x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

Today I want to talk about “irreconcilable differences” as it pertains to romantic conflict. The first time I heard this phrase was, I believe, in reference to a celebrity divorce in California. I remember thinking, “But what does that mean? Nothing happened?” and being flabbergasted by the whole concept. (Mind you, I was undoubtedly young at the time I first heard this phrase.)

As an adult, though, I’m beginning to see how supposedly small things can become greater than the classic “big” things like, say, cheating.

What if a slob and a neatnik fall in lurve? Match made in heaven, because he’ll be right there to pick up after her everywhere she goes? Doubt it. As soon as the newness wears off, I bet the resentment sets in.

What if a recipe-collector and a frozen-pizza-burner fall in lurve? Fabulous because she can cook dinner every night and he’ll be grateful he’s no longer gnawing burnt frozen pizza? Maybe at first.

What about a party animal and a homebody? Are they good for each other? He’ll help her discover her domestic side, and she’ll help him connect to all the other humans roaming the planet? Or a recipe for daily arguments over whether TV reruns or happy hour is the better use of their time?

Compromise is key. Sure. We’ve all heard that. But some things aren’t compromiseable because they’re just part of our makeup. The homebody isn’t wrong to be a homebody any more than the bubbly extrovert is wrong to be a bubbly extrovert. Why should either of them give up what they love being to become something they hate, just to “get along”? Then neither of them are happy, right?

My theory is this all goes back to what your mama told you as a kid: Be yourself. Much easier to get along with someone who views, interprets, and interacts with the world in the same manner you do.

Of course, if you’re writing romance, it’s never that easy…

YOUR TURN: What say you? Is there such a thing as irreconcilable differences? Is it a legitimate conflict? Is it an overcomable conflict? Can you believe in Happy Ever After for a couple whose world-views are fundamentally opposed? Why or why not?

x-posted from manuscriptmavens.com

When I was a kid, I got into a fight with this older boy at my elementary school. He was skinny, nerdy, and wore glasses. Ditto me on all counts. I don’t know why he decided to pick on me one day, except that maybe other kids always picked on him, but not me (and I was arguably just as skinny, nerdy, and nearsighted.)

So I’m walking home from school, 4th grade, backpack on my back (where else?), coat under one arm (in the midwest, temperatures can change 30 degrees from morning to afternoon), violin case under the other arm. Kid-who-shall-remain-nameless comes up beside me on his bike and proceeds to ride slowly enough to torment me the entire walk home. When this doesn’t get a satisfactory rise out of me (I’m actually extremely slow to tick off to the point of action, so this went on for a good mile or so) he lashes out at me with his jacket. One of the buttons catches me in the eye.

It hurts like hell, and he’s finally got my attention. Before he’s even able to snap his jacket back to his side, I swing up and out with my violin case, clock him upside the head (smacked the heavy case right into his cheekbone!) and knocked his ass right off the bike.

As luck would have it, this was right in front of my house. My neighbors saw the whole thing and immediately tattled to my parents the moment my parents got home from work. I expected severe punishment for braining a 10-year-old with a violin.

Instead… my dad bundled me (and my black eye–that stupid button!) up in our jitney and motored us right on over to the kid’s house. I was pleased to discover the boy from school looked much worse than me (the entire side of his face was black and blue and I’m pretty sure he was concussed) but worried now was when I would get my punishment, since I was so clearly the victor in the brawl.

But no. My dad proceeds to ream the kid a new one, topic being: Never Hit a Girl (Even With Your Jacket). The kid’s parents appear, hear the story, then they too ream their kid a new one re: Never Hit a Girl (Even With Your Jacket). The girl in question (er, me) melted against the far wall and smirked at the boy-who-teased-me from behind my black eye. Justice was sweet, if lopsided.

Fast forward 20 years.

About a week ago, a writer friend received negative feedback about the end of her book, because the hero (cop) pulls a gun on the villain (serial killer) and blows her away. Yes, her. And that was the whole problem. “Hero can’t kill a woman,” people informed my writer friend. “Shooting girls isn’t heroic.”

Seriously? An act of cop self-defense to save the life of the heroine he loves isn’t heroic simply because the story villain is female? What if he swats her with his coat jacket?

YOUR TURN: What do you think? Never hit a girl? Or only if she deserves it? What if you hit her with a high powered rifle slug and she, er, dies? Does it depend on her story transgressions? Or is it never okay for a hero to perpetuate violence of any type against a woman of any type?

P.S. Feliz Cinco de Mayo!!!

x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

Whenever I find myself overcome with historical hubris¹, I like to compare my favorite bits of deathless prose to an etymology dictionary or two, then throw myself upon the closest machete in despair. (Try it. It’s fun.)

Let’s pretend your WIP takes place in 1812 London. Which of these words existed in the common vernacular prior to that year? Which of these words didn’t become hip with the cool kids until much later? (No cheating! Answers at the end.)

* railway
* nerve-wracking
* offhanded
* windswept
* lunch
* featherweight
* toss-up
* tomfoolery
* dibs
* reconstitute
* body snatcher
* platitude
* yokel
* opposable
* word of mouth
* roadster
* washbasin
* dollop
* jailhouse

Answers in white text (highlight to view): Believe it or not, all of these words and phrases came into existence exactly during our year: 1812. We’d be hosed if we’d set it in 1811. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (link) End Answers

YOUR TURN: How’d you do? (Assuming you didn’t peek at the answers first.) Do you think you have a good handle on what words were in common usage when? Are you an historical purist? Or do you even care? Sound off!

1. Which happens approximately… never. I was really just procrastinating and looking for a way to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about.

x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

Secret/Mistaken Identities and ye olde BigMis–But first, breaking news:

NYT best-selling MaveFave Julie Leto (of hilarious Halloween Choose-Your-Adventure fame) is running an amazing contest this week over on the PlotMonkeys blog. She’s not only giving away a free chapter every day this week (starting NOW, today!) of her upcoming paranormal romance, Phantom Pleasures, but she’s also awarding one random commenter on her her blog a $20 Amazon/Borders gift card every day this week. Please show Julie some MaveFave love by dropping by and leaving her a comment. That’s seven winners!! For extra good karma, please tell her you heard about Phantom Pleasures over on the Manuscript Mavens! If you do (and comment here to let me know) you’ll be eligible to win a free copy of Julie’s book the second it hits the stores on April 1st. In fact, I’ll make it a signed copy of Julie’s book. Go check out her blog, drop me a note here to let me know, and on 3/31 I’ll announce the winner. Deal?¹

Now that you fulfilled all my karma fantasies by supporting my friend Julie’s newest release, lets move on to the topic of Big Misunderstandings, commonly snarked in the romance community as the infamous BigMis.

So, what is a Big Misunderstanding? Technically (which means I’m inventing my definition on the fly,) a BigMis is the type of story “conflict” wherein a simple, honest, adult conversation between the hero and the heroine would solve all the story’s problems, largely because there are no problems.

EX: Hero can’t trust heroine b/c he thinks she slept with Villain. (She didn’t.)
Or: Heroine can’t trust hero b/c she thinks he killed her brother. (He didn’t.)

And so on.

When I brought up this topic to my friend (and occasional impromptu psychologist) Diana, I had the following epiphany (transcribed):

“I was going to post about what is and isn’t a bigmis (and I think I might still do that, maybe next week)². Like when I started DATD, I worried it was BigMis b/c he was a demon from hell and she didn’t know, and if they sat down and talked about it, she would find out. (But of course they don’t sit down and talk about it). But then I realized that if they sat down and talked about it, there’d actually be MORE conflict (omg! he’s a demon from hell!) whereas in a BigMis plot, adult conversation would negate all the conflict and cause an instant HEA³. So. I think if learning about the mistaken identities fixes everything, that’s less powerful than if learning about the mistaken identities screws their lives up.”

I would post the rest of the chat, seeing as how it’s chock full of brilliant soundbytes (b/c, duh, we’re brilliant) but it’s also chock full of various spoilers and confessions of drunken debauchery. However. Between all that was this snippet:

E: Maybe I like willfully mistaken identity (I’m a spy/demon/toothfairy) more than accidentally mistaken identity (whoops, somehow you think we’re engaged).
D: Now THERE’s an interesting topic.
D: The willful vs. accidental.
E: Willful implies the s*** will hit the fan when it comes out.
E: Accidental can mean, oopsadaisy, nobody’s fault.
D: But to keep going with it is tough, too.
D: If it’s accidental. to motivate someone to keep going with an accidental deception means there has to be some weakness in character.
D: Whereas you see a willful deception, like in Working Girl, the motivation belies a strength in character.
E: Well, that one goes back to whether or not it causes more conflict.
D: The prob with MI⁴ plots is keeping it going after the identity is revealed.
E: Maybe the plots I mentioned that I liked best weren’t mistaken identity plots so much as secret identities. splitting hairs, I know. But back to the willful/accidental thing.
D: So then you’re saying that an MI plot can morph into an SI⁵ plot if the protag decides to continue the charade after it has become clear to her what’s happening.
E: To me, a true SI plot means that from day one, the plan was to deceive by withholding the truth of the identity.
E: So yeah, I think MI/SI (for me) indicates how the deception begins, more then how/whether it’s carried out throughout the book.
E: Like your post way back when about being a tourist.
E: I like it better when it’s on purpose.
D: I don’t think I care either way. It’s the follow through that really makes or breaks it for me.

YOUR TURN: Join the conversation! (When you’re done commenting at the PlotMonkeys blog, of course. *g) How do you feel about Big Misunderstandings? What about Secret Identities versus Mistaken Identities? Please share your opinions, as both a reader/movie-watcher and a writer!

1. Go! Now!
2. Ha! And I really did!
3. HEA = Happily Ever After
4. MI = Mistaken Identity
5. SI = Secret Identity

x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

There’s a black character in one of my WIPs that got a lot of flak from contest judges because she speaks casual (ie: incorrect) English, yet is a TA at a university. Comments on this point range from “If she goes to college, she speaks correct English” to “It’s a stereotype to have her speak this way”.

To the first point, I disagree. Having gone back to college as a non-traditional college student, I can say with some authority that when not speaking to a class or writing a paper, students from every background speak in abbreviations and slang.

Which brings up the second point: is it a stereotype to have a non-white character speak in incorrect English? (Interestingly, there is a Hispanic char in the same story who also speaks incorrect English spiced with Spanglish, and I got zero backlash on that.)

I once had a black char I described as having “curves”, and this also got hit as a stereotype. In all honesty, it hadn’t even occurred to me from that angle. But once it did, I began to question whether I could ever describe a black woman’s body in prose. If she’s a skinny black girl, is that a stereotype? If she’s a big black girl, is that a stereotype?

Is there a litmus test to help writers from inadvertently penning stereotypes into their WIPs and/or to prevent them from over-editing a character out of the well-intentioned (but ill-advised) desire not to offend the masses?

YOUR TURN: What’s your take on stereotypes? Have you ever accidentally used one? Have you ever purposefully used one? Have you ever totally not noticed one until someone pointed it out to you? Have you ever been offended by one? Sound off!

Cross-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

Friday’s post by Maven Jackie got me thinking about romantic conflict. Namely, what it is and what it isn’t.

In my first completed romance, the main reason the hero and heroine didn’t ride off into the sunset together was because they didn’t know each other’s names. Oh, sure, hero was a masked spy sneaking into heroine’s house to steal stuff, but underneath it all, he was a respectable, eligible bachelor, and she was a rich and beautiful socialite. In this story, not knowing each other’s names wasn’t conflict–it was a technicality.

As the story progressed, he thought her real self was a moron (he didn’t realize daytime-heroine and nighttime-heroine were the same person) and she thought his real self was an asshole (she didn’t realize daytime-hero and nighttime-hero were the same person), which on the surface seems like romantic conflict.

But, the more I think about it, the more I think it isn’t. Because as much as they might hate each other’s real personas (or so they think), for as long as they don’t realize that’s the same person they’re kicking it with, there’s no conflict in the relationship itself.

Nighttime-hero and nighttime-heroine are in lurve. Who cares about daytime-hero and daytime-heroine?

I’m not saying there’s no romantic conflict there, just that in retrospect, it seems a little weak. To my credit, it was my first stab.

My second completed romance was even worse in that department.

Beside the fact that the hero and heroine were rarely on-screen together, this story featured a cop-hero trying to save victim-heroine from a serial killer. Why can’t they ride off into the sunset (besides the obvious external impediment)? Because he broke her heart in high school, which pissed her off enough to up and leave town, which broke his heart and pissed him off.

Ten. Years. Ago.

While I do think backstory can enhance or deepen conflict, I don’t think backstory alone can ever equal conflict.

I mean, we’ve all ordered food at a restaurant that didn’t end up being as good as the picture looked or the description sounded. Maybe it was even disgusting, or caused hives, or gave us food poisoning. But did that forever stop us from going out to eat? No way.

In the same way, I’m starting to feel that “had a bad relationship in his/her/their past” is unequivocally NOT conflict. It’s a complication, to be sure, but as the sole motivator to never trust/date/love someone who’s obviously perfect for them in every way? Makes no sense to me. I need something more than “once bitten, twice shy.”

Of course, that could just be me. So:

YOUR TURN: Agree or disagree? Please share examples of so-called romantic conflict that you could never really believe would keep the hero and heroine apart. And also please share examples of fabulous romantic conflict where the book/movie had you nervous until the very end that these two well-motivated characters had a Happy Ever After in their future.

P.S.
Make me look popular! Leave another comment over at ManuscriptMavens.com. I promise I’ll reply back both places! =)

x-posted from manuscriptmavens.com

Good morning! And for those of you who just broke out in a cold sweat, that word in the title was synapses, not synopses. Your pal and mine, Maven Lacey, suggested this week’s theme center around things we heard a thousand times¹ and then one day–Ah ha!–everything clicked.

For me, that would be sexual tension.

Once upon a time, I wrote a romantic suspense. This was a Bad Idea for many reasons irrelevant to this post, but I compounded the problem(s) by completely disregarding misunderstanding that first word: romantic. The hero and heroine were rarely together. When they were together, there was no spark. When they weren’t together, they didn’t care.

Here are some actual² conversations from that time period:

Erica and Kelly, her Critique Partner

CP Kel:   Well… I finished WITNESS.
Erica:     Yeah? What did you think?
CP Kel:   It has issues.
Erica:     Let me guess. It’s the villain’s murder sequences, isn’t it? I made the bloodshed too hilarious.
CP Kel:   That part’s okay. It’s your sexual tension.
Erica:     What’s wrong with it?
CP Kel:   You don’t have any.
Erica (thinking furiously): Sure I do!
CP Kel (rifling through text): Where, exactly?
Erica:     Uhhh… He thinks she’s hot?
CP Kel:   Even she thinks she’s hot. She’s a bikini model. That’s not sexual tension.
Erica:     Uhhh… They used to date back in high school?
CP Kel:   That’s backstory. Big deal. That’s not sexual tension.
Erica:     Uhhh… They have sex?
CP Kel:   I hate to break it to you, but sex is not sexual tension.
Erica:     Fine!
CP Kel:   Look, I’ll show you an example. In the scene where she’s hiding from the villain and he has to go past the crime tape to get her clothes for her… Right here where he’s rifling through her panty drawer… That’s an excellent spot for sexual tension.
Erica:     That scene is loaded with sexual tension!
CP Kel:   There’s no sexual tension.
Erica:     He’s in her panty drawer!
CP Kel:   There’s no sexual tension.
Erica:     He picks out her panties! With his hands! And brings them to her!
CP Kel:   There’s no sexual tension.
Erica:     (shanks Kel with a machete³)
Kelly’s ghost: There’s still no sexual tension, bitch.

Not only did I not get where she was coming from, I thought the reason behind the disconnect was that I was right and she was wrong. (Be honest–usually when we disagree with someone, our first conclusion is that they’re the problem, am I right? It can’t just be me…)

So, I zipped the story off to my bff Carrie. I figured she’d like it much better than Kel, given that Carrie isn’t a writer, and therefore wouldn’t have heard of stupid writer rules like “sexual tension”.

Erica and Carrie, her beta reader

Carrie:   Well, I finished WITNESS.
Erica:     Yeah? What did you think?
Carrie:   It was okay, except…
Erica:     What?!
Carrie:   Well, you said it was a romantic suspense, but it didn’t seem like it. I mean, there was suspense and all, and I laughed every time Amber killed somebody, but there wasn’t any actual romance.
Erica:     (silent death stare)
Carrie:   I was surprised when you finally threw a sex scene in there at the end, to be honest.
Erica:     (shanks Carrie with a machete⁴)
Carrie’s ghost: There’s still no romance, bitch.

Threw in a love scene? Gaaahhh.

So, what did I do about this situation? I took online classes about Sexual Tension (I believe one by Alicia Rasley and one by Mary Buckham) and I made my first forays into the world of erotica romantica. I read dozens of Ellora’s Cave stories in search of the explanation for that magical mystical thing CP Kel had said: Sex is not sexual tension.

Did I get it? Sort of. My next book was the first draft of Touched, which was a vast improvement over Witness (sexual-tension-wise) but still not where it needed to be. When I started Dorinda & the Demon, I made a conscious effort to infuse each scene with as much sexual tension as possible. For the first time ever (and this was my 4th book!) I actually got complimented on my masterful⁵ use of sexual tension.

And by the time I blank-page rewrote Touched last year, I finally figured it out. The step-by-step how-to guide of sexual tension would be an entire blog post in and of itself, but suffice it to say this time, universally everyone who’s read the story has commented on the hawtness therein. (And there’s only one love scene, late in the book.) In fact, over the course of the 400 pages, one of my chaptermates went from “I don’t like historicals” to “OMG, I want to $@%# your hero!”

I call that success.

YOUR TURN: Have you (or your manuscript) ever been given a critique that you had no clue how to address because you literally didn’t even get whatever concept they were alluding to? Either way, I would love to hear about your adventures with sexual tension. Tell me what does and doesn’t do it for you as a reader. Feel free to post a snippet of sexual tension from your own WIP as an example. And if you have a real-life anecdote that illustrates sexual tension… by all means, share!

1. Note: Hyperbole.
2. By “actual”, I mean I’m totally making up dialogue based on the aforementioned faulty synapses’ ability to recall what was said.
3. I didn’t actually kill her.
4. Her either.
5. Nobody used the word masterful. But I did get compliments. Really.

x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

G’mornin! Today we’re going for a ride on a long, convoluted train of thought from thievery to bitches. (No comments from the peanut gallery about how all my thoughts are on long, convoluted trains.)

First up, thievery. Last week, I mentioned BookEnds was running a 100 words intro contest. (I saw a few MaveFaves posting excerpts, so yay, power to the MaveFaves!) I also saw an anonymous comment which read in part:

I don’t see any reason not to enter the contest with future, “first draft level” material that does not give away the full premise.

From a contest perspective, why bother entering with first draft material?? But I’m not here to nitcrit the logic of expecting to win a contest with (knowingly!) subpar material. No, friends, I’m here to nitcrit the logic behind this sentiment, which is: if I post it, thieves will come.

Not just any thieves–thieves who will steal my title/premise/opening lines, spew out another 99,900 words, and make 6 figs at auction on My Totally Amazing And 100% Original Idea.

First, I firmly believe all Mavens and MaveFaves could be given the same title, premise, and 100 starting words, and all of us would churn out completely different stories b/c we all bring our own personalities, prejudices, knowledge, skills, talent, life experiences, and blind spots to the table. (My pal Diana ran a voice experiment on her blog a couple years back that illustrates this idea.) I’m not saying that there aren’t people out there willing to rip off other people’s ideas (and particularly if you write super-slow or super-badly, can’t hurt to exercise caution when tossing around your million dollar idea) but in general, I stand by my belief that no two people would write the same story, even if they tried.

Second, let me rebut Quote A with Quote B:

Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

- Howard Aiken

Funny, snarky, and horribly true, n’est pas? And not just in writing. (But we’re here to talk about writing. Stay on track, folks. *g)

As someone who’s always coming up with crazy ideas, let me say first hand that the wilder and more original the idea is, doesn’t necessarily = agents/editors/booksellers carving golden idols in your honor.

“We want different,” they say, then promptly turn down Different.

Why is that?

On Thursday, Maven Lacey put forth a hypothesis about pushing yourself out of your safety zone in order to write bigger stories.

My old WIPs used to have this issue where secondary characters were quirkier & more intriguing than primary characters. I have since made an effort to overcome that (and probably did OK, considering a recent heroine is an apprentice tooth fairy) but even then, I was in safe mode, with quirky-in-a-good-way protags.

My current heroine starts the story as someone I wouldn’t particularly want to be friends with. Oh, she’s smart and fun and funny, but I wouldn’t leave in her in my house unsupervised unless I wanted my diary scanned and posted to YouTube. (Well, if Regency England had YouTube.)

I couldn’t write this story for the longest time, though, b/c I talked myself into believing I couldn’t make a “bitch” character empathizable (thus making the story unsalable).

Then I caught the first episode of Dexter on CBS and fell instantly in love with the eponymous hero, never mind that he’s a sociopathic serial killer. I would totally date him. (I wouldn’t date Tim Dorsey’s Serge, another fave sociopathic serial killer hero of mine, but I’d sure love that crazycakes Floridaphile as a neighbor.)

This was a huge wake-up call to me, as you might imagine. If my heart beats with lurve for BTL sociopathic serial killers after mere minutes of screen/page time, surely I can endear my reader to an inveterate gossip!

My biggest takeaway: Ain’t nothin’ you can’t do in your story, as long as you do it well.

Off to be BTL…

YOUR TURN: Do you believe in truly original ideas? In what ways are your heroes and heroines BTL… or are they? Do you write “safe” characters, or those who push the envelope? Either way, how do you engender reader empathy in those precious opening pages?