Subtext: There's Something Else in There Under the Words

After you've got your fast draft down, it's time to start thinking of adding subtext to your story.

So what exactly is it?

Subtext is craft under-the-craft. It's what you, the author, consciously does to manipulate your story to keep your reader excited about your story. It's tension above and beyond what you are creating with your plot.

Subtext is a little complicated, but also a lot of fun. It's the little things we do with our words to keep our reader in a constant state of questioning, of wanting more of our story and our characters.

It's kind of what keeps our reader in suspense, a little off kilter...

(freefoto.com, image #14-19-53,)

Here goes...

I'm not really sure when I learned what subtext is. Like most things, you might read about something but not really "get" it until much later.

I'm still not sure I've "got it," but I think I'm starting to understand it better.

It takes a lot of experience to master subtext, because it requires a lot of conscious manipulating of the text to keep the reader asking questions, wondering what's going to happen next, etc.

Elizabeth Lyon, in her book Writing Subtext, says "Teachers, agents, and editors often tell writers that every story should be about 'the thing and the other thing.' Two sources of tension and suspense:  from plot and from subtext. What is overt and what is covert. If there are multiple things happening between the lines, then you have that many more sources of tension, subterranean focus, thematic possibilities, and character motivations."

So subtext is another level of meaning the operates under the plot. It's multiple layers of meaning under the words. According to Wikipedia, it's (and this is paraphrased) "content that's not announced explicitly."

Subtext takes thought, planning, and revision on the part of the author to consciously place it there, under the events that are going on in the story. Lyon likens it to being an illusionist, who does things with one hand while surprising you with something happening in the other.

Subtext plays a big part in foreshadowing what might happen next in the story. It takes the form of  subtle hints keep your readers on their toes and keep them turning pages.

Here are some examples:


--Using subtext to develop character by creating hidden agendas and motives. A man may bring coffee every morning to his grandmother. Neighbors think he's the best grandson ever. But maybe he's not. Maybe what he's really doing is trying to catch the attention of Gran's hot next door neighbor. Or casing out her house so he can rob it when she's on vacation. The subtle clues you drop through this character's point of view that hint to one reason or the other--that's subtext.

--Nature--e.g., a downpour erupts at the black moment. Okay, that is pretty cliche. Let's try another:  hero is driving through the hot, dry, dead-looking desert, desert reflects the barrenness in his life. You've used nature to reflect a feeling going on inside the character.

--Discordant details. When a detail is introduced that is discordant to all the others, it can signal something. One tiny green sprout in the middle of that cracked dry landscape might signal hope.

--Sexual attraction:  Two characters may "hate" each other but they may do subtle things that give away their attraction for one another. For example, one makes an embarrassing Freudian slip. Blurts out something unexpected. Your heroine may get caught checking out the hero's backside. These things create an undercurrent of sexual tension beneath their protests that they hate one another. Your reader knows they don't really hate one another--and bigger things are coming.

--Subtext foreshadowing danger. Creepy things a villain might say can foreshadow menace to your character. An unease your character might feel might lead you to believe something bad is going to happen to him/her. A change in the weather for the worse can reflect the dangerous story mood.

--When the reader knows something the character doesn't. This leads us to keep reading to find out  when the character is going to find out, will he or she be okay, etc.

--Symbols can be used in all kinds of ways to reinforce theme. I've mentioned weather above. Cutting a rope can symbolize freedom. An old Victorian house that my heroine loves and is associated with strong memories of her youth can symbolize her dreams and wishes for happiness and a real home. An old necklace a heroine wears intentionally to remind herself of an awful past can remind her she is never, ever going back there. (There are many ways to use symbols throughout your story to support theme, this is just a tiny taste.)

 --Subtext in dialogue. Two characters are talking about one thing, when they are really talking about something else. In a romance novel, this undercurrent can be sexual.

This dialogue example is from my current manuscript. Hero and heroine were hight school sweethearts. It's now ten years later and they have lots of reasons not to get along. The hero has come to the heroine's place to make amends and has just run into her father leaving. This is dialogue between the hero and heroine right after her dad leaves:

Brad threw his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I come bearing coffee. And I came to apologize for being so…”

“Judgmental?”

He exhaled. “Yes. Judgmental. I’m sorry.”

His quirked-up smile looked sexy, not sorry. “Then what’s so funny?”

"I just find it hard to believe your father still wants to kill me after all these years.”

“He senses what you did to me way back then.” 

“Take you to prom?” Brad asked innocently.

Olivia's cheeks flushed. “As I recall, we did a little more than just go to prom together.” They stood in the doorway. She was blocking Brad’s way into the house,  and she wasn't sure if she should move. The conversation seemed headed into dangerous territory.

He stepped closer. She could smell his soap and the lingering scent of menthol shaving cream. 

“Let’s see, I believe you’re right,” he said, pretending to scratch his chin thoughtfully. “We also attended senior picnic and the canoe trip. The canoe trip was especially fun.”

“We got lost and ended up alone in the rapids.”

“See what I mean? Once we navigated the rapids, it was just me, you, and that canoe. Especially fun.” Brad waggled his eyebrows.

“As I recall, riding the rapids wasn’t the biggest thrill that day.”  

“No, Sweetness, they weren't.” His gaze traveled slowly up and down her body, sending prickles of awareness pinging at the back of her neck.

In this example, I imply but never explicitly state what happened on that long-ago field trip, but you get a good idea from what is not said.

--The most important use of subtext is to reinforce the theme of your story. The objects, colors, weather and seasons, repeated words or phrases, many of these special details you specifically choose, should all contribute to the underlying meaning you wish to convey. If your theme is about forgiveness, the hero jumping into a clear, cold stream and feeling revived and alive can support this theme. Or in reverse, the heroine's hair getting caught on an unforgiving branch can be a subtle hint about theme in reverse.

Told you that was a little complex, but worth it trying to understand that there is so much more to writing a story than what's going on in the plot.

Off the top of your head, can you think of any examples of subtext from something you've just read?

(If you know of any books that address subtext, please feel free to suggest! The one below is a booklet.)

Source:  Writing Subtext:  How to craft subtext that develops characters, boosts suspense, and reinforces theme, by Elizabeth Lyon, 2013.

Does Routine Unleash Creativity?

I 've been wondering if there is some way to enhance creativity. To free your mind so that it can imagine endless scenarios and ideas that would make plotting easier.

<Chorkle.>

Easier? That's funny. I'm old enough to know nothing, absolutely nothing, in life is easy.

(Well, maybe for some people but I'm just talking about most of us under the bell curve here.)

I've been given the suggestions of mind-altering drugs, alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, yoga, journaling, or meditation, but I'm not sure there is an easy answer.

Twyla Tharp, in her classic book The Creative Habit, gives us some clues to the dilemma of creative work when she says, "If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and why the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge."

And skill is learnable. But it's hard work.

We have a saying in my family. "Hard work trumps talent unless talent works hard."

This is optimistic. It means that if you are not born with Supertalents, you can still succeed.

So none of us knows how good we can be, how far we can go. All we can do is give it our all every day and stick to our routines and keep working.

Tharp expounds the benefits of routine, hard work, determination, commitment, and constant hard work in any artistic profession where you first must find out what problem you are going to solve and then set about figuring out how you are going to solve it.

She feels that routine is as much of the creative process or even more than the lightning bolt of inspiration that may or may not come, or comes as it may. But it's a lot more likely to come if we sit in our chairs and keep struggling.

The uncertainty of the creative process often leads to living in a state of constant anxiety which many famous writers have used mind-altering substances to relieve.

So we don't want to go there. But I love Tharp's optimism, that with hard work and passion we can go forward, bold and fearless, to accomplish despite the presence of fear.

So does this mean that creativity get released, paradoxically, when we build the strictest of routines to house it?

It reminds me of something my mom and dad used to say a lot. "Just do your best." And I'll add something that was circulating on Facebook a while ago, "and try not to suck."

Twyla Tharp. The Creative Habit:  Learn It and Use It for Life. Simon and Shuster, 2003.

Don't Forget Your Second Banana: Secondary Characters in Your Novel

Quick, think about the last book you've just loved. The one you've told all your friends about. You probably have a lot of reasons why you love it, but let's focus on just one.

The heroine's (or hero's) second banana (s). Their BFF's. Their sidekicks. Their adversaries.

Secondary characters are often orphans, i.e., neglected by their creators. Put in place so that the hero or heroine can accomplish some story goal. In other words, secondary characters are often underdeveloped and boring.

I mean, we spend so much time on our main characters, getting them just right, and that is an exhausting process. 

Think back on that beloved book I just asked you about. One that immediately comes to mind for me is Tracy Brogan's Crazy Little Thing, which I adored on about a hundred different levels. That book is still circulating around my Jazzercise class (since September). I will probably never see it again, but that's okay. The thing is, my friends and I are still talking about two characters in that book, the heroine Sadie's fantastic cousin Fontaine and her totally eccentric Aunt Dody. They are complex, three-dimensional, crazy characters who clearly touched our hearts. 

In Jen Probst's The Marriage Bargain, the heroine Alexa's best friend Maggie is not on scene very much but you can't help loving her when she is. Her personality shines from the page. (No wonder she got her own book :)

I looked for some wisdom from Donald Maass's The Fire in Fiction to help answer the question, what makes these secondary characters memorable?

Maass says it's not a matter of making a character beautiful or dangerous because what is beautiful or seductive or dangerous is not the same for everyone. 

He believes it is the IMPACT the secondary character has on the main character that makes that character special. 

Secondary characters must be EXAMINED or they will be BLAND. They must be out-of-the-box. Not a stereotyped Best Friend or Bad Guy or Bad Girl Next Door. They must have UNEXPECTED layers that take your reader by SURPRISE.  

How do we make these characters DEEPLY HUMAN? Maass suggests giving them internal conflicts and looking at them though your protagonist's eyes. What is a defining moment in their relationship? How has this character changed your protagonist? What's one thing your hero will never understand about their friend? How does your heroine resist this person? Are these characters stereotypical or do they surprise us with their unexpected, human qualities?

For more on how to beef up your secondary characters, see The Fire in Fiction, Donald Maass, Chapter Two, Characters Who Matter.

 "Sunshine on My Bananas."

Goals are Good

I was thinking about organizing myself for 2014.

The past few years, I've looked forward to YA writer Katy Upperman's yearly blog post on goals. You can read it and while you're at it, also check out her link to a great post goal setting here.

Katy taught me the importance of setting monthly goals, which I write down and keep in front of me on my desk. I also write yearly writing goals and tuck them into the back of my Bible. Because can you really forget anything you tuck into the back of your Bible?

I am a closet hoarder. From the outside, my house looks pretty clean and neat. But look in any closet and dear Lord! Here are some organizational problems I have and how I vow to resolve them and become a better, more organized person in 2014:

--I will keep no more than fifty emails in my inbox at one time. Chuckle. That's all I'm saying about that one.

--I will stop compulsively saving decorating magazines which are in two giant piles taking up room in my closet. I don't know why I do this, other than looking at beautiful things makes me…happy. But the piles are out! And they will take some time to reaccumulate.

--I will stop shoving things in my front hall closet so guests can actually put their coats there instead of on the back of the living room couch. Stash nothing, toss everything, right?

--I will stop buying books and hiding them under the bed. My friends know I almost kicked this habit a year ago, but the pile is ba--ack, bigger and better than ever, even though I am using my kindle more and more. If I was stranded in my room for years, let's just say lack of reading material would not be a problem.

--I will stop allowing the mail pile to take over my kitchen. I know, I know. Handle it once, sort it right away, pitch everything possible. Sounds so simple, right?

--I will call the 800 numbers to stop delivery of half my catalogs, most of which I hoard in a pile and then end up recycling before I even look at them.

--I have to clean my attic. It is loaded with fake flower arrangements, another compulsion.

--I will stop buying fake flower arrangements. Even though I love them because they are colorful and bright and make me happy in a city where it is cloudy a lot of the year.

--Also, are those not-yet-born grandchildren ever going to play with their parents' toys cluttering my attic? What about those precious dog-eared children's books I just can't seem to part with, remembering all those wonderful hours of reading stories to my kids?

--I will take my recycle bags to the grocery story every time. Every time, that is, that my kids don't toss them out of the car at random to make more from for themselves and their stuff.

--And even take recycle bags to other shopping, like at the mall, which I never do. Why not?

--If I get under contract this year, I will pay someone to deep clean my house once a month because it will no longer be worth my time. Actually, I almost never deep clean anyway! My daughters and son were helping me do this long-neglected work over break. The oldest asked, what's a baseboard? Very scary.

--I will try yoga for stress relief. Just…because.

--I will eat more foods that I can't pronounce like quinoa and jicama and make sure half my plate is veggies at every meal. (Another chuckle.)

--I will be more balanced. I will read more of those amazing books waiting in my kindle or under my bed. I will stop obsessing over whether I am good enough, fast enough, talented enough and simply do what author Robin Covington posted on Facebook one day (and this might be a paraphrase): Do Your Best and Try Not to Suck.

--That is the best advice I read all year. As I prepared to turn in edits to my agent for the first time this past fall, I was terrified. Every morning I would sit at my computer and think, dear God, someone is going to read this and freeze. So I wrote that little saying down and put it in front of me. Because that's all any of us can do. And there is some kind of great relief in that. Just do your best and try not to suck. Simply saying that takes some cosmic burden off my shoulders and allows me to forge on.

Happy new year, everyone. I wish you health, happiness and peace in the year ahead.

Speaking of fake flower arrangements…one of my faves. 

Grit is the Quality Most Correlated with Success: TED Talk with Angela Lee Duckworth

I saw this video on Facebook this week and found it to be the most inspiring piece I've seen in a long time. I hope you watch and are inspired, too!

Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth discussed in a TED talk the factor most significantly correlated with success in life. 

(This video is from the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tedtalks/angela-lee-duckworth-tedtalk_b_4277459.html or from YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8)

That factor was not social intelligence, good looks, physical health, or IQ, but rather a factor she calls grit. Here is how she defines it:

"Grit is passion and perseverance for very long term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years. and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon not a sprint."

And here's what she said about talent and grit (they aren't necessarily related): 

"Talent does not make you gritty. Many talented individuals don't follow through. Grit is unrelated or even inversely related to talent."

This is the greatest thing! To realize that as writers, we can learn our craft, that through dogged effort and determination, we can succeed. Talent, shmalent--it's all about rolling up our sleeves and investing our hard work and mind power.

Dr. Duckworth discussed how you How you build grit in kids but this is important for us every day as well. Kids did best on a task, (i.e., persevered), when they had growth mindset, i.e., the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed but can change with effort. These kids were more likely to persevere when they fail because they don't believe failure is a permanent condition. 

This is so inspiring to me as a writer, where goals take long to achieve and the road is often fraught with many ups and downs (I'll say ups and downs instead of words like despair and desperation). The downs can create such torment that they make you want to quit forever. But if you believe this video, that's just when you've got to believe that continuing to work hard will show results.

I used to play tennis in high school. I was basically a kid off the street, no lessons, nothing, when my coach discovered my best friend and I hitting balls against a brick wall. (This would never happen these days when kids basically have to be groomed from the womb to play sports. The coach simply told us, show up for practice tomorrow at 9 am and bring your racket.)

That one invitation opened up a whole world for me and I will be forever grateful for it. What I learned from tennis was that it's not only a physical game that requires skills and practice. When you're up against an opponent, the game becomes mental. Your own mind becomes the dragon on the court.

Writing to me is a lot like that. We slave for months over our work, mostly alone. Every day when turn on the power button we must slay doubts, face rejections, face fears that we aren't good enough, that we suck. Often there is no one over our shoulder telling us otherwise--we have to reach deep inside ourselves to come up with the dogged inner strength--the grit--to say--yes, we are.

I wish everyone who struggles with self doubt to watch this video and realize you are not alone. That achieving any kind of goal in life is never easy and with writers, what goes on inside our heads is just as important--no, far more important--as the events that occur outside it. 

So, today, hug your writer friends and let's all go forth and be gritty!

Getting Ready for the Golden Heart Part 2: The Writing

So are you polishing your Golden Heart entries? Great! Last week I talked about Story—making sure yours was big enough, had the right elements to be a romance, and how friends can help you to see those big-picture things.

Today I want to focus on the Writing.

At the end of this blog post are some resources I used that I’ve found to be very helpful. Three articles were written by Ruby Sisters, members the Golden Heart class of 2009, now published authors, who contribute to the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood blog which is always chock full of great writing and career advice. (see www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com).

Scene Level. First off, every scene in your story should have a structure. I had absolutely no clue what this was until two years ago despite taking many workshops, reading craft books, etc. But I can tell you that a huge amount of writers don’t get this and to write to get published, you have to! This is the reason I have four manuscripts under my bed which will stay there forever. I’m telling you, this is really important!

Every scene starts out with your character having a tangible goal. The scene must end with yes, she/he got that goal but life gets worse anyway, or no, she/he did not achieve the goal and furthermore, life gets worse anyway. This is a complicated topic but well worth learning about. If you’re interested, I did a whole blog post for Romance University on that topic here.

Cut the Backstory. Read through your first pages and highlight any explaining. Then, as Hope Ramsay suggests,  go back and cut all of it. Find ways to disseminate this information in dialogue or show it with action instead of telling it. It’s like Margie Lawson says:  backstory is like taking a piece of paper and ripping it up into tiny pieces and placing tiny pieces of it throughout the story. Ask youself—what are the ONLY things my reader needs to know RIGHT NOW and CUT the rest.

Start at the right place. Don’t describe the beauteous scenery. Don’t have your heroine walking and thinking. Find the point in your story where, as Hope Ramsay says, two people are fighting something or about something and cut everything before this point. Open with a situation, a problem, with action. People want a dilemma, a struggle—but they want it from your character’s deep point of view.

Make sure your character has a goal and make it clear from page one. (Hope Ramsay)

A point to remember about all this action:  no one will care about action if they don’t care about your character. Some say you only have one paragraph to get the reader to like your character. As Jeannie Lin says, readers want to recognize your heroine/hero as someone “unique, admirable, sympathetic, or likable.” The action has to be tied to this character’s deep point ov view, i.e.—we must experience the conflict through that characters eyes, ears, skin, taste, smell, etc.--oh--and most important of all, through their HEART. 

Your hero or heroine must be well motivated and likeable or at least redeemable. If they are arrogant, gruff and distasteful—no! No one is going to want to keep reading. Remember, in a romance, you want your reader to fall in love with your hero. (I am not an expert at this. But even if you have a character with real issues, there has got to be something in their makeup that makes people want to cheer for them.)

Characters have to be:  wounded, unpredictable, yearning, passionate, complex, resourceful, and gutsy when challenged (James Scott Bell workshop). They must confront their worst flaws, challenge their beliefs, and face their biggest fears (Lori Wilde workshop).

Characters must be unique—they have personality and this comes out when they speak. For your own benefit, give them traits (sassy, shy, fearful, argumentative when pushed, etc.) and make sure every time they open their mouths to speak, they are exhibiting one of those traits.

Start with a great first line. (Usually not a description of scenery). Really work on this line. It will draw your readers in. Don’t initially refer to your main character as “he” or “she,” leaving the reader to wonder for paragraphs who they are—give them a name.  Should we know where they are, what time of day, what season? Set the stage appropriately to orient your reader.

Are high stakes apparent from the get-go? Do your reveal a secret, ask an intriguing question, create high stakes (Alexandra Sokoloff workshop)?

Read your work out loud—you’ll catch all kinds of problems with flow, rhythm, etc. Check for white space—long paragraphs cause people to fall asleep. Watch for overwriting—too many adjectives or adverbs (Jeannie Lin) that may make it seem you are in love with your prose.

Golden Heart Checklist (not inclusive—I’m sure there’s more!)

• Does your scene have a goal and structure and end on a “disaster”?
• Have you begun with action/conflict/some tension between people, people and a monster, etc.
• Great first line
• Identify the characters, setting, time, season if important 
• Emotion, conflict, likeability—make these things evident up front
• Character with a great desire, passion, a yearning, gutsy, resourceful, likable?
• Deep Point of View—the POV character experiencing life through her/his senses. Don’t forget smell and touch if appropriate.
• Show not tell
• Axe the backstory.
• Don’t describe things unless relevant (slows pacing) (Katie Graykowski has a really funny line that will never let you forget this here)
• Watch your dialogue tags. Replace some with body language, e.g., “”You bet,” he said, vs. “You bet. He took a long, slow pull of beer.
• Watch for too much blow by blow body language:  “He grabbed the beer bottle and sat down, turning away from her. He picked up his book and walked to the kitchen She took a sip of beer then set her bottle down.”
• End your entry on a significant hook. Again, action without emotion doesn't cut it but be sure to adjust your pages so that you've ended on a hook that will keep your readers wanting more!

Final Word—Don’t Forget the Romance! Checklist

• Chemistry, chemistry, chemistry. Important, important, important.
• Romance permeates all aspects of the story in one way or another.
• Be clear who the hero and heroine are from the beginning! This sounds ridiculous but don’t let the heroine’s best friend overshadow her or a platonic male friend of the heroine be mistaken for the hero!
• In category romance, if the hero and heroine are not together, they are apart and thinking about each other.
• The hero must have a heart of gold and act heroically even if he has issues.
• Heroine must not be petulant, self indulgent, or merely be acted upon—she must act!

I hope these accumulated tips that have been so helpful to me are helpful for your work in progress even if you're not aiming for the GH this year. Now go forth and polish! 

If you have any more tips that can be added to the checklist, please comment and I'll add them and republish the complete list next week.

Resources

The First Five Pages…and the Red Line of Death by Jeannie Lin

http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/tag/first-five-pages/

Tips for Improving Your First Fifty Pages by Hope Ramsay http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/tips50pages/

Five Things Every Contest Newbie Should Know by Katie Graykowski 

http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/5-things-every-contest-newbie-should-know/

Make a Scene! Or, Why Scenes Should Be Seen and not Heard by Miranda Liasson 

http://romanceuniversity.org/2013/08/16/scene-structure-with-miranda-liasson/

"If she'd only listen to my ideas…"

Getting Ready for the Golden Heart, Part 1: Your Story: Make it a Good One

Today and next Friday, November 15, I'm going to post some pointers for those of you who are planning to enter the Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart Contest, which opens to entries on November 12. (For more information, go to rwa.org and look under "Awards" and then "Golden Heart." Here's the link:  http://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=536)

What does it take to final in the Golden Heart? This year, on my sixth try, I finaled in two categories and won the Contemporary Series category. (What follows is based on my own experience, so please take what helps and ignore what doesn't.)

First off, finaling takes getting through five preliminary round judges who judge your partial manuscript ("the partial"--approximately the first 50 pages) on a fifty point scale:  Plot/Story 10 Points, Romance 20 Points, Characters 10 Points, and Writing 10 Points. Entrants who final need to get 90% of the total possible score or above. (I did not find this on the RWA website, but on my score sheets, it said that final scores are calculated by dropping the high and low total scores and averaging the remaining three total scores. This helps to protect from very lenient or very harsh judging. )

Here are the three things I think you need to final:

--A Good Story that meets or exceeds the expectations of your genre and offers the reader an emotional experience that captures their hearts.

--Writing that shines and is free of amateurish mistakes.

--Luck! In a perfect universe, all judges would be impartial and fair. Well, welcome to real life, where some judges are tough, some are easy, and some will either really love or really hate your story. Luck of the draw which ones you get! Stories that are entered one year may not final while the next they do…so who knows? This is one aspect you have no control of.

So let's talk about the first point--The Good Story. It's not enough to write a story about nice people doing nice things. (Trust me, I know, my first four manuscripts were like this, unremarkable, low-tension stories.) It's a feat to come up with a story idea, let alone write and polish 50 pages and submit a synopsis. Yet you must write a story that keeps tension, conflict and angst high so your reader wants more--so she/he is really sad when those fifty pages end. Not being boring for that many pages requires a lot of skill.

Good stories start off with a bang (in the middle of action, something going on) and grab the reader with emotion. But even the biggest action sequence will fail to impress if no one cares about your characters. So the action does not have to be big, Hollywood action--but it does have to be some situation where the characters are doing something besides walking through lush scenery thinking of the hot guy they just met. (Starting with description--probably not the best idea.)

End your partial with a big hook. Again, leaving your heroine dangling off the old London Bridge (as I did in one ms) is great but don't throw in action for action's sake. The big hook at the end can be as simple as a long awaited/forbidden/unintended kiss. It should be emotionally big, not necessarily action-packed-big. One of my finaling entries ended with a kiss that someone had second thoughts about--pretty simple. The other ended with a revelation that the long-lost love the heroine thought was dead was alive. Again, go for emotional impact not big Hollywood set piece.

If your 50 pages as it currently stands does not end on a hook, what should you do? My answer: manipulate your pages so that for the GH it does.

Is Your Story Big Enough to Sustain 200-300 pages of conflict? If you're writing Category Romance, study Romance Tropes. These are plot devices like enemies to lovers, mistaken identity, fake engagement, revenge, redemption, boss-employee, reunited lovers, etc. Typically for category, you need three tropes per story. Reading extensively in the genre you are targeting will give you a feel for this.

If you're writing Single Title, you need a High Concept idea. This is the kind of idea that makes you exclaim Wow! Why didn't I think of that?! or I've got to read this! when you read a back-cover blurb. It's original, emotional, compelling, and clever. If you don't know what this is, check out Lori Wilde's Got High Concept? workbook available from her website. High Concept is the idea that makes your story stand out from the rest.

The point is, if you are writing romance, you must know the kind of book you are writing. You must target your market by doing research. It's not enough to simply write the book of your heart. If your book does not have the tension to sustain an entire book, no one is going to judge it well in contests no matter how great your writing is and no one is going to publish it. The idea and the characters must hook your reader from the beginning--from Paragraph 1.

Remember the Essence of a Romance.  Your main goal in writing a romance is to tell an emotionally powerful story about people whose flaws get in the way of their leading the fullest life they could and how love for another person gives them the impetus to overcome these flaws by making choices under pressure so they can become the people they were always meant to be. Characters must be pushed to grow and change so they are not the same people at the end as they were at the beginning.

Check your story:  does it have external conflict keeping the hero and heroine apart? Does it have internal conflict keeping them apart? Is there a romance? I've judged contest entries where the entry is all romance and no external situation at all. And others where the hero doesn't show up until page 40.

Force yourself to share your work. My recommendation is that at least three people besides yourself should read your pages before you submit. I think this is truly hard for some of us, especially when we are just starting out. It's scary to share something so close to your heart!

Why, you say, is finding reading friends/critique partners so important? Because we burn out. We become overfamiliar with our story and our words. We cannot be objective about our own work. If you have time, putting your entry away for a week or two and looking at it again helps a lot, but having somebody else's eyeballs besides your own is crucial. But remember the bottom line:  trust your own judgment. Your best friend may unintentionally crucify your voice. A good rule is, if more than one person points something out in your manuscript as not quite right, look hard at those things. It's tricky--knowing when to trust your gut and when to believe what a reader tells you.

So there you have it, my take on Story. Hope this helped. Next week, I'm going to talk about writing tips and a first page checklist to help polish your entry. Any questions…ask away! And keep polishing!