The iPad is releasing in NZ in 3 days!!
Okay my happy dance is now over and back to the real reason for my post today.
I've been reading Kate Walker's fabulous 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance.
Of course it covers the basics like what is romance?, and it is important to know your genre before you write it! Research people, research!
If you are writing about a sandy beach you must know first hand what it feels like between your toes if that is what your characters are feeling!
Kate really advises too, and we have probably all heard this before, but really we can't hear this often enough, study the line you are targetting. That is, that publishing house or agent or readership. You MUST know your target BEFORE you put pen (or fingers to keyboard) to paper. It will save heartache, time, and effort in the long run.
Another huge thing i picked up was that readers don't read your story to find out what happens. Generally they read to find out how it happens!
At least, this is certainly true for romance. We all know, that these characters are going to get their happily ever after, but how they get it is what the reader is reading for. And how you get the reader there is with EMOTION.
Kate Walker talks about using Page Turning Quality and emotional punch.
Make sure you have enough emotional punch in your story to keep your reader turning those pages to find out how the story develops!
But please also remember "getting to know you time". The poor reader can't be on a high the entire time just as the characters can't. They all need to get to know each other, so let them all have time to know their gentler sides, and connect with each other, to feel. Then when the emotion gets high, and we as writers are so mean and create that nasty conflict, the reader will flick those pages even faster.
Your task this week: Create some emotional punch, but remember to let the characters have some down time and get to know each other too!
Huh, actually doing that in my re-write at the moment :) and YAY for the I-pad thingee :) I'm still waiting for Kindle to be available here *sigh*
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI think reading Kate's HM&B novels and India Grey's are good benchmarks of how to write for that publisher in respect of lines they write for!
But, as an aspiring author it pays to target more than one publisher, all of them limited in how many new authors they will consider taking on in any one year.
Hence, NEWS OF "NEW ROMANCE E-PUBLISHER" - UK Based - and set up by editor at Salt Publishing (Jane Holland) who also targeted HM&B as author, her mother being the late Charlotte Lamb of M&B fame!
Check out top-right corner of my blog!
best
F
Emotion is easily forgotten for me. Nicole had some good suggestions for a rewrite of my last one and I think it made a big difference. I was to come up with answers to ten questions about how the charecter feels. It was hard work, but I think made a difference.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I sent an e-mail when I was done, but never saw a response. Perhaps I sent it to the wrong one, but if you wish to review, my stories are in the "fiction" section of my blog and a review would be apperciated.
Oh sorry SH! i'll check to see if i got your email, it wasn't in my main folder, so it must have gone to the junk! sorry about that. I'll check your fiction section for sure :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Francine!
Yes Nicole, but yours was really good near the end!
Sh, never got your email! maybe try again? I'd love to do a review, i read through some of your pieces on your site and they are intriguing! Some grammar errors and i think Nicole will tell you i hate these :D
ReplyDeleteHi Kerrin
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for talking about my 12 Point Guide on your blog. I hope you find it helps you with your writing
BTW - you must be having emails delivedry problems because I tried to contact you too re the comment you added on my blog. Also about the 12 Point Guide.
Do you think you could contact me please? Email is on my web site so I can ask you about that? Thaks so much
And enjoy the i-pad. My friend has one and I think she's fallen in love
Kate