GENREALITY

I don’t care how great a writer you are, there is always room to learn more. I’ve been at this for almost 8 years and I’m 10 books in, and I still take classes. A couple of months ago I went to the Dallas Area Romance Writer’s meeting and took a class from Lori Wilde about themes. What she taught me that day helped me to sell a proposal two days later to my editor. I couldn’t seem to get the synopsis right. When my editor called me I told her about each character’s theme and it was a done deal. Thinking about theme and how it applies to the book and each character is only going to make my books stronger.

Yesterday I was doing some research for the online writing class I’m teaching (more about this in a bit) and I ran across an old blog by Jim Butcher that deals primarily with writing. What I loved is you could almost hear him talking and there was a wealth of information on that blog, even though I don’t think it had been updated since 2008. (http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/) I was reading about his characters and the rules they have as well as archetypes.

I devised this new class I’m teaching to fill in the gaps most writers have. I don’t know about you but the first two years of writing I had a tough time understanding why cars made from GMC were showing up in books. I had two books published before I ever heard the phrase Goal, Motivation, Conflict. It’s something I did naturally evidently or the books wouldn’t have sold, but now I know that every character must have their own GMC if the book is going to be a strong one.

You should continue your education no matter how good you think you are. If you’re having trouble getting published, it may be what you don’t know that is killing you. I’m trying to make this class comprehensive so we fill in those gaps. In the first week we’re talking about everything from brainstorming and the creative thought process to character arcs and plotting. The second week will focus on things such as scene and sequel, texture, wasings, info dumping and synopses. It’s a six week course and I’m cramming as much into my students’ brains as I can.

There’s also the fact that you are investing in yourself and your career when you take these classes. Most businesses there has to be some training, which usually continues throughout your career. Writing is no different. We need the opportunity to learn new things, as well as refresher courses about things we should know but have perhaps forgotten.

I encourage you to go out and learn more about your craft. There’s never a time when you know too much.Find a good critique group. Attend writing workshops and conventions. But use your money wisely. Do your research and make sure there are great instructors with “real” experience in the business.

If you’re interested in the online class I’m teaching you can get to it through this link http://www.candacehavens.com/index.php/workshops/

Oh, and tell me about some writing classes that have rocked your world!

I have a hard time explaining characterization.  It’s because I’ve never really spent a lot of time thinking about it or trying to figure it out.  (Unlike plot, which I can talk endlessly about because I’ve had to pick it apart, analyze it, structure it, deconstruct it, work on it and rework on it endlessly.  It’s the thing I didn’t know how to do at all, so I had to learn it from the ground up.)

I don’t really work on my characters.  I don’t do character sketches.  I don’t make up questionnaires or charts listing my characters’ likes and dislikes.  I usually don’t know anything about them until I start writing.  Yet, consistently, my characters seem to turn out well.  And I’m not sure how I do it.

So if I’m trying to teach or explain characterization, if I don’t have any nifty tricks or metaphors, what do I do?

All I can really do is try to explain how I write characters:  Most of my stories start with an idea, which usually consists of a person in a situation:  a woman who’s the daughter of superheroes, a werewolf who’s a talk radio host.  The process of writing the story is figuring out how that person got into that situation, and what comes out of it.  The situation itself ends up defining the character:  only a certain kind of person would get into that situation.  What had to happen, what did that person have to do and be like to be in that position?  And how does that situation change that character?  Where is she likely to go next, based on the decisions she’s making in response to that situation?  It’s like an oil painting — you keep adding colors and layers until the picture shines through.  You plant seeds and watch them sprout.

Years ago, I wrote the thing that would eventually become the first Kitty short story, and it was going badly.  I had this conversation where two other characters were talking to each other in a confrontational manner, and my first-person viewpoint character — Kitty — was watching and thinking snarky things to herself.  And it was boring.  Nothing was happening.  Talking heads in the worst possible way.  Then I realized — a radio DJ would not be able to keep her mouth shut during this.

I went back and put quotation marks around all those snarky thoughts.

All of the sudden, she was involved, the other two characters were getting angry at her for being so rude, she was having to backpeddle and also explain that she was, you know, right.  That scene never made it into the final story or final book (that whole revision thing, you know).  But Kitty’s defining trait — her big mouth — was born.

In a class I taught once, I was discussing plot, character, and situations, and as an example I asked my audience to think about how Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark would be different if you swapped out Han Solo and Indiana Jones.  It’s a silly question on the surface — they seem like essentially the same character, both scruffy adventurers played by Harrison Ford.  But after just a little bit of thought, it was clear to us all:  Indiana Jones would have tipped the table over on Greedo, instigated a huge bar fight, and run rather that shoot first.  Han Solo would be the guy smuggling artifacts for the black market, not working as an anthropology professor.  Han Solo would never, ever say, “It belongs in a museum!”

If I had to describe how I write characters, I’d say, holistically.  Characters don’t really exist without the story around them.  How do I write characters?  The way they react to the story, and the traits that got them into the story in the first place, define them.

Memorable scenes offer something beyond words to the reader. They offer content.

As an author I tend to always be short on my wordcounts. My editors have been known to send my manuscripts back and say, “It’s too short. Make it longer.” I struggle with this mightily. Why? Because I absolutely HATE ‘filler words’. I also hate adding scenes to a story simply to hit a specific word count. Yes, I write erotic, and I hate gratuitous sex scenes. It frustrates me to end when a critique partner or editor tells me to add another sex scene to meet my word count. If I wrote thrillers I wouldn’t add another murder scene just to add pages, so why should I add more sex to do so?

Sure readers read erotic fiction because they like hot sex scenes, but any reader will tell you that the sex scenes mean nothing if there is no story, no connection to the characters. The same goes for any scene, in any book, in any genre. Each and every scene has to offer something for the reader or they are just words on a page.

As a reader I hate it when I find myself skimming a book. To me that means that scene offers nothing of value to the story, and it shouldn’t be there. As a writer I strive to make sure there are no scenes in my stories that readers want to skim. To me thats what make a fast paced, engrossing read. It’s like when you go to a movie and you really have to pee, but you don’t want to leave togo to the washroom because you know if you do you’re going to miss something important.

I want my books to be that way. Ok, so you can put the book down and go to the washroom, or work or whatever, and not miss anything, but thats because when you start reading you pick up where you left off. The point is that you don’t skim anything because every scene has meaning, and your so engrossed in the story that your eyes are glued to every page.

Those scenes that no one will skim over are what I call Dynamic Scenes.

So how do you write them? Each scene has to offer something to the reader. Think character development, story arc, and plot holes. Think action or reaction.

I find that the action or reaction way of thinking is a very simple way to view things, and I like simple. Figuring that every scene in my books needs to feature either action, or reaction to something thats happened in the story makes it very easy to decide if the scene should be there or not. As a non-plotter it works great to think that way. I write a scene with action, then write the reaction to it. Simple.

Please understand that ‘action’ doesn’t always mean fighting a bad guy or jumping off a cliff. Action is basically when something is happening or being done. Action is something that moves the story forward in some way. Action is change. Something is different at the end of the scene than it was at the beginning.

By that definition, yes if you have your character showering, shaving and ….in a scene then yes there is action there, but it is it really anything that reader needs to know? So for my purposes, action is defined as something important happening. Not something big, but something important or integral to the story. Understand the difference? (and yes, character development is integral to the story)

However, what if your story has multiple storylines and POV’s? It doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing. Every scene should have either an action, or a reaction at it’s core. This keeps the story moving, and helps you avoid the dreaded sagging middle.

Okay, let’s get specific.
Look at a scene from your WIP.
Is it an action scene? Is it a reaction scene? If it isn’t either of those, how would you categorize it? Can you categorize it? If you’re looking at your scene, and thinking, “Shit, this isn’t really action, and it’s not really reaction…” then chances are your scene is not a dynamic one. No worries. You’re going to make it a dynamic one.

If it’s not an action or reaction scene you need to think about where in the story this particular scene sits. Look at the scene before it and the scene after it. What are they? is one an action, and the other a reaction? Is your scene really needed? If it’s not needed, cut it out and paste it into a separate file. ( I always have a file called “WIP cuts” where I paste anything I think doesn’t quite fit, but I’m not quite ready to delete. You never know you might find a place for it later-with some tweaking) If it’s still needed but it’s not an action or reaction, then think about how to make it one. Don’t be afraid to cut words, or to add another layer that will make the scene an action or reaction. Personally, I’m more afraid of leaving in words that aren’t needed, and boring my readers.

People tell me all the time that there’s no way they can do my Fast Draft class where you write 20 pages a day for 14 days. They simply don’t have the time. But the truth is, they do. It might mean giving up the television, computer/video game playing, You might even have to give up a little sleep but it can be done. The truth is, if you type an average of 35 wpm you can do 20 pages in about 2 1/2 hours. I know that seems impossible but it’s true. I pulled a day from my calender in early November to show you just how I work my writing into a normal day for me. Now keep in mind I have  day job where I’m a film and TV critic, so I have to work that in too.

7 a.m.: Let the dogs out (they are my daily alarm)

7:10: Check through email for any urgent messages and answer

7:15 Run up for quick shower

7:45 Prepare for editorial discussion on what stories we’ll do for the day job

8:00 Decide on stories and who is doing what

8:15 Read through movie reviews in prep for radio show

8:30 Call into Dorsey Gang to do film reviews for KSCS

8:45 Prepare for interviews with Annie Potts and James Patterson

9:15 Idea for next chapter in current WIP. Write down notes.

9:38 Decide to go ahead and write a few pages so I don’t forget. 8 pages

10:45 Decide which classes to take for spring semester of Grad School

11:00 Register. Ugh. The online thing isn’t working have to email my advisor.

11:15 Kid calls with drama, but really just needs to talk to his mom

12:00 Starving and realize I forgot to eat breakfast (this almost never happens)

12:30 Work on school assignment and work on big paper that’s due soon

1:30 Prepare for Annie Potts interview by checking questions

1:35 While waiting for her to call at 2 decided to slip a few more pages in to novel. 3 pages.

2:10 Interview Annie Potts

2:30 Was on a roll before interview so write a few more pages. 5 pages.

3:30 Return calls and emails to publicists setting up other interviews

3:35 Look over James Patterson questions

3:38 While waiting for James to call I write some more pages. 2 pages.

4:10 Interview James Patterson (work hard to keep fan girl at bay)

4:40 Tweet about how cool JP is

5:00 Remember I have a Love and Other Drugs screening that night make dinner arrangements for the evening

5:15 Put make up on and change into real clothes

5:30 Have 30 mins before I have to go

5:31 Write 2 more pages

6:00 Dinner plans

7:30 Film screening (admire Jake Gyllenhaal’s nakedness)

10:00 Home again. Check through emails.

10:15 Complete homework assignment for school

11:30 Count up pages and realize I’ve done my 20 pages, but characters won’t shut up so I decide to finish scene and end up writing 10 more pages

1:30 Bed

I’ve had to teach myself to write in “moments.” I leave myself notes and I can write anywhere on anything. I’ve written half a chapter on paper napkins, and I’ve done it more than once. The idea is to just do it and stop making excuses.

Someone asked me to blog about how to write hot, and my first thought was, “No Problem. I can do that.”

When I sat down to start writing it, I started to really think about how I did it. The thing is, I’ve never really thought about how to write hot. Sure I can tell you to build the tension between your characters by keeping them apart while they lust after each other. I could tell you to be sure to use all the senses when writing a sex scene, scent, touch, and sound so that you can bring the reader into the experience… Those are the things I would’ve expounded on a coupel of years ago when New York publishing houses started building erotic lines and so many writers jumped on the bandwagon. Instead of giving you tips on what to do to heat up your writing, I’m going to I’m going to give my opinion -as a reader and a writer -on what NOT to do if you want to write truly hot stories.

1) Don’t mistake quantity for quality.
Having a sex scene in every chapter doesn’t make a story erotic. Haveing a sex scene that runs 5-10 pages doesn’t make that sex scene hot.

2) Shock value isn’t hot, it’ s shocking. Pushing the envelope for the sake of pushing the envelope turns the story into something about you, the author, instead of something about the characters and what they are feeling or experiencing. That’s not hot. It’s irritating.

3) More is not always merrier. Be it partners or orgasms, multiples don’t in and of themselves, make things hotter.

Now, I’m not saying that’s these things can’t BE sexy, just that they alone are not what makes a story erotic. Passion and emotion are what make scenes and stories hot and erotic, and if you want to write hot, you can’t forget that.

Time and again it’s said that what makes a story great is character. Erotic fiction isn’t any different than every other genre when it comes to what makes it great. Well developed, three dimensional characters are the key to a great story, and to making your stories erotic.

If you want to write hot then you need to understand that erotic stories are about more than the mechanics of sex. They’re about characters having sex. *grin* And if the readers don’t feel the characters emotions, they won’t find anything those characters do erotic.

So, my advice to those authors who want to steam up their stories is to focus on making their characters real, then what the characters feel (desire, arousal, need, love) the reader will believe it, and the story will be hot.

Just for fun, (and to make you think) tell me about something you read recently, or saw in a movie or on a tv show, that you thought was hot. Was it overt and in your face, or envelope pushing? Or was it subtle, perhaps emotional?