Issue #22
October, 2006
Dear Romance Writer:
I am pleased to announce that Writing for Love & Money has added another published author to its ranks. Please join me in congratulating Elise Chidley, who recently signed a two-book contract with a British publisher. I wish her much success as she embarks on an exciting new career. Please look for Elise’s first release in 2008.
This exciting announcement should be incentive enough for all of us to get writing, especially now that fall is here and temperatures are finally cooling down. I just love this time of year because it heralds the upcoming holiday season. Something about Thanksgiving makes me feel inspired and gets my creative juices flowing. By the time Christmas comes around, I usually have several new plot ideas percolating.
Speaking of being inspired, I’ve recently returned from the Emerald City Writers’ Conference in Seattle. The local chapter of Romance Writers of America celebrated its 25th anniversary, and it turned out to be an extremely organized and enjoyable event. It was great to see New York Times best-selling authors Debbie Macomber, Jayne Ann Krantz (a.k.a. Amanda Quick), Stella Cameron, Cherry Adair, Vicki Lewis Thompson and Julia Quinn. These big-name authors continue to play an active role in their chapter.
What has always impressed me about the Seattle writing group is how warm, friendly and organized they are. From the welcome banquette, to the evening of karaoke, to the informative workshops… everything went flawlessly. I presented a workshop on Sunday at 10:00 a.m. and really had not expected anyone to show up. Boy was I surprised by my packed room. My topic was how to write love scenes when you are squeamish about telling it all. Based on the attendance, it’s safe to say sex does sell.
Since this was such a popular workshop, I thought that it might be helpful to share some of the tips from my workshop in this issue. Please take a look at the “Tools of the Trade” section below.
Have fun writing!
Romantically Yours,
Marcia King-Gamble
Editor of Romantically Yours
www.lovemarcia.com
TOOLS OF THE TRADE: THOSE DARN DIFFICULT LOVE SCENES
You’re seated at your computer, pumped and writing away like crazy, words are flowing nicely, your dialogue is snappy, your characters are fully developed, and you can cut the sexual tension between the hero and heroine with a serrated knife. Now you’re at the point where something romantic needs to happen.
You’re on the threshold of that dreaded bedroom scene, or maybe it’s a kitchen, dining room, or outdoor love scene. And wham… your mouth goes dry, and your fingers freeze. You’re a little bit uncomfortable putting it out there for everyone to see… well, more than a little bit uncomfortable, you’re feeling very stressed. Your words will be read by thousands of people… maybe even your own mother, possibly your old math teacher, people you respect, and those who just might pass judgment.
So, what do you do? You take a deep breath and know that you are not alone. This is the dilemma every romance writer faces – to be or not to be explicit. Get the hero and heroine into bed too quickly, and some readers will scream. Wait too long, and others want your head.
Do not despair. There are techniques you can use to keep your love scenes sensual without making them graphic or over the top. Think of it as foreplay to titillate the senses and seduce the mind. Real-life romance is often more mental than physical. There’s usually more going on in the mind than between the sheets. Play to the mind.
Think of it as your first sexual awareness of another. Every sense becomes heightened when that person is around. You are aware of every nuance. You know what the person is wearing (or not wearing), and you hang on their every word. You love being around them and inhaling their unique body scent. You can’t wait to touch them and be touched by them. If you close your eyes, you can possibly even taste them.
Keep that memory firmly in mind and engage all five senses when you write that love scene. Let’s hear what your lovers are thinking, and let’s see what’s going on around them. Describe the setting and their feelings about the setting and each other. Tell us what they’re eating or just had to eat and how everything tastes. What are some of the scents surrounding them? Describe the textures of things. Heightened sensuality can be achieved without using one graphic word or describing the mechanics of the act.
Here are some examples to help illustrate:
Example 1:
One step at a time he took me to the mountain and back.
Example 2:
Time stopped as I lay on crisp designer sheets, looking up at the patterns the sun made on the ceiling as her hands made patterns on me.
Example 3:
The outside buzz of traffic echoed the feelings I had within. I was tuned up and ready to take the journey, and who knew how that would end.
Example 4:
I envisioned strawberries, could even taste them. Strawberries with cream. Plump ones. Oh how he made me feel.
If you write romance, you are required by most publishers to put in at least one sex scene. These scenes require different levels of sensuality. The point is, you can accomplish what’s being asked of you without being explicit. Simply let your fingers do the walking and let the imagination take over.
More important, have fun.
HAPPENINGS:
November 11, 2006
Crusie/Mayer Writing Workshop
Sponsor: Ohio Valley RWA
Location: Oasis Conference Center, Loveland, OH
Fee: $75-$90
Contact: Carol Serrone at c.serrone@insightbb.com
November 10-12, 2006
Crossing the Publishing Threshold: An Intimate Conference
Sponsor: Calgary Association RWA
Location: Eau Claire Sheraton, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Fee: $295-$360
Keynote: Lori Wilde
More information: www.calgaryrwa.com
November 10-11, 2006
Cleveland Rocks Romance 2006
Sponsor: Northeast Ohio RWA
Location: Doubletree Hotel, Independence, OH
Fee: $55-$65
Keynote: Cherry Adair
November 13, 2006
Master Class
Sponsor: Vancouver Island Chapter
Location: Dunsmuir Lodge, Victoria, BC, Canada
Fee: $85.50 US, $95 CDN
INTERVIEW WITH LYNN SHOLES AND JOE MOORE, AUTHORS OF “THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY” AND THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED “THE LAST SECRET”
Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore are co-authors currently working on their fourth book. These two talented authors come from completely different walks of life. Their first highly acclaimed release, The Grail Conspiracy, received rave reviews and was a huge hit domestically and internationally. Although they are not considered romance writers, their plots do have an underlying romance theme. As genres begin to blend more and more, authors from different genres are partnering. Here’s some insight as to how this collaboration works.
RY: Can you tell us a little about your individual backgrounds and how your collaboration came about?
LS: I’m a teacher on special assignment for the Broward County School District in South Florida. Writing as Lynn Armistead McKee, I previously published six historical fiction novels.
JM: My background includes 25 years of experience in the television post-production industry, where I was a two-time regional Emmy Award winner.
LS: Joe and I met in a local writer’s critique group where I talked about an idea for a book based on the attempted cloning of Christ. I hesitated to write it since it was a huge jump in genre and I felt maybe I didn’t have a handle on how to write thrillers, which I knew this would be. Joe was fascinated with the premise and threatened me that he would steal the idea and write it himself if I didn’t.
JM: We agreed to do it together. Three years later, we finished The Grail Conspiracy.
RY: Why not write solo? Isn’t it a challenge blending voices? What about differences of opinion in terms of the way you want to handle a scene. How do you get it all sorted out?
JM: Synergy was the biggest motivator. What one of us lacked, the other excelled in. At first, the two voices collided like a train wreck. Lynn’s was lyrical and character-building; mine was male action and plot building.
LS: In the beginning, it was obvious who wrote what. But we believed so strongly in the story that we didn’t give up. After the first experimental chapters turned out to be a disaster, we turned our energy to plotting out the entire story. By the time we had produced a detailed, 50-page synopsis, we were ready to start writing again. This time, we had become comfortable with each other’s styles, and quickly fell into a productive routine of drafting, rewriting, and polishing.
JM: To avoid differences of opinion, we learned to talk out each scene or character or plot point until we had a solid mental picture before the first draft was attempted. Then whoever felt they had a strong “handle” on the scene or chapter would create the first draft.
RY: I was particularly impressed that your first book titled The Grail Conspiracy received such favorable reviews. I understand it won Foreword magazine’s “Book of the Year” award, was nominated for an Independent Publishers IPPY award, and has been published in several languages including Greek and Chinese. Tell us a bit about this first book and your efforts to promote it.
JM: In The Grail Conspiracy, the Cup used to collect Christ’s blood at the Crucifixion was found. Traces of human DNA were preserved inside and an attempt was made to clone Christ. It is a fast-paced suspense thriller.
LS: In its first year, it was translated into 19 languages and made the bestseller lists in Poland and the Netherlands (9 weeks). We promoted it extensively on the Internet and with personal appearances at conferences such as BEA, SleuthFest, and Bouchercon. We also were guests at author panels, local television stations, book fairs, workshops, book clubs, and numerous book signing events.
RY: Which brings me to my next question – how did you go about finding a publisher for The Grail Conspiracy? Did you use an agent or did you shop the book yourself? Are you continuing to use the same publisher or have you switched?
LS: My NY agent pitched The Grail Conspiracy to a number of publishers and finally settled on Midnight Ink, the mystery imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide.
JM: Midnight Ink was Llewellyn’s new fiction imprint, and we were chosen to be part of the launch of their new line. It was very exciting. We were happy that after The Grail Conspiracy, Midnight Ink offered us a two-book contract.
RY: Book number two, The Last Secret, was released in September. Give our readers a thumbnail sketch of that plot. How is it being received?
JM: The Last Secret involves the discovery of a 5000-year-old artifact that reveals a secret to a way of life that leads to heaven. It’s based on an early draft of the final chapter of our first book that involved our heroine, news reporter Cotten Stone and a Catholic priest named John Tyler. The setting was an Inca dig site in the Andes where they’d discovered the artifact, and it linked the two characters romantically in the end. We ultimately rejected this early draft of the final chapter since we needed the sexual tension between Stone and Tyler for the next book. Besides, it made the story less cliché. So we rewrote the final chapter of The Grail Conspiracy and built The Last Secret around the discovery of the artifact.
Interestingly, The Grail Conspiracy became a series when the book was released and we noticed that it said A Cotten Stone Mystery on the cover. That’s how we discovered our publisher wanted more. So we got right to work plotting The Last Secret.
RY: I took the liberty of peeking at your website www.grailconspiracy.com and read that you were already at work on book number three of the Cotten Stone Series, titled Indigo Ruby. When will that book be released and how did you come up with the title?
LS: Indigo Ruby (working title) is scheduled for release in September of 2007. The title comes from the name of two groups of children that are being born into the world.
JM: The Indigos are highly gifted and artistic, and are designated by God to form His future army to confront evil in the coming Last Days. The Rubies are the children of the Nephilim – the offspring of the original Fallen Angels. Indigo Ruby is the story of the formation of these two great armies in anticipation of Armageddon.
RY: Both of you are members of the Mystery Writers of America. There’s been reciprocity and crossover between Romance Writers of America and Mystery Writers of America. That’s really not surprising since so many romance writers write romantic intrigue or suspense, and mystery writers often have an underlying romantic theme. Tell us a bit about the Mystery Writers of America and the benefits of joining such an organization.
JM: In a word: networking. MWA affords its members an opportunity to form relationships with writers across the country. Participation in monthly luncheons or regional conferences featuring guest speakers, as well as the periodic newsletters and email groups, keeps us in touch with other talented writers, agents, reviewers, and editors. Friendships can result in critiques of our work and author blurbs for new work. The networking benefits that come with membership are huge.
LS: As far as the themes go, there is almost always a romantic interest in every novel. It’s what all people do – fall in love. Often that love relationship can drive or destroy people or their plans and intentions, and that works wonderfully in character motivation no matter what the genre. It keeps characters real so readers can identify with them. And after all, love makes the world go round.
RY: Have you traveled or do you have plans to travel outside the United States to promote your books? If so, how did this come about?
JM: Our tight schedules needed to meet our deadlines have not allowed us to travel to other countries yet. But the fact that so far 10 of the original 19 foreign publishers who bought the rights to The Grail Conspiracy have already bought The Last Secret means we might have to travel abroad to do a few signings in other countries.
LS: Just traveling throughout the U.S. would be a treat. But how do you do that and meet deadlines, much less foot the bill?
RY: Have you been approached by anyone wanting to option your book as a movie, and would you want to write the screen play?
JM: Our agent has been contacted by a major Hollywood/NY production company asking for copies of our first two books. We’re waiting with crossed fingers to hear what they have in mind.
LS: Many of our readers ask us when our books are going to be made into a movie. We agree, but like Joe said, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed. Our books are right in the middle of a genre that is exploding on the silver screen at this very moment as well as dominating the titles in recent books. And The Last Secret isn’t just a mystery/thriller; it is a mystery with a message.
RY: What advice would you give to our readers who are thinking of collaborating on a book? Give us the good, the bad and the ugly.
LS: Collaboration is a tricky business. It has some amazing advantages and equally disastrous disadvantages. One disadvantage is that you only get paid 50% of what you would earn if you had written the book yourself. Another: egos. They can clash. And another: the voice of the story can turn out to be bland or obviously written by two people as what happened to us when we first started working together. We’re lucky that we were able to conquer those obstacles.
JM: A big advantage is that we never suffer from writer’s block. One of us will always have an answer or idea, or through our brainstorming, will create a solution.
LS: If you’re seriously considering collaboration, one idea is to try a small, innocent project first. Write a short story or magazine article together to test the waters. If a shouting match develops halfway through the story, you may want to consider another partner or going solo.
JM: Here are a couple of other tips: pick someone who is basically on the same level of writing skill and expertise as you. Know why you are collaborating in the first place. Enter the relationship with an open mind. Realize that any idea you can come up with can be improved upon by your partner. Respect your partner. Explore each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and capitalize on them. Divide the work up appropriately. And always have an escape route if the collaboration doesn’t work out. Most importantly, have fun.
RY: And finally, once Indigo Ruby is released, what’s next for Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore? How can our readers reach you?
JM: Right now we’re in the planning stages for two more books: The Ghost of God and The City of Shadows. You can email us by visiting our book websites and clicking on “Contact Us.”
LS: We keep our book news posted on those sites to make it easy for you to keep up. They are www.grailconspiracy.com and www.thelastsecret.net.
There is a sneak preview of the third Cotten Stone mystery at www.indigoruby.com.
WHO’S ACQUIRING:
Harlequin Romance:
Acquiring short romances of 50,000-55,000 words. The focus should be on the central relationship. Harlequin is merging with Silhouette Romance. They will issue six books instead of four books per month. Every story must deliver on emotional depth and should be driven by strong, character-driven emotional conflicts. High sensual tension between the protagonists is essential. Stories can have a wide variety of international settings.
Triskelion Publishing:
A) Urban Sorcery (word count 65,000-95,000). These stories are about edgy, dark characters placed in dangerous, well-crafted settings. Looking for stories in fantasy and gothic subgenres.
B) Illusion (word count 65,000-95,000). Should have bold, smart and sassy heroines. These storylines explore the frightening world of the paranormal. Looking for three-dimensional characters that are so real you think they are your neighbor. Specifically seeking vampires, witches and psychics.
COMING NEXT MONTH:
Meet author Mary Leo, who hails from San Diego and writes for Harlequin. Her unique, light-hearted voice and original plots are guaranteed to keep you turning those pages. Mary kicks off the Caribbean segment of the Mediterranean Nights Cruise continuity series. Look for her release in 2007. Meanwhile you can get to know Mary by logging onto www.maryleo.net.
ABOUT ROMANTICALLY YOURS
Romantically Yours is a FREE monthly newsletter for members of American Writers & Artists Inc.’s romance writing program – “Writing for Love & Money.”
We want to hear from you. Please send comments, news, research, or story ideas directly to Marcia King-Gamble at romanticallyyours@awaionline.com.
American Writers & Artists Inc.
245 NE 4th Ave., Ste 102
Delray Beach, FL 33483
Phone (561) 278-5557
Fax (561) 278-5929
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© 2006 American Writers & Artists Inc.