Sep 3, 2009 | Writing |
Are you tired of hearing me chatter yet? So far we've covered why you want to write these stories, the fact that an emotional conflict is paramount, the luscious alpha male, and the heroine who is his equal. Today's post is about the global voice (to which, in my mind, there are two components).
You may have noticed when you pick up a Harlequin Presents that the stories are often set in exotic, jet-set locations. Here's a snippet from the guidelines: “Modern Romance is the last word in sensual and emotional excitement. Readers are whisked away to exclusive jet-set locations to experience smoldering intensity and red-hot desire.”
I don't think I have to explain what jet-set locations are. 🙂 But can you write these stories without traveling to exotic places?
Of course. But, and I think this is key, it takes more than just reading a guidebook or two to get the tone and feel of the world. Having a global voice means, I think, that you are interested in the world, that you are open to the idea and experience of a culture different than your own. That you can communicate emotional truths to readers who aren't the same nationality as you are. (Because if you write for Harlequin Presents, you will be read in many places.)
I can't tell you how to do this, but I think a curiosity about the world is essential. I have traveled a lot and been to many of the places I write about. I've lived in Europe, and spent time in Asia. My global perspective comes from being exposed to places other than the United States. I don't believe it's necessary to have lived in a country other than your own, but I don't think it hurts either.
When writing about jet-set locations, of course you will study guidebooks, maps, Google Earth — whatever it takes. But remember that the way people react, speak, and think in your hometown might not necessarily be the way they would react, think, and speak in Rio or Rome. The global voice is about more than littering your dialogue with another language.
This post is not designed to make you panic. You can be an armchair traveler, a dedicated explorer of vicarious travel, and still develop that voice you need to set a story in Spain or Italy or Greece. I'm convinced of it, though this is not my personal experience.
OTOH, you may live in an exotic location. Don't discount the appeal of Atlanta or New York — speaking to the Americans only because if you live in a location other than the US, I already think that's exotic. 😉 San Francisco? Seattle? Vegas? Dallas? Savannah?
Why not? What gives a story global appeal is the universality of the emotion. A woman in India, for example, needs to be able to understand the core emotion of your story — is it the desire for revenge? The desire for control? The need to be loved?
In truth, I feel like this is the hardest post yet. Because the global voice is about more than travel; it's about universal truth. Convey that in your stories, and you're well on the way. All the posts so far have been designed to help you realize what a Harlequin Presents is, so if you've read along, you'll already know what I mean by emotional truths.
Tomorrow, we'll talk about that all-important first chapter! Comments or questions?
P.S. I have a guest post over at author Charlene Teglia's blog today that is something additional about heroes! Come over and leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge!
Sep 2, 2009 | Writing |
Are we having fun yet, y'all? I'm very pleasantly surprised by your interest in what I have to say on this topic. Thanks for reading along, even if you don't want to leave a comment. I really hope these posts help you on your journey to writing for Presents. Remember that this is all simply my opinion and my experience. You can glean a lot from following the editors' posts on I Heart Presents as well. The biggest way to learn, however, is to read lots of Presents! Not to copy a style, but to internalize the elements. It's like playing a piano. You don't play Bach right out the gate, do you? You study and practice. For music, part of that study is listening. For writing, it's reading.
I left today's topic to whim, but it seemed to make the most sense to talk about the heroine. The guidelines state she “may be shy and vulnerable, [but] she’s also plucky and determined to challenge [the hero's] arrogant pursuit.”
This woman is not simply window dressing. She is not a doormat, not just a foil for the hero, and not interchangeable. Your heroine must be strong enough to challenge your hero. Yes, she may be at his mercy in your story — blackmail, revenge, secret baby, etc — but being at his mercy does NOT mean being a victim.
The plot is often made more delicious by putting your heroine in your hero's power. In Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge, Rebecca suddenly finds her company in Alejandro's control. And because he has her company, he has her. She is not powerless, however.
In fact, the hero often thinks the heroine is powerless — but that's a mistake, and he will realize it eventually. Rebecca goes along with Alejandro because she wants to regain her company. But she has the power to walk away. She is not a victim. No matter how Alejandro blusters and schemes, she can walk away. Yes, there will be consequences, but she's not a slave. (There must always be consequences — why else will the heroine stay or the hero insist on having things his way?)
Using Pride & Prejudice again, Elizabeth is at Darcy's mercy in many ways. No, she's not under his power in the manner of a blackmailed bride or a pregnant heroine, but there are consequences to rebuffing Darcy. When he proposes, the proper thing to do for her family is to accept. Then, her sisters and mother won't be homeless when her father dies. But Elizabeth can't do it. You could write your story where the heroine does accept the proposal, for the greater good, and then you've got the two together working out their issues. Jane Austen didn't do it that way, but it doesn't detract from the story or the problems that continue to mount for both characters.
In a Modern/Presents, you'll want your hero and heroine together as soon as possible, working through those emotional issues. In that respect, they will be more like Beauty and the Beast. Belle is at the Beast's mercy, living in his castle, etc. As we discussed yesterday, the layers are peeled away until they are in love. But think about Belle for a moment. She's not a victim and she doesn't simply cower from the Beast. She acts. Very important to remember.
Your heroine will act. She will not simply react. It's her action & reaction to the hero that helps drive the emotional power of the plot. He can't dominate her, no matter how he tries — and he may try desperately. She has an inner core of strength he can't touch. In fact, bear with me and my whimsy for a moment, but the heroine is the slayer of dragons here. It's her strength and power that bring the hero to his metaphorical knees.
This is the power of Presents. I believe the stories are very archetypal, and this archetype is about the taming of the beast, the taming of the forces that threaten to overwhelm and control us (oops, English major alert!).
Now, if we put it all together so far we have: an emotional story driven by characters with deep fears (baggage) who are in conflict with each other; the conflict grows out of the fear, and is unique to these two people. The hero is a ruthless man with deep beliefs and a core of integrity and honor; he will stop at nothing to get what he wants, though he will not cross the line into behavior at odds with his code of honor. The heroine is a strong woman with needs and fears of her own; though she may be at the hero's mercy, she refuses to be a victim. She challenges him and makes him see her as a woman who deserves to be acknowledged as his equal.
Make sense? I hope so! I swear I don't think about this as much when writing, but this is the essential core of what I do when I'm doing it. I want to convey it to you in a way you can understand. I hope this works.
Tomorrow, I'll touch on the global voice. Then we'll get to crafting the first chapter. And for next week, I have a special treat for you! Modern Heat author Kimberly Lang, my lunch buddy and fellow chapter mate, will tell you about the Modern Heat hero, heroine, and tone. Because I know nothing about how she does what she does (though I enjoy her stories for the sassy, humorous tone that is totally at odds with what I write). So if you're targeting Modern Heat, keep an eye out for her advice!
Questions? Comments? Let's talk!
Sep 1, 2009 | Writing |
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….
Aug 31, 2009 | Writing |
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!
Aug 28, 2009 | Writing |
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.
