CommentsI take classes and workshops, all the time. I feel fortunate that the Twin Cities is home to the The Loft Literary Center (www.loft.org), which always has a great selection of workshops, classes and readings that you can take in person rather than online to feel that sense of community. It was in a Loft class with Kathleen Eagle and Mary Bracho (w/a Ana Seymour) that I punched up the opening chapters of my GH finalist, UNDERBELLY. I also read, read, read – incessantly and broadly – analyzing technique while enjoying the story. Tamara, I take the occassional on-line class, but it’s so easy to ignore them. I never miss my local chapter’s meeting and workshops. Live is just the best. You are so lucky to have such a great resource for knowledge. My problem…I’m a slow reader. If I can knock a book out in two weeks I’m lucky. No time. I’d rather be writing. Kelly, I do not have one mail order bride story… not one! Okay, you got me, Donnell. I might be a little crass, flippant, and snarky in real life. But I try to make my characters brave and adventurous – neither of which I am.  Elise Hayes says: My most recent creative muscle-building has involved analyzing Joanna Bourne’s work. I hadn’t read her before, but Elisa Beatty and several other Ruby Sisters kept referring to her, so I bought several of her books a few weeks ago and have been just blown away. AMAZING books. If you haven’t read her before, DO SO. I know lots of people who advocate analyzing other writers’ books, but that technique had never really worked for me. For some reason, with Joanna Bourne’s work it really does. I find myself flipping through her books to see how she handles body language, introducing characters, POV–all things that I’m working on right now. It’s been extraordinarily helpful and has inspired me to crack back open the first 100 pages of my wip to revise completely how I introduce the heroine. I read my first Harlequin romance about, oh, a little over two years ago. It made me understand POV. I thought I could switch with every paragraph. Elise Hayes says: I’ll admit that I do love switching POV, although I usually try to limit the head hopping since I know it’s a hot-button issue for a lot of people. But what’s new to me in terms of thinking about POV is focusing on expressing the thoughts and feelings of the POV character *as they would think/feel it,* instead of in my own voice as a writer. I hadn’t realized until recently how much of what I wrote was in my language, my voice–and not the voices of my characters. Changing that to be true to my character’s POV (their vocabulary, their images, their way of looking at the world) has been tough, but already really rewarding–I can feel the difference in my current wip. There’s a power to it that I’ve never achieved in my earlier manuscripts. So it’s working . . . it’s just slow! (a very new, still flabby muscle that I’m exercising) In a way, writing has changed the way I read. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have noticed (or been bothered by) a change of POV mid scene. Now I am so aware, it bothers me. Not because it’s wrong, because what’s so wrong about it anyhow? I’m just aware and it yanks me out. But I really want to write something that I allow myself to change POV within a scene. Someday. Now I stick with one POV per scene, although probably half of what I write in first person. My creative muscle is at the moment flabby and un-exercised like the rest of my body. When I have time off from house reno and decluttering my house, I’ll read to get my creative juices flowing again. Right now, it just ain’t happenin’. It’s just too bad I’ve lost my ability to multi-task and I have a ms sitting at the 9/10 complete stage. Oh, no! I have a fear of finishing anything. Probably because once a book is finished it has to be submitted, read, critiqued, judged, rejected. Plus, the sun has been out, and I find I need to abandon the writing to pull weeds before the rains return. It’s rough with jobs and yards and family. Life is like juggling, and I’m dropping balls everywhere. I would like to exercise my creative muscle by reading someone’s futuristic mail order bride book. Sounds awesome! Otherwise I guess I’ll just keep exercising it in my sleep with all those insane dreams I have Jody, beware! That’s how it starts…with a dream that turns into a nagging nightmare. Plotting replaces sleep and you start writing in a journal you keep hidden under your pillow. Your husband starts to worry about his safety when you begin taking online classes on poison, serial killers, and infidelity investigations for PIs. “Be afraid,” I tell him. “Be very afraid.” Wow — I think my first story’s a lot like yours … but without the snarky heroine. For some reason, mine are always way too nice and spectacularly unlucky in love. (Guess they’re all more like I am than I want to admit.) But I wrote it back in 1998-99 before I knew anything about POV, head-hopping or much of anything else. I just wanted to tell the story of a reporter who thought she wanted her coworker but ended up falling for a social studies teacher instead. Thankfully for me, Pleasant Lake was in first person POV. Hard to screw up. No head hopping. But aren’t we all a little unlucky in love? I mean we are dealing with men. How lucky can we get?  Elisa Beatty says: ROTFL, Kelly. Hi Kelly! Popping over to say Hi. I must say, my editor’s suggestions for Lily in Wonderland really made the story better. I wanted Lily to be fearless, laughing in the face of danger, but my editor pointed out that the reader couldn’t be afraid for her if she wasn’t afraid for herself (and Vivi seconded that – thanks Vivi). I think they were right. I’m sooooooo glad you stopped by Darlene. It’s nice to see my local chapter mates.  Liz Talley says: This is true. In my current wip, my heroine does bold things because she thinks that’s who she is – a ballbuster. But inside she realizes she as scared and vulnerable as the rest of the world. So your heroine can be ballsy and snarky as long as underneath she’s as doubtful as the rest of us. Or at least that’s what I think. Right now my creative muscle is straining under the weight of this ms I’m trying to finish. LOL. I look back at all the books I’ve written and I see something different in each of them. I mean, they fall under the same genre, but I’ve got a serious, family oriented one, a sexy, humorous one, a dark and gritty one, etc. I’d like to think that I’m exercising my creative muscle that way…trying out different styles and seeing which resonates with me the most. I love to move from genre to genre, seeing what fits best, but I do have elements that I can’t shake…like water. What’s with that? I love the lake, river, ocean setting. They are in all my writings. And humor. I’m not sure I can write something serious. I can’t not do humor, either. I tried, once … and the result is something I’ll probably never finish. The hero has a miserable childhood and is still hardly more than a child himself (they’re both in college), but he and the heroine end up married, with twins and desperately unhappy. I know to finish the story, I’ll have to break them up — and potentially never get them back together, because they’re no good together. I experimented with the serious side – once. My heroine has a deep dark secret. I still don’t know what it is. Needless to say, I never finished it. But it was still kinda funny in parts. I *love* snark and no-holds-barred – which might be why I’ve run up against the “unsympathetic heroine” comment more than once myself. I have to give myself permission to suck before I can flex my creative muscle. No regimented classes or personal trainers for me – just letting things fly. (And then fixing all the mess-ups in the second draft – which for me is less creative and more Rules, Rules, Rules.) And I’m so psyched Pleasant Lake PD has found a home! That book rocks my socks. Me too! Can’t wait to get started on patching the holes in my leaking manuscript. But, I have a hard time cutting, repairing, and fixing. I’m a layerer. I love to add. Hate to subtract. Each word is precious. I’m obsessed by word count.  Shea Berkley says: I have a snarky heroine or two. Why when women give attitude they’re mean wenches, but when men give it they’re sexy alpha guys? I hate that when the author obviously has a great sense of humor, but they bestow it entirely on the guy. Girls can be funny too. Shea Berkley says: I love to experiment with my writing. So I’ve written stories in third person using multiple POVs to straight forward first person POV and stories that use past tense to stories that use present tense or a combination of the pair. And then there’s structure. How about laying out my chapters in a strict 2(heroine POV) to 1(hero POV) chapter layout? Or how about combining a chicklit-minded heroine with a horror-minded hero? Or how about if I write a story beginning with just one word … like onion, and have that word play a major role in the book? I can see the frowns. Why on earth would I do all this? That’s easy. To see if I can, and if I’ll like the outcome. It challenges me, and I love a challenge. But when it’s all said and done, I know I make writing a wee bit harder than it’s supposed to be, but it’s kinda fun that way … at least it is for me, and it’s how I inspire myself. There is nothing more boring than treading the same path, over and over and over again. I have started a first person POV all in the Hero’s POV. Why? Why not? It just made sense. Call me crazy (please don’t – it’s just a figure of speech), but that’s the way the story wanted to be written. Now I do sound crazy. I have always bonded better with men than women. I am surrounded by them at work. Sometimes I think I write men better than I do women. Sometimes I think my heroines are a little too manish. And I like for them to save themselves, and the hero too while they’re at it.  Rita says: “Unsympathetic heroine” – boy have I heard that one. And “I like for them to save themselves, and the hero too while they’re at it.” YES!!! Oh, God. This is a perfect post for me. I’ve started my next book and 125 pages into it I’m thinking way I can’t write her this way, thinking these thoughts, GASP loving two men. The RULES. They can’t bend for me. Sigh, but that is the way the story goes. What do I do? Scape it? I love the story. I was told by a multi-published, NY Times best selling author who judged my manuscript that I could not have 2 love interests. Whatever! Move over. This is the 21st century. What’s wrong with a gal having choices? Isn’t that what life is all about? Choices? Right? A fork in the road of life. Does she go right, or does she go left? Elisa Beatty says: If you want to write erotica, there’s a goodly market for two love interests (kinda at the same time, but still….) And Jennifer Haymore’s recent historical romance A Hint of Wicked has a dual-love-interest premise (heroine believes first husband is dead, remarries, then first husband returns…she genuinely loves them both). What about Gone WIth The Wind, Even though Scarlet didn’t admit she loved Brett until the end. I can’t write erotica, and I don’t find anything romantic about a three-way. Sexy maybe, but not romantic. Two worthy guys is what I’m talking about.  Darynda Jones says: Great blog, Kelly!!! I do all of the above as well. It seems the more I write, the more I want to write. It’s so addictive. And the more I want to write, the more ideas come barreling toward me 24/7. I love it! My head explodes with ideas. Some of them are not big enough ideas to fill an entire manuscript, but I jot them all down and add to them when another idea comes to me. I’m late, I’m late! Great post, Kelly. I love to experiment with my writing as well–just to see what I can get away with. I especially love starting a new manuscript with some kind of weird opening line and then seeing if I can write my way out of it, lol. I know, I’m strange. But it’s so much fun. Hi Kelly and Co, RE: Switching POV every paragraph, Kelly: You CAN do it IF you do it very well . I LOVE breaking the “rules” and getting away with it ’cause you do it so well that nobody realizes you’ve broken one of their sacred “rules”. Sound a little cynical? W-E-L-L- perhaps I am. Re voice: You should be thrilled that you have a strong, identifiable voice. Voice is what makes a writer special and distinguishes her from the pack–not that we are all a pack of wolves or anything . . . Fear of finishing??? Hmmm now this I can’t identify with at all. I’m the strange animal that can’t wait to finish and LOVES LOVES LOVES to revise! I can’t wait to see how people like or interpret my story. Submitting, being judged . . . that’s the fun part to me. Yes, I do realize I’m a little odd in that. INTERESTING observation that gave me pause and made me think: “The reader couldn’t be afraid for her if she wasn’t afraid herself.” I’ll have to remember that, though, as every character has a bit of me in him/her and I am a little insecure and neurotic, I’m sure the fearing for self isn’t a problem for my characters . And I too have always bonded better with men than women–though as I age, I’m getting closer to my women friends and acquiring more of them. Hmm I wonder if it’s the waning estrogen that gives menopausal women a little more manly traits that speak to me??? Thanks for the conversation, Kelly!  Laurie Kellogg says: Sorry to be so late! I’m most creative when I’m lying in bed first thing in the morning and letting my mind wander.
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Thoughtful post. Our characters do have to resonate with us somewhat, they’re a part of us, eg they have our knowledge of vocabulary or our ability to diminish said vocabulary. But if you’re quick witted I think it shows in your work, and that it’s not a fluke. Perhaps that’s why your GH win did so well and made it to publication. Snarkiness in books isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s when it’s used in the wrong venue it becomes problematic; would you agree? And I love having friends all over the world. It’s kept me sane in this writing business to find people who relate. Off to water my house plants, thanks for the reminder
Kelly- I love it that you let it all fly with Pleasant Lake P.D.! A “trail of catastrophic relationships,” “crass, flippant, and snarky,” “no holds barred, in your face, over the top expression of my creativity”…all that sounds great to me! (And clearly I’m not alone!)
Inner editors are a bitch, though, of course…especially when they’re worried that other people will judge us personally for what we’ve revealed of our “true” selves.
I think we all need a sort of Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde split personality: let Dr. Jekyll write the first draft, and bring Mr. Hyde in only AFTERWARDS to tidy up a bit.
I was a little shocked when I went to my first local RWA meeting and the speaker said the reader must like your heroine, and I was like “Uh oh. Is that written in stone?” But everyone has a story, even misfits.
Amen, sister.