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Category: Writing

Posts in which we talk about the writing craft and process

Reader Mail!

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No, this isn’t about the upcoming new movie adaptation of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, even though I’m eagerly looking forward to it.

It’s about reader mail and its effect on the writer.

First I have to say I’ve enjoyed all the reader mail I’ve received so far. Most of the letters I’ve gotten were from people who enjoyed my books, along with a few from people who just wanted to share something they loved about the Regency. Even when readers don’t care for my books, it’s fascinating to find out what they are thinking. This one, from a reader I won’t name, is no exception!

—

Elena Greene:

My Lion roars his disgust, as to (sic) I after wading thru page after page of explicit sex in Saving Lord Verwood which I just finished. Yuk!

You are an excellent writer and the plot was good keeping one’s interest. I know explicit sex (leaving nothing to the imagination) seems to be the in thing. Surely with your writing ability you do not need to pander to or wallow in the antics that go on in the bedroom. Hopefully the trend will turn again toward decency.

With kindest thoughts I remain a Regency reader.

(name excluded)

P.S. Would you really want your young daughters to read such trash?

—

Initially, I felt a bit stunned by this letter. I’d never received anything like it before, and it wasn’t as if I were the first author to put a sex scene into a traditional Regency. But mostly, I wondered whether I’d slept through writing all those pages and pages of “explicit sex”! Had the copy editor gone wild with it? I reopened the book and looked through and yes, the love scenes were there, just as I’d written them, not particularly graphic at all.

The adult part of me (that sometimes thinks it’s in charge) shook off the label of “trash”. I don’t write with the intent of offending anyone, but I know I can’t please everyone either. I am not writing children’s fiction, so the postscript didn’t shame me the way it was clearly intended to. So I exchanged some emails with my critique partners and we all laughed it off.

However, there’s another part of me–the subconscious mind, the muse, the inner artist child–call it what you want, it’s the place ideas come from. That part of me wants desperately to please everyone. Soon after receiving this letter, I reached the wedding night scene in LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE and found myself battling a fierce writer’s block. Finally until I realized that I was trying to write a scene that would 1) show, in a tender and realistic way, how the hero/heroine had overcome the problems of their earlier unhappy marriages and 2) not offend readers like this one. Rather impossible!

So the adult side of me counseled the kid. I told myself that one person’s spice is another’s poison and I had to be true to my voice and my characters. I also reminded myself that this particular reader had forced herself to read it, “page after page”! Perhaps writing the letter was just a way of easing her conscience over enjoying it?

Anyway, so far readers and reviewers are praising LDM. If at some point there are those who disagree, I can deal with it. Sometimes feedback may lead me to change my future work, but sometimes it just clarifies who I am as a writer.

So, my fellow authors, how do you deal with less-than-positive reader mail?

And readers, do please keep those emails and letters coming!

Elena 🙂
www.elenagreene.com/

Posted in Reading, Regency, Writing | Tagged , | 10 Replies

It’s Not About The Romance, Stupid!

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Here’s a thing I discovered when writing my first book, A Singular Lady: writing about the gentle progression towards love is really, really boring.
The only way to make a romance novel come alive is to write about everything but the romance. In other words, take two people whose circumstances, situation, personalities, etc., would normally compel them to stay as far away from each other as possible and take them on a journey, a slow, inexorable climb to the inevitable HEA. Make it as hard on them as possible. As my pal William Shakespeare likes to say,

For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.

Bill, you got that right. Make them suffer. Make your characters stare down into the pit of despair that is their future, and pull them back only when it seems their fall is inevitable. That is what makes a compelling romance. The stuff that writers sometimes focus on–the first kiss, the first fondle, in Janet’s case, the first bondage–that is circumstantial. It happens because it has to happen, because circumstances dictate that your characters fall in love even though every single thing in their lives seems to point to the other person as being the worst possible person to fall in love with. It shouldn’t be the focus of the book, it should be an unavoidable event, caused by the characters themselves, not the need for massive boinking. A great romance novel isn’t about the romance, or even lust. It’s about making your characters complete. And with completion comes love.

Megan

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 3 Replies

Covers

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A few days ago, I got a packet of cover flats for my next book, A TANGLED WEB. I like it all right–the purple color is very pretty and rich, the couple not quite as cute-sy as some (though that scene never really happened in the story, and the heroine would NEVER wear purple polyester!). But it made me start thinking about a subject near to every author’s heart–covers. The good, the bad, the ugly.

For better or worse, a cover (something we have zilch control over) can have a huge influence on sales. A vivid, beautiful, interesting cover can grab a reader’s eye and make them pick the book up off the shelf. A bad, ugly, or just plain bland cover can mean that the book, our “baby”, is overlooked, turned away from, even (gasp!) made fun of. (See the hilarious Worst Cover category in AAR’s annual cover contest).

These days there is a vast array of styles out there. There are still old-style clinches. You know the ones–anatomically improbable people falling out of their clothes, bent into poses that would mean a trip to the ER in real life and months in traction. Or my personal cliche favorite, one which seems to pop up often at Avon, the bacon-brained hero who forgot to put his shirt on before running out into the snow after the negligee-clad heroine. But he DID remember his cheesy Wal Mart vampire cape.

There are cartoon covers, some of which are cute and suit the story, some just–weird. There are flowers, castles, pearls, and other inanimate objects. There is hero alone (usually displaying his manly chest), heroine alone, headless people (I actually like these very much), classic paintings. A few I’ve noticed lately:

Liz Carlyle’s ONE LITTLE SIN–headless people, great, bright colors, very eye-catching and sexy without being ludicrous. She’s had several great covers. I’m jealous.

Gaelen Foley’s ONE NIGHT OF SIN–personifcation of headless couple-dom. Red background, very sexy.

Barbara Metzger’s ACE OF HEARTS–her previous historicals had that nice headless couple design, misty colors, very pretty, but this one–WTF? Looks like some weird Halloween Western.

Laura Kinsale’s SHADOWHEART–amazing book, boring cover. This story screams out for a gorgeous Italian Renaissance painting. Maybe a detail of a Botticelli?

And speaking of paintings, there are Susan Carroll’s THE DARK QUEEN and THE COURTESAN. Again, amazingly terrific books. They look good, too, trade size, 1/4 bright foil, 3/4 a detail of a beautiful painting. BUT–the stories take place in the 16th century. DARK QUEEN features a fluffy Boucher painting; COURTESAN a portrait of Empress Josephine. Very distracting.

Meredith Bond’s LOVE OF MY LIFE–one of those gorgeous Zebra covers that didn’t get a chance. Headless heroine in a vivid turquoise gown, Taj Mahal in the background. Great.

So, what covers do you like/dislike? What would make you pick up a book–or run away screaming in horror? What are some all-time favorites?

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged , | 9 Replies

End of Summer…

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I’m always a little sad when I realize the end of summer is coming. Well today it is here, since it is October first, but the sun is shining today (after an awful, cold, rainy Friday) and I can hear the birds through my open window. And…it is quiet. Or still quiet, I should say, since Saturdays in a small city never stay that way.

I plan to take a walk down by the river and check out the locks close and personal. I love the sound of the water coursing over the dam, the call of the gulls, the peaceful, meditative nature of it. But for now, I am thinking about the Regency and considering what would be different…or the same.

Birds. Crickets. A distant baby’s cry. The sound of the river… There is no traffic at the moment, but if there was, it would be the clop-clopping of horses’ hooves up the street on cobblestone, or perhaps it would be a more muffled thudding in dirt or mud. I would hear the jingling of harness and the occasional call of the drivers to their team (I say occasional, as I am trying to keep it as peaceful as it is now!). There would be the smell of horse instead of exhaust, whiffs of coal or wood smoke, perhaps the hot metal smell from a nearby blacksmith’s forge.

My heroine might well be gazing out the window and thinking of a walk, just as I am. She would have a book in her hand, or be writing a letter, but the warm day has called to her. Since this is a small city, she’d don a proper walking dress, but if she were like me she would choose to wear what was comfortable over fashion and seek a walk to satisfy her soul rather than to be seen.

Times change. People, not so much. Not at their center. Surroundings, attitudes, fashion, beliefs, laws, and habits change. Not hearts.

When we write, we rely on what has not changed…and we try our best to understand what has. Unlike writing contemporary novels, we cannot speak to witnesses to gather information. We cannot visit the places where the characters dwelt. Oh, we can go to the geographic location, certainly, and it will yield clues–but it will not be the same. Roads have changed or gone out of use and grown over. Buildings have vanished, and something new may or may not be standing in their steads. Erosion and war has altered the landscape. New flora will be growing that did not exist at the time of the story, and old varieties will have vanished.

I think of roses and the many beautiful varieties that exist now, the hybrid teas, tall and straight-stemmed with those artfully folded petals of such substance…and then think of the old roses, the ones on short, weak and bending stems, the blossoms a soft ball of delicate petals in unformed arrangement, exuding an intoxicatingly sweet scent. They were beautiful…beautiful in their own way, bending their lovely wild faces toward the earth, heavy with dew.

But we can understand the beauty of the rose of whatever form. We can understand human nature. We understand the human heart.

Not much of substance in this today, I am afraid. But this is what I am thinking on this lovely day at the end of summer, as the last roses fade.

Laurie

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 4 Replies

Critical Opinion

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“Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.” — Mark Twain

“Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.” —Dorothy Parker’s Book Review of The House at Pooh Corner.

“People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” — Abraham Lincoln, in a book review

Reviews. The thought of them can strike terror into an author’s heart. Will the reviewer appreciate the sly wit and clever heroine? Find the hero dreamily attractive and powerful? Or will she point out that if the hero and heroine had only cleared up one little misunderstanding, the book would have been over after fifty pages?

My first book comes out on Tuesday, and it’s already received one review, a complimentary one from Romantic Times. When it reaches the general reading public, chances are good it’ll get some bad reviews, too–after all, I made one huge historical inaccuracy, which will bother some people, my heroine can be perceived as snotty, and the plot, well, is not so layered.

I welcome any and all reviews. Prior to writing fiction, I wrote music reviews for 15 years for two different music industry publications. I fielded many, many calls from musicians and record labels who wanted reviews, people who disagreed with my, and my staff’s, reviews, and people who thought our magazine had been accurate in its subjective opinion. So for me to dismiss any bad review out of hand would be hypocritical.

What I do not like, at all, are sycophantic reviews. You do romance authors and their potential audience no favors when you gush about a book, or an author, with no degrees of assessment. For example, I love Anne Stuart. Do I think Shadow Dance is as good as To Love A Dark Lord? No. That doesn’t mean I’m not supportive of her work, don’t love her as an author, won’t buy her books in the future. A few posts ago, Elena posted about Laura Kinsale, an author who inspires fanatical devotion from her fans. If a fan of her dark books didn’t like her light books as much, would that mean she was somehow disloyal? No.

And yet, it is a peculiarly romance genre thing to insist on blind devotion. The New York Times Book Review usually features reviews written by one author about another’s work. Is that author accused of disloyalty if they don’t like the book? I should hope not. It’s an opinion, a subjective one that, if written well, should demonstrate exactly why the reviewer didn’t like the book. It doesn’t mean the reviewer isn’t a nice person, or isn’t appropriate to review the book in question, or has a personal vendetta against the author. It simply means that, in the reviewer’s opinion, the book wasn’t that good.

When I first started writing romance, I also started writing romance reviews for the website All About Romance. I was proud to review for them because I got to state my opinion, recommending plenty of good books and advising readers to avoid some others. Although I don’t write for them any longer, I still go to AAR for reviews, and lately I’ve taken to visiting readers’ blogs to find recommendations (I’ve got a sidebar full of links on my Writer’s Diary page: (www.meganframpton.com/diary.html).

I don’t look to reviews to corroborate my own opinion. I look to reviews to help me decide what to read, not to cheerlead. I want honesty, and if someone doesn’t like my book, or books that I like, I won’t take it personally.

Do you read reviews? If so, why? If you’re an author, do you hunt for them, or avoid them? As a reader, do reviews influence your buying decisions?

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged | 4 Replies
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