Romance

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Justine: What to Give Your Book-Loving Mom on Mother’s Day

happy mothers dayDon’t worry! You haven’t missed Mother’s Day…it will be celebrated in the US and 84 other countries on Sunday, May 12th (so you still have time to get a gift or send a card!). Almost every country in the world celebrates Mother’s Day; however, not all on the same day.

Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 by West Virginian Anna Jarvis, in memory of her mother, who had died a year earlier. Although Jarvis pushed for a national holiday, it was until 1914 that US President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

However, Jarvis would come to resent the holiday… Continue reading →

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Justine: Making Your “Alpha Male” More Like Nature’s Alpha Males

We all know what sort of man an alpha male is…strong, usually buff, definitely tough, and the one who gives orders, not takes them. He typically gets what he wants when he wants it, and if he’s threatened, he’ll go up against that threat, even if it means getting physical.

The trope of the alpha male is alive and well in many romances these days. But is that what nature intended when she created alpha males? Continue reading →

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Justine: Slow Burn in Romance

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This past Sunday, Jilly brought up a “blunder” with her recent contest entry. She’s writing a romance, but the relationship between her H&H is a slow burn. However, she got dinged by a few of the judges because there was little evidence of romance in her story (at least the first 50 or so pages) and none in her synopsis, yet this was a contest for romance writers.

I find it coincidental that Jilly got this feedback recently, because I’ve just read two books by Sarah MacLean (in her new Scandal and Scoundrel series) and one by Lenora Bell where there isn’t much evidence of romance right off the bat, either. Yet Continue reading →

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Michille: Read-A-Romance Month

August isRARM-2016-square-300x297 Read-A-Romance Month. What is that? According to the website it “was conceived and launched in 2013 by freelance writer and romance advocate Bobbi Dumas, after she realized there was no one place where the community celebrated romance all together, at one time, in a concentrated way. Read-A-Romance Month is cross-publisher and cross-genre, and represents a broad spectrum of authors and books.”  Continue reading →

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Justine: Fiction Fundamentals…Setting

Welcome to the fifth installment of Fiction Fundamentals. In this issue…Setting.

How would you describe this street? What are you writing? Who is your character? That and more will affect your description.

How would you describe this street? What are you writing? Who is your character? That and more will affect your description.

Setting serves an important purpose to ground the reader. It’s hard to get into a story when you don’t know where the character is or at what point in time the story takes place.

Margie Lawson maintains that within the first paragraph or two of every chapter or scene, you need to inform the reader of setting. Sometimes this isn’t necessary. If you start off each chapter with the location and year (for example, “London, March 1815”), then we have a pretty good idea of the where and when.

But establishing setting is more than just the where and when. There are Continue reading →

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Justine: Books for Mother’s Day

mothersdayThis week I’m taking a break from the Fiction Fundamentals posts to talk about moms and books. May 8th was Mother’s Day in the US and 84 other countries. Almost every country in the world celebrates Mother’s Day; however, not all on the same day.

Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 by West Virginian Anna Jarvis, in memory of her mother, who had died a year earlier. Although Jarvis pushed for a national holiday, it was until 1914 that US President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

However, Jarvis would come to resent the holiday… Continue reading →

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Justine: Fiction Fundamentals, Part 3: Conflict (2nd Installment)

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Conflict? Mmm…perhaps. (Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin in “The Princess Bride” (c) 1987 Act III Communications)

Welcome to Part 3 of Fiction Fundamentals. In Part 1, I discussed character goals. In Part 2, I covered a character’s Motivation…the “why” of what they want to do in your story. Last time, in the first of a two-parter, I talked about the Big Enchilada that ties it all together and makes for a good read: Conflict.

This week, I’m delving a bit deeper. I’ll discuss scene- vs. story-level conflict, the difference between conflict and trouble, and those pesky “misunderstandings.”

Scene-Level (or “Mini”) Conflict

Let’s be clear about one thing: conflict must be in each scene in your book. Every. Single. One. However, that doesn’t mean the conflict had to be between your protag and antag relative to their goals, nor does it have to be massive, big-stakes stuff. It can be smaller. Call it mini-conflict, or that which does not directly affect your character’s goals. Said another way:

The conflict in each scene doesn’t have to be directly related to the protag or antag’s stated goal.

Here’s why: Continue reading →

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Justine: Fiction Fundamentals, Part 3: Conflict (First Installment)

conflict wordWelcome to Part 3 of Fiction Fundamentals. In Part 1, I discussed character goals. Last time, in Part 2, I covered a character’s Motivation…the “why” of what they want to do in your story.

This installment (the first of two) is about the Big Enchilada that ties it all together and makes for a good read: Conflict.

Before getting into the meat of this, let’s set some expectations about conflict:

  1. Conflict is necessary in commercial fiction. Period. No conflict? No story. People don’t want to read about characters who get what they want with no issues or impediments. They want to see characters suffer and earn their rewards.
  2. Conflict is a struggle to reach a goal and should have the reader wondering whether or not the character will achieve it.
  3. Conflict is bad things happening to good and bad
  4. Conflict must be clear, but not overwhelming. It can be too big/too much, drowning your reader in seemingly insurmountable problems.
  5. Conflict doesn’t necessarily have to be one person pitted against another. Sometimes the conflict is circumstances.

Debra Dixon, in “GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict,” makes it very clear:

“If conflict makes you uncomfortable or you have difficulty wrecking the lives of your characters, you need to consider another line of work. In commercial fiction you need strife, tension, dissension, and opposition. If you omit these elements, you won’t be able to sustain the reader’s attention. Even in romance novels – known for their happy endings, sufficient conflict must exist to make the reader doubt the happily-ever-after.”

The net-net? Continue reading →

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Kay: Love Between the Covers

Love between the coversPerhaps you’ve heard of Love Between the Covers.  It’s an 84-minute documentary film by Emmy award-winning director Laurie Kahn, released in 2015, about the romance industry. She looks at the history, popularity, and even the business of romance readers and writers—from how romance fiction outsells all other genres of writing, to why it’s dismissed as frivolous. It’s a funny and inspiring look into a billion-dollar industry, fueled by writers who push the discussion on gender, race, sexuality, and diversity.

Romance fiction has received serious attention from academics in the last few years—from conferences at Princeton to the University of San Diego—because, as Jayne Ann Krenz says in the film, popular fiction upholds the culture’s core values. And many readers credit reading romance when they talk about overcoming the stresses of illness, divorce, loss of a loved one—even abuse and violence. That’s serious therapy.

Love Between the Covers has been reviewed from Library Journal to Hollywood Reporter, and now the film has been highlighted at RH Reality Check, a daily publication that provides news, commentary, and analysis on sexual and reproductive health and justice issues. Written by Eleanor J. Bader, a teacher, freelance writer, and activist from Brooklyn, NY, the article discusses “How Romance Novels ‘Imagine a World in Which Women Can Win.’” It’s inspiring to think that an organization that fights for sexual and reproductive health can see the value of romance fiction—a world in which, as Jenny Crusie says in the film, “women can have sex without dying.” Check out the article here.

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Justine: The Easy Answer is Often Hard to Find

magnifying glassSo, just a warning for you…this post is deliberately short. I’m sorry to disappoint in case you were hankering for a thousand-worder, but I have a point to make and it won’t take long to do it. My point?

Sometimes the EASY answer is HARD to FIND!

An example: I have been stressing for months now that my book is WRONG in the eyes of the Historical Police. No matter how much I wish it otherwise, Susannah could not marry Nate (for real or pretend) without it being null and void from the get-go. And everyone would know it.

Here’s why: Continue reading →