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All About hramsay
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Connect with Hope
Hope's Fun Facts
Hometown:Great Neck, NY Age: 57 GH Year(s) 2009 & 2010 Completed Manuscript(s) Too many to count Genre(s): Romance and Fantasy Started Writing: In 2nd Grade Day Job: Consultant & Author |
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The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood
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Blog Posts from Hope
How NOT to Write a SeriesPosted by Hope Ramsay Apr 10 2012, 12:01 am in Hope Ramsay, Last Chance, series, setting, world building When my Ruby Sisters asked me to blog about writing a book series, I stupidly agreed. Then I realized that I didn’t set out to write a series. I just blundered into it. It started when I decided to write a novel set in the small South Carolina town where I spent my childhood summers. No, it was not Last Chance. It was a place named Denmark. The book I wrote was titled Stealing Home. Unfortunately it didn’t go over well with editors and I collected dozens of rejections. A wise person would have stopped right then. Not me. I decided to write a Rom Com retelling of Cinderella featuring a heroine named Caroline Rhodes who comes from Denmark, SC. I didn’t want to do the whole step-sister thing, so I gave my heroine three funny brothers: Stone, Clay and Tulane Rhodes. Sadly the book, For Love or Money was not well liked by New York editors either. So, did I give up? Of course not. Caroline had brothers, right? So I wrote another Rom Com about NASCAR driver Tulane and a pink race car. This book was not even remotely set in Denmark, and it garnered some really nasty rejections. Surely by now I really should have given up. But no. There were more brothers. So I trotted out Clay and penned Welcome to Last Chance. This book was entirely set in my small town, and I changed the name of the place in order to give me more flexibility in creating a somewhat humorous world. And of course I went back and “borrowed” a bunch of characters from between the pages of previous attempts. I knew the minute I finished this book that it was the best thing I had ever written. But I couldn’t get any agents or publishers to look at it. No one was buying contemporary romance. So I finally put that book on the shelf (without any rejections) and gave up on Last Chance. I moved on to seriously writing fantasy. Flash forward five years (and ten years after writing the first book set in Denmark). In 2009, I decided to enter all three of my now-dusty “southern” romances in the Golden Heart. To my astonishment, For Love or Money finaled, making me a Ruby Sister and giving me a chance to pitch my often rejected stories one last time. The wonderful agent, Elaine English, took me on. She read all three books and sat me down at the RWA meeting that year and said, “Welcome to Last Chance is exactly the kind of small town story that editors are looking for these days, but the other two have to be completely rewritten so that the action takes place in the town. The books need a common setting, because the setting is almost like a continuing character. And you need a series arc too.” I stared at her like she’d dropped in from Mars. “Series Arc? What the heck is that? The heroes are siblings. Isn’t that enough?” She shook her head. “No. You need a narrative that ties the individual books together.” “Uh huh.” I nodded and smiled like I knew what the heck she was talking about. I went back to the drawing board and spent a couple of months trying to wrap my brain about this whole series arc thing. Finally I came up with a plot line that moves from book to book. It involves a seven-year-old girl, Haley, with an imaginary (and somewhat sorrowful) angel. This little girl’s story goal is to get the angel back to Heaven. I had to rewrite parts of Welcome to Last Chance to insert this story, and then a magical thing happened. Haley’s story became a driving point for the stories in the remaining books. As I wrote their synopses, the existence of the series arc made the story arcs in each book just a little bit easier to figure out. Haley’s problem gets steadily worse in each book, and reaches a crisis in the last book where it is resolved. The resolution of the series arc is so tightly intertwined with the romance plot in the fourth book that they are almost indistinguishable. I pitched my agent. She loved it. She went out and sold it. So, if you’ve been paying attention here are the takeaways:
So, I hope I’ve saved you from making all the mistakes I made as I discovered that I was writing a series. If you have questions or suggestions, please comment away. An Author’s Guide to Geeky “Social” StuffPosted by Hope Ramsay Dec 16 2011, 12:01 am in author promotion, Facebook, social media, Twitter Whether you are a published or soon-to-be published author, the chances are pretty good that you’ve already been thinking about social networking. If you’re a published author, your publisher has probably insisted that you do this. If you’re an indie author, knowing this stuff can make a huge difference in building readership. If you’re pre-published, [...] The Seven Paragraph SynopsisPosted by Hope Ramsay Nov 10 2011, 12:01 am in craft, plotting, synopsis, writing tips Synopses are evil. When faced with the prospect of writing one, perfectly competent authors have been known to quake in their boots, hide under the bed, or indulge in M&M binges. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Tips for Improving Your First 50 PagesPosted by Hope Ramsay Sep 19 2011, 12:01 am in craft, writing tips Summer is over and it’s the season for authors to be dusting off manuscripts, entering contests, and sending off partials to editors and agents. That being the case — and also because I have spent the last week judging Golden Pen entries — I thought I would pass along a few tips for improving the [...] Writing a Big Black MomentPosted by Hope Ramsay Aug 9 2011, 12:01 am in black moment, craft, writing tips I always get stuck at end of a book. Every darn time. I cannot tell you how many endings I’ve had to redraft — more than once. With this boatload of failure as my guide, I figure I’m the perfect person to write a blog on the topic of the BBM — the big black [...]
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books from Hope
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Hope Ramsay was born in New York and grew up on Long Island, but every summer Momma would pack her off under the care of Aunt Aunt Annie to go visiting with relatives in the midlands of South Carolina. Her extended family includes its share of colorful aunts and uncles, as well as cousins by the dozens, who provide the fodder for the characters you'll find in Last Chance, South Carolina. She is a two-time Golden Heart finalist and is married to a good ol' Georgia boy who resembles every single one of her heroes. She has two grown children and a couple of demanding lap cats. She lives in Virginia where you can often find her on the back deck, picking on her thirty-five-year-old Martin guitar.
