Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

Scenario, the first: You’re a dedicated literary agent with a genuine love for story, and you decide to start writing a blog (in just a few weeks arcaedia will be two and a half years old!) about your experiences in the world of publishing. One day while you are otherwise occupied, conversation erupts in the comments. Questions are asked. Advice is given. And acted upon. Hours later, after spending time on slightly more crucial tasks such as negotiating contract language and reviewing royalty statements, you take a break and peruse the responses and judge that the advice given to one new and unpublished author was Not Good ™. Further investigation of the giver of said advice reveals that they are also a new and unpublished writer with No Clue ™. It’s the blind leading the blind, and the milk has been spilt. The damage has been done, and is largely irrevocable. The naive and innocent new writer has most likely burned a bridge. Did the giver of the advice have that intention? There’s no way to be completely sure, but it doesn’t sound as if they were being vindictive. They were just uninformed. And hasty. And the writer who took their advice should have tried to find out if the person giving that advice had any credentials before they acted upon it.

Scenario, the second: You’re a writer with a new novel to sell and you need an agent. You follow all the rules and query your top choices and are lucky enough to have a few different agents respond and ask to read the material. After waiting agonizing weeks for their replies, the letters begin to arrive. Though the first few are rejections, some of them offer feedback. One agent says that while your character is flat and lifeless, your plot is quite compelling. The next says that the story moves too slowly, but they love the character. You get another that suggests you add an additional viewpoint character and take it out of first person. And so it goes. You find yourself paralyzed. Could one of these people be right? (It’s entirely possible.) Could they have seen some flaw, and if you fix it, will you be able to guarantee getting their representation and landing a sale? Solution? You tell everyone you have writer’s block. You take a tranquilizer and slip into a haze in front of the television set.

Scenario, the third: You’re attending a writers conference, and the featured speaker at lunch gets up and explains how they ignored every rule (either on purpose or because no one ever explained them in the first place) about how to get published. You hang on every word. They are a best-selling author with a number of books currently in print. Everyone loves their work (except for critics who don’t know any better). You theorize that if you, too, ignore the rules, the result will be the same. I assure you there are variables that speaker is not revealing. They may perhaps not even be entirely aware of every element that led to their great succeess. That’s not to say that rules should never be broken. Just that caution should be applied when doing so. Usually rules (or I’d rather call them guidelines like the Pirate Code) are there for a reason.

Scenario, the fourth: Share yours here. I have a few more in my bag, of course. However, I’m sure there are new stories out there, and they help everyone better understand where all this well-meant advice can go wrong….

I’ve recently seen a meme making its way around the blogosphere about the top ten things one has learned by writing. I might at some point come up with my top 10 things I’ve learned by being an agent, though I doubt it will be as witty and clever as some of the lists I’ve read. However, they are many and varied and there have already been a few who have commented that they are completely and utterly subjective. And offer conflicting conclusions. Just like all those books that are out there that tell one how to write a novel and how to get it published. There is a simply dizzying amount of advice. I know. I’ve contributed to it. Most of that advice is going to be from people who are genuinely trying to be helpful. Here’s what you need to remember, though. While respecting these people for sharing and giving of their knowledge and experience, be aware that every person is only one reader and/or one writer. Some of them are more experienced than others (particularly agents and editors, one hopes) and may have a broader foundation upon which to base their suggestions. But you have to remember they are only that. Listen for what resonates, and take what works for you — throw the rest away. Temper this with as much common sense and courtesy as possible and be ready to not always take the path of least resistance. And that’s my #1 best piece of advice. In the end, the first writer/reader/critic to listen to is yourself.

When I was starting out, writing wasn’t a chore. It was fun and exciting and I couldn’t wait to get to the keyboard. But after 30+ books, mostly it feels like a job. Not the kind of job that would give me hives, but a job, nonetheless. Deadlines are really hard in a creative endeavor. Especially if, while in the midst of creating, things change in the story. I realize deadlines are necessary, especially if one doesn’t have that handy trust fund waiting in the wings, but man, it can get dicey.

On the other hand, the upside of writing regularly are the regular opportunities for magic. For me, it comes down to this - sometimes what’s happening on the page is so fabulous, so incredible, so magical, that my heart rate accelerates, my smile is so big it hurts, the clouds part, the angels sing…yeah, like that. It’s a coming together of plot, character, language, pacing, and tempo that transcends. It’s the writer’s harmonic convergence, and there’s no way to predict it or force it. The magic happens when it will. I might happen once in a book, or once in ten books, but it’s such a powerful rush that I’m willing to go through ten books on the chance there’ll be the scene that soars.

It’s pretty compulsive, and a little too much like an addiction cycle, but ah, well. That’s how it is for me. Not that every other writing day sucks. Some do, but mostly, I enjoy writing. Or, uh, having written. But I have to wonder if I would still be so committed to writing if there wasn’t that incredible carrot just out of reach.

The whole process fascinates me, and I love reading about how other writers feel when they’re doing it. (ha! that sounds dirty) Every writer deserves the magic moment, and I wonder sometimes where I am on the scale - do other writers have these moments regularly? Sometimes? Never? Do other writers even know what the hell I’m talking about?

So there I was the other day, sitting at my computer, minding my own business, when suddenly I hear this loud, ominous CREAK!!. Uh-oh. It came from my… left? But there’s nothing there but my big bookshelves, and they seem ok! I creep closer, peer at them suspiciously, and there it is again: an even louder creak. And this time I actually see a minute movement in the wood.

Yup, no doubt about it, my mom was right. I seem to have too many books. Or rather, too many books for my shelves. As I keep acquiring more and more of them, I’ve gone from having one neat row of novels to stacking them two deep, to actually stacking them two deep and horizontally, so that I make good use of even those useful three inches between the top of the books and the bottom of the shelf above. Evidently, that’s a little too much weight for them!

I don’t keep every book I read, but it’s a close thing. For many years, there was really nothing I could do with my books but keep them. Sure, I could take them to a couple of local UBS, but what would I do with the credit? UBS in Uruguay have an extremely limited selection of books I might be interested in.

I did get into book trading a few years ago, and I’ve sent a number of books overseas, but unless my trading partner lives outside the US, it usually costs me less money to buy something used at amazon.com or ebay and have it sent directly to the person than to actually pay for the Uruguay – US shipping (no need to actually wrap the book and go to the P.O., either).

The end result of all this is that I’ve got used to not having to make a decision about whether or not to keep a book. If it’s absolutely awful (or if I’ve got a duplicate –something that seems to happen frequently, no matter how many complicated spreadsheets I use to keep track of things), I’ll put it in my trade list, but even then, odds are it will still be here, taking up shelf space, for a long time to come.

That has got to end. Nothing to motivate me to do some culling like the threat of the shelves actually falling down and killing some of the books on them. Plus, I can do some good with them, too. The British Hospital in Montevideo has a retirement home for ex-pats, and they say they’ll be very happy to take my English-language books, so I’m determined to go through my shelves until I’ve filled at least two big boxes. That will be a good start.

How to do it, though? Do I just give away anything I don’t think I’ll ever want to reread? But what if I later change my mind? Should I also check whether a book is easy to replace (i.e. make sure there are plenty of cheapish used copies online)? And what about books I loved but I don’t see myself rereading (for instance, because they were just too emotionally draining)?

How do you do it? Any methods you want to share? I’ve heard rumours there are people who actually get rid of everything except maybe a couple of “perfect” books. Is that just an urban legend or are there any of you out there?

I recently read over a hunk of a manuscript my published writing buddy was working on. She was having difficulty deciding whether to incorporate the point of view of a secondary character and wanted my opinion. (Something I’m never short of)

After reading the selection, my not so humble opinion was that she should ditch the secondary character’s point of view and leave those scenes in the hero’s. Why? Because the secondary character wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. Nothing new or different or earth shattering.

A lot of authors utilize multiple point of views, and personally, I think they’d be better served to ditch them all together. I’m not advocating that every novel have only two POVs, but when I see another character pop in with their thoughts, I want to be made to care. I want to learn something new. Something I didn’t already know, and most importantly, I want that character’s point of view to enhance the main story line. If an author can’t do that, then I’d prefer they just stick to the basics.

Just last night, I stayed up late reading a book I’d been looking forward to reading. By the time I was a fourth of the way into the book, I was annoyed and impatient. The author used so many point of views that I was having a hard time even remembering what the central story line was supposed to be. (And now I’m really regretting the fact that I ordered several of her backlist titles.)

By the end of the book, where the hero and heroine are suddenly shoved forward, and the reader is told they’re going to live happily ever after, I was scratching my head wondering when they fell in love. It must have been while I was busy reading one of the dozen secondary character’s muddled thoughts. The romance, the love story, the hero and heroine’s journey was completely lost for me. Probably because there wasn’t much of one amidst all the confusion.

What’s your opinion on multiple POVs? Do you care if they muddy the waters and take away from the main characters, or do you want them to accentuate the hero/heroine’s journey? An aside: I’m not referring to head hopping. I’m talking about the inclusion of another point of view no matter how well the transition is handled. I’ve read several stories that could most definitely be considered “head hopping,” and I loved them. Why? Because the author made me care about those secondary characters. What they had to say was important, interesting, and integral to the plot.

Did you know that every single day, all over the world, thousands of romances are written?

Just like those we see on bookshelves everywhere, they run the gamut of time periods, place settings, and characters. Some feature fairytale damsels in distress in medieval castles, rescued by tall, dark, handsome princes who brave moats and briers to claim their fair maidens. In other stories, dangerously thrilling vampires hunt the night, in search of innocent victims who bravely—or foolishly—roam the menacing, modern city streets after sundown. Still other tales are rife with aliens who land their spaceships in desolate terrain, hoping to abduct an unwary victim or two.

From girls next door to kick-butt femme fatales, from shy guys who can barely stammer out a hello to macho males loaded with testosterone and cologne, the heroines and heroes of these romances are dating, marrying, making whoopie, having babies, building houses, casting spells, fighting and breaking up, and sometimes even committing murder and mayhem (not necessarily in that particular order).

Most of us, however, will never read any of these romances. Even the dozens I’ve penned will never be published anywhere beyond my own computer. Why? Because they’re all being created inside two games called The Sims and The Sims2.

Ever wished you could trade places with the heroine of a romance? Now, you can. Just pop into the CAS (Create-a-Sim) program and whip up an avatar, and you, too, can travel back into the past or forward into the future. Build a cottage in the woods or the mansion of your dreams. Surround it with a village, town, or city. Found a university, where your characters can study to become whatever they want in life, whether it’s a Wall Street wizard or the kind of sorcerer who brews potions from recipes carefully preserved in an ancient grimoire.

Many authors spend days assembling collages to serve as visual aids while they labor on their latest novel. I find it a whole lot easier and great deal more fun to open up The Sims2—where I can make my heroines and heroes look precisely as I envision them, and where I can not only build that towering castle or isolated manor that’s going to figure so prominently in my book, but also furnish it and actually walk through it to determine whether its layout is exactly what I need to make my story work.

And sometimes, if I’m lucky, the process operates in reverse. Recently, I constructed an old Victorian house. When I first began to build it, I had no real purpose for it, other than thinking that I wanted to try out various construction techniques. But the more I designed and redesigned, erecting some walls, tearing out others, adding a gazebo, stream, pond, and landscaping, the more I decided that it would make an intriguing house for one of my novels.

Who would live in it—and what would his or her story be? I wondered. I started imagining all kinds of different characters who might live in the house. I now have several from which to choose.

Here is a picture of the house I built.

Just for fun, I thought I’d share it with you, and ask you to tell me a (very brief!) story. If this house existed in your own imaginary world, who would live in it—and what would be happening in it? The sky’s the limit, so be as wild and creative as you like.

At the end of the day, I’ll tell you who’s currently living in this house in my Sim world.

by Nancy Henderson

A few years ago, or maybe more, the classic “clinch cover” historical romance seemed to disappear from bookshelves. In its place came vampires, werewolves, mermaids, mermen, ghosts, witches, goblins, and all kinds of things that go bump in the night. I love paranormals. I love writing them, reading them, being both scared and turned on by them. But, I wonder, did the paranormal replace the historical?

Wait a minute, you might say. Historicals have nothing to do with paranormals. They’re two totally separate genres. Well, yes and no. Let me explain.

The historical requires the creation of a world. In this world, there is required research. The author must get her facts straight in order to make that world believable. She cannot set her heroine in the burning fires of Atlanta without knowing a thing or two about the American Civil War. The same holds true for the paranormal. How is an author going to know the rules of shape shifting without first doing some research? And if her heroine is whisked away to another planet, how is she going to be captive of a mind altering force field without knowing something about gravity and how the human body reacts to atmospheric pressures? Research. The world you’re creating requires it to make it believable to your reader.

So what about characters? Remember when those Native American romances were so popular? One of the characters, usually the heroine who was non-Indian, was forced into the hero/Indian’s tribal world. No different that the innocent…er, let me rephrase that…kick butt modern day heroine getting sucked (no pun intended) into the hero/vampire’s lair. With both the historical and the paranormal, hero or heroine must learn to accept their significant other’s worlds and they must find a compromise of those worlds if they are to spend happily-ever-after together.

I’m not saying one genre is better than the other. I love them both. I just wonder, as readers, did we really banish the historical or did we just hide them under black cape and sharp teeth?

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How is it that I hadn’t heard of these? Am I the only one? Last week I had traveled to the locale of my WIP and asked if they had any maps of their town in 1894. The librarian moved to her computer, clicked on http://sanborn.umi.com, put in her username and password, selected the name of the city, state and year. Then … whammy! Up popped a detailed map of their town in 1894.

It showed the size, shape and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories. It gave the widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. It indicated the locations of water mains, fire alarm boxes and hydrants.

The librarian swiveled around in her chair and said, “You know, you can access these from home. All you need do is call your local library and ask them for their username and password.”

I could not believe it. Evidently these maps were designed to assist fire insurance agents in determining the hazards associated with a particular property. There are over 660,000 maps from up to 12,000 American cities dating from 1867 and up.

The only thing that disappointed me was that they weren’t in color. The key indicates the original maps color-coded the buildings according to frame, brick, iron, adobe, etc. I noticed some states (like Utah) have made Sanborn maps from their state available … in full color. That’s almost enough to make me want to set my next book in one of those towns.

In any case, I have a now downloaded and printed out (and pasted together) the map of “my town” and tacked it to the wall. Now, when I start writing today and my heroine jumps on her riding machine and cycles through town she will pass Brown’s Wagon Yard, Clark’s Ice House, Drane’s Dry Goods and even the Anheuser-Bush Beer Depot. Whew! What a ride.

Is this something everyone already knew about but me? And if so, what other goodies am I missing? Do tell!

For those of you who are either new to the romance scene or have recently returned from exile on Neptune, the RITA is Romance Writers of America’s preeminent published authors’ contest. To final, an entrant’s book is judged and scored by five other published romance/women’s fiction authors. The top scoring books – over a certain grade, that is — go on to be read and scored by a second round of judges, and the winners are then announced at a fancy-schamcy ceremony at the RWA National Conference every year. While there are several other contests of varying degrees of prestige, sponsored by individual local chapters, this is the biggee. Now, this column isn’t intended to jumpstart a discussion about the merits of the contest itself (God, please no), or how it’s run, or the vagaries involved with identifying the “best” in a genre that releases more than 2000 titles every year. This is about one neurotic author (me) who has two books entered.

And finalist calls are going out tomorrow.

Meaning the odds of my having a productive writing day are zilch. Because before lunch I’m going to jump every time the phone rings (because where this is life, there is hope), and after lunch I’ll be moping.

Sad, but true.

Never mind that, even though one of my SIMs did final four years ago, I’m not really expecting a call. Yeah, it could happen (and it’s nice to know that writing this column cannot influence the gods in any way, since the scores were submitted weeks ago), but I’m not holding my breath. Not because I don’t think my books are worthy (I wouldn’t have forked over forty bucks a pop if I hadn’t) but because the odds of five random people going ga-ga over the same book aren’t all that high, frankly. Particularly because Long Contemporary is one of the more crowded categories (although that will change in the next year or so, as most Long Contemps – the Intimate Moments, Special Editions, and the like – have had their word counts shorted to Short Contemp length. But I digress.).

Anyway. Moping. Which I will be doing if I don’t get a call. Not forever, probably not for more than an hour or so. Okay, so two. Three at the most.

Still, an hour (or two, or three) is a decided improvement over a few years ago when I had four books entered, none of them made the cut, and I was devastated. Appalled at the weepy broad who’d taken over my body, but devastated nonetheless. So I’m definitely improving.

My writing day, however, will still be shot to hell.

Yes, despite bracing myself for not getting a call. And telling myself not to even think about the contest (which is like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant). And reminding myself that it doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. I mean, really – who remembers the winners from five years ago? From last year? Nor is it as if RITA wins bring agents knocking on your door, or surprise seven-figure contracts in the mail, or major product endorsements or anything. If you’re lucky, your editor might e-mail her congrats, but that’s about it.

Yeah, well, this is where the Logical Me and the Emotional Me don’t see eye-to-eye. Because while Logical Me says “Eh, no biggee, let’s move on,” Emotional Me is over there whimpering, “They didn’t like me, they really didn’t like me,” at which point Logical Me starts screaming, “Oh, for God’s sake, woman – get a grip!”

And while all this arguing is going on inside my head, focusing is futile. So I’ve finally realized it’s just easier on everyone concerned to let LM and EM duke it out for an hour (or two, or three) until they wear themselves out and I can finally focus on the writing again and forget all about the RITAs.

At least until next year.

BSP or Blatant Self Promotion, what is your tolerance level? If you spend much time trolling the Internet, which if you are here, I assume you do :), you see all types of BSP. Some of it is blatant indeed–emails sent on loops on special BSP days or newsletters that are nothing more than a “here is where you can buy my book” blurb and a link to Amazon.

For some reason, this type of BSP isn’t in the slightest bit annoying to me. It’s BSP by the rules in a way. But, what about the other BSP? Where is the line between okay, and downright pull-your-hair-out annoying?

• Tag Lines: In general I don’t mind a tag line. I have one myself and I like getting a short bit of info about the sender–say a book title or two and a web address. Where this gets a little comical to me is when the tag line lists, book after book or “honor” after “honor”. So, your book was nominated by some little-read web site five years ago as best first book in a series featuring cowboy vampires who raise ostriches. Give it up! No one cares anymore. I may be on the extreme side here, but I’d say my tolerance for contest wins is pretty low in the tag line, almost nil unless it is a pretty significant honor. Putting a minor contest win there feels a bit like the man with no money buying a Maserati to impress his neighbors.
• Newsletters: In general this falls under the you-asked-for-it-you-got-it category. You sign up for a newsletter, you give the author the right to send you BSP (IMO). Where I personally take issue, is when an author signs me up for his/her newsletter, say because I filled out a contest entry at RT or RWA, and then doesn’t give me any way to get off their list. I get a lot of email, and nothing personal, but I might at some time not want to receive your newsletter any longer. Give me a way, aside from emailing you personally, to get off the thing. Most list management programs provide this option and if you aren’t using a management tool that does–switch. Really, it can just tick off the people you are trying to court.
• Personal Pleas:This is a bit of a strange one. It comes in a few forms. The most personal happens when a reader emails an author saying how much they loved his/her book. The author in question replies back not with a simple thank you, but a request of their own–tell your friends, post on romance boards, put a review up on Amazon, etc., etc. I have said “tell your friends” myself, and thanked people who did take the time to praise my book on a board, so I can’t throw stones that direction, can I? But I do think the delivery is really important. If the request in any way makes the reader feel like the author doesn’t appreciate their note and that individual reader, but instead just sees them as a possible tool to get more readers, well, it is wrong. Just wrong.
  
  There is another form of the personal plea too–the one that isn’t personal at all, but actually a mass request. I’ve seen this on author home pages and in author newsletters. It goes something like this, “If you love my books” followed by directions: “wait until such and such week to buy my book,” “post a review on Amazon,” or even “turn my book face out at your local book store.” Some authors even have readers who have joined their special mailing list to do such things. I have to say I have yet to see one of these that didn’t set me back, and make me feel a little less positive about that author’s books. Am I the only one?
• The Hijack: You’ve seen this, haven’t you? A discussion going on at a bulletin board or blog and some author wanders along and joins in, but somehow all his/her comments direct you back to her books and her web site? As another author, all I can say is ARGH! Don’t do it. I realize this can be completely innocent, and if so, I apologize, but please, unless you really have something to say that is sincere and about the conversation that is going on–control those typing fingers and use that energy to pound out another chapter or to finally get your own on-request newsletter started.

Okay, so there you have it–my list of most annoying forms of BSP. But, some authors might argue, how do they participate in online groups and not be accused of BSP? Fair question, I think. I think it comes down to sincerity and wanting to be part of the community for the same reasons readers do. I honestly don’t have any problem with someone suggesting their own book when someone asks for a list of say great romantic suspense books and that author writes R.S. What I do have a problem with is being made to feel like a piece of steak in front of a hungry tiger. That I as a reader have no value of my own except in my ability to buy an authors books, or sell them to my friends. So, participate, and even pimp your books–but be upfront about it, and appreciate your readers just because they go to the effort to read your books and love what you write.

“It was a dark and stormy night, the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

We’ve all laughed at that infamous beginning. But do we really pay attention to what Bulwer-Lytton was trying to do: establish weather and climate as part of the story.

A friend of mine recently mentioned the lack of pirate romances. I agreed, I always love pirate romances, but particularly on a cold winter day. Then I can escape to the warm Caribbean for a few hours. The warm trade winds or even the hot stifling doldrums sound wonderful when you’re curled up with a cup of hot chocolate and praying for an early spring.

But it isn’t just the setting, it’s the role that weather and climate plays within a book. Think about it, the heavy hot humidity in Deep South in Sandra Brown’s Slow Heat In Heaven Or Linda Howard’s After the Night sets a mood. The heavy fragrance laden air brings a slowness and emotion to the scene.

But it’s not just Southern climes that help with a mood. The suddenly snowstorm that strands a couple in a lonely cabin is just a recipe to huddle together to stay warm. The swirling winds and heat of North Africa in Laura Kinsale’s The Dream Hunter contrasts with the moderate climates of England in the last half of the book.

Which books do you think best utilize weather and climate to set the mood and become such a part of the book it is in itself a character?