So you want to write for Harlequin Presents – Part 3

Sep 1, 2009 | Writing | 8 comments

Thanks so much for the interest everyone has shown in these posts! I really appreciate it, and if I've helped you at all, I'm happy. 🙂 Today, I promised to talk about the alpha hero, the centerpiece to a Harlequin Presents. First, let me say that the divine Kate Walker did a whole series of posts on the alpha hero on her blog starting in April. Go search her archives if you want to know more than what I say here!

I am talking about my experience, and my version of the alpha. Other writers may phrase it differently.

This is the man who either inspires great love or great disgust in readers. Readers who dislike this man dislike him because he's too mean, too arrogant, too bossy, too abusive, etc. I don't happen to agree with those labels, but I've heard it repeated more often than not as the reasons some readers don't like the HP alpha. Every reader brings something different to the table — if you don't like this kind of hero, you don't like him. And I wouldn't dream to tell you that you are wrong in your feelings if this is your reaction.

But there are many, many women who love these heroes and the stories they populate. So, the centerpiece of a classic HP is the untamed alpha hero. A classic alpha, from the guidelines, is “a powerful, ruthless man who knows exactly what—and who—he wants, and he isn’t used to taking no for an answer! Yet he has depth and integrity, and he will do anything to make the heroine his.” Depth and integrity are important.

(I am not talking about Modern Heat, btw. I don't know how to write that kind of hero, so this is not about him at all. Modern and Modern Heat are both part of the HP line in the US. To see who the Modern Heat authors are, visit Sensational Romance. For Modern, aka classic Presents, visit Harlequin Presents Authors.)

There is a fine line to what constitutes abuse, and in my world there are definitely things a hero won't do. He may bluster and threaten, but he would never harm. He may be ruthless, but when faced with evidence he's wounded the heroine (not physically, people — that is a NO), he feels it. He is a thinking, feeling human. That is KEY. The HP hero must have strong emotions that run deep, perhaps far deeper than anyone suspects. Except the heroine. She usually figures this out, usually finds the chink in his armor and chips away until she gets inside his head, his skin, his emotions. She is the only one who can do this.

Another way to look at Harlequin Presents is as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The Beast was rather beastly, wasn't he? But he was emotionally wounded, quite deeply in fact, and he was so bitter about the curse and about his life slipping away. He'd quite given up — until Belle arrived. Belle, who stood up to him though she was frightened at first. Belle, who saw beneath his gruff exterior to the heart beneath. Belle, who fell in love with the Beast who gave her a library, who played hide and seek with her, and who rescued her from those horrible wolves when she first tried to run away.

The layers were slowly peeled away as they got to know each other, weren't they? The Beast was horrid — but then he wasn't quite so bad when he rescued her, and then he got a little better, and then his vulnerability was revealed, and etc. The layers were stripped away until, by golly, you love the Beast too (I did, anyway!).

So remember when crafting your classic hero that he is not a jerk or an asshole or a woman hater. He has emotional scars (remember that?) and he reacts to fear and pain and anger. The heroine brings it all out in him because she brings out the fear. The fear he will lose control, the fear he will feel things he doesn't want to feel, the fear he will lose something vital (himself!) if he loves her.

If your hero is ruthless, he better have a reason! If he's out for revenge, he needs a reason. If he dislikes the heroine on sight, he better have a reason. A good reason, not one you tossed together to let your hero behave a certain way because you want him to. His actions and reactions grow from the emotional drive of your story. (Your heroine's do too, btw.) It is absolutely essential that your hero BE a hero.

To look at it from another angle, Mr. Darcy is also a classic alpha. Mr. Darcy is arrogant, ruthless, and absolutely convinced he's right. And when he realizes he's wrong, he goes to extremes to fix everything again (secretly purchasing Mr. Wickham's cooperation in marrying Lydia, etc). Darcy is the king of those sardonic looks! He is the master of any room he enters, the top dog so to speak. But let Elizabeth challenge him, let her probe and pick, and Darcy is awash with longing and the desire to possess her. He is vulnerable to her — and he doesn't like it one bit! He fights it almost to the bitter end. (Oh sigh! I'm feeling the urge to watch P&P again!)

I don't know everything, and I certainly don't speak for anyone but myself, but I think I'm on to something with this guy. 😉 Make your hero understandable; make him bigger than life; wound him; give him fears; give him a strong heroine; and then make it all fall apart for the poor dear man. THIS is why I love Harlequin Presents, why I have always loved them, and why I'm so proud to be one of their authors.

Tomorrow: wild card. I'm leaving it up to caprice to decide what to write about next! Hope you find this useful! Leave me a comment and let's discuss the alpha. Who are some of your favorites? Can be movies or books….

So you want to write for Harlequin Presents – Part 2

Aug 31, 2009 | Writing | 6 comments

Last week, I told you to ask yourself why you wanted to write for Harlequin Presents. This week, I hope you've done that and your answer is some variation of “because I enjoy the passion, emotion, and seduction of these stories!”

Assuming this is the case, I'm going to talk about why plot is not the driving factor in these stories (we'll get to the first chapter later in the week!). Plot is external. It's important, of course, and in a longer length novel it's essential to have a more complex plot of external factors that feeds into the movement of the story. In a 50K word category novel that is all about intense emotion, you don't have room for a complicated plot. You need plot as a reason to get the characters together and keep them together.

But plot is not what drives them. Putting two essential strangers in a room together and having them dislike one another is not going to make a satisfactory Presents plot either. Beware the land developer/tree hugger plot. This is a prime example of external factors driving the story. When you toss together two people who are at loggerheads over external factors, such as he wants to build a mall on ten acres of prime real estate and she's trying to save the rare three-toed spotted flying squirrel that only lives in this ten acres of land, this is not about emotion. She may care very deeply about the squirrel, and he may care very much about his job and building that mall, but where is the personal angst?

Now give them something very deep and personal, like his mother's life depends on building the mall and her father's life depends on him not, and you've got something you can work with. (Bear in mind these are tongue in cheek examples, and that several authors have very successfully written the LD/TH plot — but usually by adding in deep emotional issues of some sort.) Naturally, there have to be personal emotional issues at stake as well, not just dying parents. This is where what has happened to these characters in their lives, the emotional events that have left scars, will come into play.

I've mentioned emotional scars, haven't I? Well, the first thing you need to realize about writing a classic Harlequin Presents is that there will be emotional baggage. In Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge, each character suffers emotional scars, aside from the scars of their damaged relationship, that dictates how they respond to each other. Alejandro has suffered a deep personal loss and fears something similar ever happening again; since he blames Rebecca for being the impetus, he also fears caring for her ever again. Rebecca fears failing her family, and she fears falling in love with a man who's already broken her heart once before. They have a lot to work through!

And that's the point. Your characters need to have a lot to work through. Even if they've never met before, something about the situation they are now in triggers their deepest fears. Something about each other triggers those fears, forces them to deal with the fears. And no one likes dealing with a deep-seated fear, does she?

For a much better explanation to all of this than I am giving, you really should get a copy of Kate Walker's 12-Point Guide to Writing Romance. There is a US edition available now, which Kate tells you how to get. I have this book and highly recommend it! (If I'd had it before I sold my first book, I might have sold a little quicker!)

Now think about those emotional scars your characters have! I told you on Friday to learn their fears and figure out what is driving them. This is the same thing, really, but make it more specific. What happened to them to make them the way they are? Why is this going to be a problem when these two meet up? Why can't they just talk about it, laugh at how silly they've been to be so hung up on this issue, and move on?

It's important to figure this out because this is ground zero for their motivation.

For tomorrow: quite probably the centerpiece around which these stories are built, to the dismay of some and delight of others, is the alpha hero in all his wounded glory. It's a fine line to walk, and not everyone likes this kind of hero. But many, many readers do. Therefore, I'll be talking about the glorious alpha and why he's so important to writing for Harlequin Presents.

I hope you'll join me!

So you want to write for Harlequin Presents

Aug 28, 2009 | Writing | 13 comments

I've noticed that I'm getting a lot of traffic lately from the posts over at I Heart Presents about the writing competition. I thank you all for visiting me! Maybe as you gear up for the latest contest, you're looking for wisdom, the secret, etc. Or maybe you just want to know how to write a Harlequin Presents.

So I'm going to share what I know with you. Bear in mind that no two writers are alike. Bear in mind that my way is not the only way or the correct way, etc. But my way does come from experience. Not a ton of experience, but enough. I've now written three books for the line, and I'm working on my fourth.

Ready? Here we go with lesson one:

First, ask yourself why you're trying to write a Presents. Is it because you love reading them? Because you love the alpha male, the glamor and passion of the exotic settings, the seduction of two people falling in love in spite of chasms of issues between them? Do you love the emotional pull of these intense stories?

Or do you want to write them because they are short and surely must be quick to write? Because you've heard that if you hire a book editor, the editors are buying? Because you want to be published and think this line is as good as any? Because how hard is it to write a jerk and the doormat that lets him stomp all over her?

If your answer is more in line with the first set of questions, awesome! If it's the second, you probably need to go back to the drawing board. You need to start reading these books and see why they are beloved by women around the world. If you can't see it, you probably can't write it. You must love the line, or at least understand why it works, to write it. MUST.

Secondly, if you're still here, you need compelling characters. Characters with deep issues, with conflicts that drive them. (There are posts by the editors over at IHP explaining all of this.) The story is not about the plot, it's about the characters. Believe me, I have trouble with this in the planning stages. Because I start with a scenario and then I start trying to figure out the how and why of the scenario. I've finally discovered that I really don't need to bother with a synopsis (other than the one my editor will want). I won't follow it and it doesn't matter. WHO the characters are is what matters.

What they want, what they fear, what they desire, and what it is about all of this that makes them both the best person and the worst for the other one. That's what you need to know.

Your assignment, should you choose to complete it, is to figure out what is driving your characters. That will feed into their motivation, which is another important facet of writing for HP. Learn their fears. Know them inside and out. Know their emotions.

Another tip, and this one is self-serving I admit, is to read not only the usual Harlequin Presents authors you love and are familiar with, but to read the ones who've been brought into the line recently. Sabrina Phillips, Janette Kenny, and I all have releases available in stores now. Read us, see what it is about our voices that clicked for the editors.

Next week, I'll talk about the nuts and bolts of crafting that first chapter.