TWC SPOTLIGHT

While you're updating your schedule, don't forget the Wednesday night open chats. And remember that we have a lot more than chats on our site. The forum is open 24/7, which is great for those of you who can't make the live chats. Then there is our blog, and the resource pages - market info, contests, education links and much more. Take your time and look around. You might find just what you need. 

Keep writing!

Audrey

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR ROMANCE CHARACTERS by Rita Karnopp

If you want your reader to keep turning those pages, you must create engaging characters.  The heroine and the hero have to be the focus of your story when writing romance.  You must create a scenario that pits these two people at odds with each other.  They might hate the race, nationality, religious background, family life, or even economic status of the other, and it's up to you to make the reader believe it's real.  Finding this contrast with each other is the catalyst for conflict. 

Once you've established the conflict, you must find the love.  No matter what else is happening in your story, in a romance the characters are irrevocably drawn to each other in spite of their differences.  You must draw a picture that develops enough similarity between your characters that it's believable they could live happily ever after at 'the end' of your story.   

So how do you keep these traits, conflicts, and resolutions straight?  I don't know about you, but if I were to rely on my memory, there are going to be some real problems.  If lucky, I might remember the heroine's last name.  I am too busy typing dialog as my characters take off on their journey.  The answer, of course, is to create a character chart for all the main players in your book. 

I've tried many different ways to keep track of my characters.  You'll have to experiment and find out what works best for you.  I create a 9" x 7.5" three-ring binder with tabs for all my vital characters.   

personal habits (i.e. curls hair around ear, bites nails, bites lip, etc.)

where lives (apartment or house/city or country)

marriage history (divorced, widowed, engaged or broke engagement, etc.)

close friends (if they're pertinent to the story)  

Next I create a story board.  A 36" x 24" cork board is my favorite way to display my working story.  It helps set the mood.  I might find pictures out of magazines that have the look and feel of my characters.  Perhaps I'll find buildings and scenery that has the mood of the story... they go on my board.  All this brings my characters and mood to life. 

Then as the story progresses I create three columns and keep it to the right of my story board.  Conflict  ~  clues/hints/mistakes  ~  resolution/what's learned ~   As the story progresses, this list grows.  Why you might ask?  So you tie up all the loose ends at the end of the story.  There is nothing that irritates me more than when information is 'slipped' to me the reader, only to find that it is never resolved.  It's so disappointing and I feel cheated. 

Let's take a moment to discuss our romance characters.  I hate perfect, petite, so-beautiful-she-could-be-a-model heroine types.  Give me a break.  Perfect people don't exist in real life and should never exist in our books.  I love heroines who have flaws such as stringy hair, a lisp, too tall and thin, boyish walk, temper, etc.  I love heroes who are equally flawed; drags his feet, bushy eyebrows, dresses in jeans and T-shirt (could be bad if she's a society girl)... so I like to find characters that might irritate each other right off the bat.  Different class works great in many instances.  There is the attraction, but the immediate conflict, too.    

Romance characters aren't the same for every publisher.  It's important to study the publisher's guidelines and read romances your targeted publisher has recently released.  What types of character differences could there be?  How about age, background, career, sexual levels, and even how aggressive a heroine or hero should be.  Knowing what your targeted publishing house wants is vital to being a successful romance writer. 

Getting past the initial setup, I get serious about my romance heroine first.  I want to know what makes her tick.  I want to get a feel for what she wants out of life and what her issues are.  Is she looking for Mr. Right or is she sick of men and wished they'd all disappear from the face of the earth?  I study the guidelines and find out where my heroine wants to push the envelope to the edge, but not over it.  I create a lot of depth and make sure I develop the reason for this deep rooted emotion. 

The romance hero is also dictated to some degree by the publishing house you are targeting.  They have specific ideas on what types of men fit their guidelines.  Is he the traditional hero with power and good looks or the rogue bad boy who finds out he's the son of a millionaire, but didn't know it until he found the love of his life?  Again, there are guidelines to age, background, nationality and, of course, the amount of sexual liberty he's allowed to take.   

One thing I keep in mind as the heroine and hero's story develops is that once they have become involved, they don't become emotionally involved with others.  That's not to say they don't turn to someone else to confide in or to create misdirection.  But I won't write a heroine or hero that has the 'it didn't mean anything' sexual encounter, and then go back and ask for forgiveness.  It doesn't work for me in real life, and for sure would not work for me in a book.  That's the key to creating believable characters; get to know them well, understand what makes them tick,  and if you believe what is happening in the story, so will your reader. 

Welcome to Hell: Pop Culture Reviews

Glenn Walker is a writer with too much time on his hands, or depending on the day, not enough time on his hands. He loves, hates and lives pop culture. He knows too freaking much about pop culture.  Given that, he has to vomit up his voluminous opinions on it in his blog...  Welcome to Hell...http://www.monsura.blogspot.com

For more information, visit our schedule page.

All chats start at 7 pm EST.

The weekly chats at The Writer's Chatroom are wonderful!  Each night I attend a chat, I learn something new.  The support and encouragement during the "general chats" keeps me motivated and excited about writing. The weekly "guest" chats are informative, educational and fun!  I leave each chat saying  "I can do it, I know I can.      Patty Hopkins

Website Spotlight

The Romance Writers of America (RWA) is an organization devoted to promoting romance writers. In addition to all the help available on their website, they also have over 140 face-to-face chapters across the US.

RWA isn't a fly-by-night organization, nor is it a place for dabblers. It's a professional organization for serious romance writers.

They get their share of controversy, but we all know what that means. If there is controversy, people are talking!

The annual RWA convention is THE place for romance writers to make contacts in the industry. (In San Francisco for 2008...Suzanne Brockman is going to be there! Sorry, got star-struck for a moment.)

If you're serious about a romance writing career, you really should check out the RWA. http://www.rwanational.org

OR MAYBE YOU'RE JUST PROCRASTINATING  By  Jane Toombs

I've read a number of articles on writers block.  While I'm sure some cases of writers block might have more difficult-to-solve reasons, I feel some cases have a simpler reason.  Yes, of course writers all do need down time.  But what if you've had down time and still can't bring yourself to sit down and write? 

Okay, you've thought over any possible problem in your WIP and came up with nothing in particular.  You've tried scrubbing the floor, taking a walk, or gardening--whatever has worked before. You've even taken a nap.  But have you brain-stormed with a writing friend, either by email, phone or face to face? If you have a critique group, have you discussed the WIP with them and asked for idea input?

Often a discussion with others writers will snap you out of the idle syndrome. Even if you don't take a single idea of theirs, the discussion sometimes triggers your own creativity into the AHA! mode. {Editor's note: Visit our chatroom on Wednesday nights and watch this happen.}

Well, you've tried all of this and you still haven't gotten your butt in the chair and the keyboard under your fingers. Could you be suffering from mere procrastination instead of  the more complex writers' block?  If you don't gather up what you need to have near at hand, sit down and actually ready the computer for action, hey, you've got one of the major symptoms.

Warning! Booting up and then accessing your email doesn't count. Maybe you need to start thinking about using the reading of your email as a reward for having written your daily allotment of words for your WIP.

You've taken all this to heart, bit the bullet, booted up and are staring at that cursed curser  blinking on the blank screen. If you can't get your fingers to punch out word one, go back and give a quick read to your last chapter--no editing allowed. Now you can't say you haven't even a clue what happens next.  So start off writing the next  scene from the hero's POV.  Go on for at least two pages even if it feels wrong.  Not happy?  Don't delete.  Just start from wherever you left off and rewrite the same scene from the heroine's POV. Still sucks? If you have a villain, try his or her POV, not deleting anything you've written so far. Read all of it over.  If nothing clicks, drop down a few spaces and begin the scene in a different place. Does it work?  No?  Try introducing a new character--not necessarily in his or her POV, but seeing this character from one of the main character's POV.   Write that out.  Try a new situation and write that.  Keep writing for at least an hour, with no editing.

So you've done all that and you think every bit of it stinks.  Don't delete.  Save. Exit the program.  Let what you've written sit overnight.  Go back the next day and reread what you believed was dreck. Sometimes you'll be surprised that some of it isn't.  Sometimes you'll still find it's dreck, but that reading it over has given you a new idea. Sometimes you'll boot up, not having to read any of it over, because you've come to realize exactly how that scene should be written. 

The point of all this is you've stopped procrastinating, and are actually sitting down--not to write, but actually writing.   There's a lot of difference in these two sentences, and not just the pronouns: He sat down to write.  She sat down and wrote. I'm not suggesting you become like the character Jack Nicholson played in The Shining, merely doing typing exercises. You must make an attempt to go on with your story, even multiple attempts.  

If you have tried every one of these suggestions, from the beginning of this article to this point, then perhaps you need a longer break from writing.  Or maybe the fault is in how you conceived the plot. If you're a pantser, it's difficult to let other writers see your plot, because it's probably not down on paper or on a disk or CD, but in your head. Is your problem because you really don't know at this point what you want to happen?  If you haven't tried brainstorming, now is the time.

If you're a plotter, try letting other writers look at your plot line.  I can't stress enough how much a writer can benefit by brainstorming. For most of us, the hearing of other solutions to  problems often triggers an answer within us that may have nothing to do with what we've heard.  Other times, someone does come up with an excellent solution. If all else fails, do try this--but with writers, not just friends or relatives.

Whatever you do, don't blame yourself.  If you've tried everything here and anything else you can think of, a possible solution might be to put that WIP on hold for a time.  If you have a deadline, sometimes you may have to ask for an extension. But not writing on that work doesn't mean you shouldn't start writing something else. Even if it's just an article discussing procrastination. 

And with that--I've got to get back to Chapter 7 of that historical gothic I'm picking up to finish after a hiatus of seven years.  Of course, in the meantime I've finished and sold a number of other novels and novellas, but that's no excuse for keeping the gothic on hold for so long.  Get thee behind me, procrastination!    

Her website is www.JaneToombs.com  She also belongs to Jewels Of The Quill where, as Dame Turquoise, she also has her books listed at www.jewelsofthequill.com   Plus Jane has a book page at www.bookswelove.com . Both these last two sites offer frequent contests.