes.)  Does anyone else find it ironic that Jane Austen wrote contemporaries, but we write historicals to imitate her? Me, I’m off to find a historical about an earl…wish me luck there are any earls to fall in love with.

Today is the day that Hal and Marn get to say “I told you so.” Today is the day I confess my latest revelation.  Today is the day I never thought I’d see.  But here it is.

Hello, wenches, my name is Terrio and I’m a plotter.

*waits for loud boos and guffaws to die down*

I know, I’m surprised as you are. Or rather, based on the reactions I’ve gotten from the people I’ve told, I’m the only surprised one here.  How did this happen? I’ll tell you.

So I’m staring at a blank page. That’s a lot of white. Have you noticed how much white that is? Daunting, that’s all I can say.  So I’m staring at a blank page and nothing is coming. I know what scene comes next. I know what I want to accomplish with the scene. But it occurs to me that there are secondary characters in this scene whom I’ve yet to meet.

So, innocently enough, I figure I’ll just have them introduce themselves and tell me a little something about them before we start. It’s minor plotting, nothing big.  But then I realized other things I need to know.  My hero incorporated a timeline into this story by declaring his restaurant is to be open in a month’s time. That gives me roughly four weeks. But since my H/H don’t know each other before the story opens, four weeks doesn’t seem like a lot of time to create a convincing HEA. So then I know the story doesn’t end when the restaurant opens.

Then how much farther does the story go? And what happens in that time? What goes wrong in that time? I’m going to need a black moment, after all.  Can’t skip that.  So I determine how many weeks the story will cover beginning to end and realize it would help to know what happens each week.

Now I’m breaking things down further.  I figure out the story opens the weekend after Mother’s Day. Then I realize that means I have Memorial Day in there.  And the 4^th of July plays a role as well. So I have to get from the weekend after Mother’s Day to the 4^th of July. Yes, I know this too is not much time to establish a HEA, but it’s what I’ve got. For now.

As I write this, it’s Sunday evening and I’ve spent my entire afternoon plotting this story.  More than four pages (single spaced) and 2300 words later, I have an entire book plotted out. Can you believe that? And funny enough, it’s not the same black moment or final scene that I originally planned.  Though the heroine still does the groveling, that hasn’t changed.

Now, I’m not ready for charts or books on plotting or any of that stuff. It’s more free flowing, I like to think. And it’s all subject to change, as we all know.  But I’m feeling good about what I have.  I like that I did it all in one long stream instead of beginning, middle and end. This way, I don’t have to think of anything as the murky middle.

What I want to know first is, what revelations about your writing have you had lately? A character sneak up on you or do something you totally didn’t see coming? Or if you’re a reader, what book has really surprised you lately?  A new twist you didn’t see coming and haven’t seen before.  And finally, if you plot, how do you do it and how much does the finished product resemble the original plan?

Unless you’ve been living on a ship, in the middle of the ocean, with no internet or phone service, you’ve heard about the latest author vs. author “YOU STOLE MY IDEA” kerfluffle.  If you don’t know about it, catch up here. 

In light of this seemingly thin accusation, I thought I’d post a little advice here for aspiring Romance writers.  This could even apply to published writers too, so everyone take heed. 

If you write your hero and heroine having sex, say, on a bed.  It’s been done before.  Likewise, if you write them having sex in a shower, on the kitchen counter, on the library floor, in a carriage, in a wardrobe, on a desk, on the kitchen table, against a wall, in a chair, on a Harley, on a horse, in a small boat, on a ship (be it Pirate or otherwise), in an ancient Roman bath, against a tree, or in a dilapidated outbuilding on an English country estate, it’s been done.  And needless to say, sex on the beach has also been done.

Now, if you write your hero and heroine having sex standing up….in a hammock. That might be a first.  However, if later you learn someone else has also written her hero and heroine having sex standing up….in a hammock, you cannot sue her. Understand, love?

But, just in case a member of this crew should be faced with this situation in the future, you never know when another writer might imply prior ownership to the “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets abducted by aliens and learns intergalactic sexual techniques that help him win girl back” plot idea, we’ve added a few good men of the lawyerly persuasion to the ship.

Anyone want to file a brief?