Relationships in Romance Novels and Beyond

Once, in a writer's group I read the first half chapter of one of my WIPs. The man said my writing was always about relationships. I replied that everything in life is about relationships. A relationship doesn't have to be about love or sex or romance. The group we were sitting in was a combination of relationships. When we go to the grocery store we have some sort of relationship with every person we interact with. By reading this, my fellow blogsters are engaged in a relationship. Relationships happen on a daily basis whether we realize it or not. Some are limited, some vanish as quickly as they came, some might grow, some might kill.

The chapter that was read in group eventually led to a murder investigation and wasn't going in the romantic way that the group might have suspected. It was only half a chapter so they really didn't get the whole story.

In romances the relationship has to go somewhere. Maybe a good place where they fall in love, in bed, into a happily every after or maybe just a hint at what was coming next for our characters.

What makes up these relationships? Eye contact/looks, verbal exchange, physical exchange, and even information exchanged by a 3rd party. In some stories we can use all of these to build characters. We hear their thoughts when eye contact is made, watch the verbal exchange and reactions, or sometimes we're in the character's head while they work out questions.

Kinds of relationships?

Norman Bates and his mother
Prez Obama and Speaker of the House Boehner
Teachers and students
Coworkers
Doctors and patients
Bus drivers and riders
Stewardess and passengers
Cops and victims and criminals

Relationships are everywhere!

I was a little surprised I had to explain that everything in life is a relationship of some sort. I think some limit that word to romance, but its so much more and important in every single thing we write.

So what kind of a relationship is building in what you're writing? What techniques do you use to build it?

One Week - Too Many Excuses to Write

I plan, I plot, I think out my writing schedule and still can't get that WIP opened up and rolling. True, there is still that darkness lurking, but things there are changing and maybe for the better. Do we see a light at the edges of the evil? It's looking like the accused was actually set up by a darker force. Its what I thought in the beginning, but everyone argued against it, telling me I was just not facing it. Back to writers and investigations... Writer's need to plot. For a plot to work it means things have to line up. They have to make sense even in fiction. We can only separate from reality for just so much, before we lose our reader. Even in sci-fi, there has to be a believably factor.  In that dark place there were too many things that didn't add up for me. I seemed to be the only one who questioned things and that had me doubting myself. However, law enforcement didn't take things at face value. They investigated, are still investigating, but hopefully heading in the right direction now.

So you'd think this would free up my emboggled (<~~Look a new word! Okay, maybe not...) mind to get back to work, but it hasn't, not yet. So, now I need to plan this writing week. Write everyday between 9 and 5? Or maybe a slower start? write 9 to noon, get other stuff done, write 2 to 4? Believe it or not I once had a great schedule and stuck to it like religion. I need to get that back. I need to believe this is where I need to be and shuck off the outside forces that seek to knock me down.

The other day a friend told me when she was unemployed she wanted something to show for it. She didn't want all that time to pass and have nothing to show for it. Then she wrote enough songs for her first album. She just did it, got it done. Told herself it was what she needed to do and did it.  Inspiring.

Stephen King once said he writes like 10 pages a day. Sometimes he's done by noon, other time's he's still there late into the night. Not sure if that's true or something he had to say when pressed for answers in an interview but it sounds like a plan.

So what's your writing schedule? If you're ever knocked off balance, how do you get it back?

Bad Things, Concentration, Writing.

Bad things happen. Sometimes people you know go bad. Or maybe they were always bad and you just never knew. Sometimes when you meet someone you get that "creeper vibe" right away and you know instantly that they are not to be trusted. Maybe you can't put your finger on it, but you know.

Sometimes the bad is so close to you, you never see it. It hides its darkness and you never see the evil until it jumps out and scares the hell out of everyone around it.

There might have been something bad that we never knew of, so close to us, that we were blindsided. Was it always here, growing beside us, and we never saw it? Is that possible? Something so ugly and evil was hiding so close in someone we loved, how could we never have seen it?

And I still don't believe it. Not yet, not now.

I think writers are investigators. We look beyond face value because we know this is how stories are woven. Nothing is ever how it seems and there are many stories within a story. Sitcoms are routinely written with three story lines. The major line we're concentrating on, then a secondary line that we can see if we look, and the third which is almost a start of another story. Yes, three stories in every sitcom. It's how the great ones are created.

Now the bad has shown up and I'm in a state of disbelief, shock, and a sorrow so deep I can't stop praying it isn't true. That there is more to this story that someone, hopefully the investigators, who should know better than to take something at face value, will discover and send this bad from our lives. I keep repeating, "I don't believe it." and "It can't be true." I feel something is missing from this story that we don't know about and they're not asking the right questions.

It's hard to concentrate. Some things consume your thoughts. I wish the weather was warmer and I could take the dogs for a walk to clear my head. I have small dogs, they freeze quicker than big dogs (because they're closer to the ground?) and they don't like walking in sub-zero weather.

Say a prayer this bad will go away, that its all a terrible mistake and we'll wake up and the nightmare will just go away.

Writer's Block and Freakfly February

Excuses are ugly. I know that, you know that, every writer worth their salt knows that. Yet, we wander the house, office or wherever it is you write, walk the dog, talk to the dog, maybe clean something, play with games (worst thing I ever did was download Scrabble on Kindle...I'm addicted), or maybe sit in front of the TV not writing.

I've done it all and everything was just an excuse not to write.

Writer's block? Maybe. Does it really need a name? Whatever you call it, nothing is getting down on paper. So maybe its time to write badly.

Giving yourself permission not to write the great American Novel is the best cure for writer's block. I believe this gives a person a chance to spew all the crap that's blocking out of your head so the good stuff can flow. Writing bad is cleansing and once in a while something really good might come of it. Maybe whatever is blocking is actually a story simmering and just looking for release. Whether it's in your claimed genre or not, it just might be a best seller.

Instead of Nano or Jano, maybe we need Write Bad month? Something to free writer's to just blow off some steam? Maybe we can have Writer's Freakfly February to clear the senses and open us up for some awesome writing!

So go forth and write badly. Let your freak fly and see what comes out of your little blocked head. I'm off to write the worst story ever! Mwahahahaha!

Writing, Word Count, and Series Writing

I usually never give a negative review. If I don't like a book, I simply move on. (this came from my mother who always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.") However, the book I've got on my ipod is a bit of a crazy maker.

It's Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum novel, Takedown Twenty. For those not familiar its about a woman bounty hunter who is in a love triangle between a cop and another bounty hunter. That's the short version. But that "Twenty" in the title stands for the 20th book in the series. Whew! That's not only a lot of books but a lot of work to make each one different and unique. In the beginning these books were very entertaining, funny, and fast paced. Everything I like in a good book. I love the page-turner, keep-me-up-all-night book. This book ain't it. :(

I think one of the main problems in the 20 books is that somewhere along the line the main character, Stephanie Plum, stops growing. She's stuck in this emotional vacuum of tracking bad guys, falling down stairs, getting food/trash thrown at her and bouncing between the two boyfriends. This happens over and over and over in all twenty books. Nothing new, everything predictable. Sadly I can't even bring myself to pay for these books and usually just download them from the library. In the beginning I used to run right out and buy two hardcovers as soon as they came out. One for me and one for my mother in law.

Now I'm in book 20 and really have to wonder if the writer was just trying to make a word count. A few chapters in, the main character stops at a store and then the writer lists about 20 items that she bought including napkins, vegetables, two magazines, blah, blah, blah... As a writer, all I'm thinking is; was she trying to make a word count???  Why does the shopping list need to be in the story? Since it's written in the first person it makes me think of that annoying person you meet who dumps every tiny detail of her life into every conversation.  I want to scream; is there a point to all this blather?

Back to the main plot. Is this twenty something woman ever going to grow up? Change? Don't we all change and grow? Doesn't she want to get better at her job or improve her life in any way? She's an inept bounty hunter, which lends to the comedy aspect, but if she never improves or learns the skills of her job then how is this book any different than the 19 before it? She strings two guys along and they follow like puppies...for 20 books?

I think in every book we look for what happens next. Like in the Hero's Journey we need challenges met and the return of the golden chalice. Without that, what's the point? In Takedown Twenty I felt like I'd already read it. Nineteen times.
Too bad. Evanovich is an awesome writer but somewhere along the line...we lost the fact that its a journey, not a scene.

Writing, Time, Excuses and Writer's Block

Blame Writer's Block, procrastination, or maybe even fear.
Getting back to writing after vacations, holidays, or any other thing that blips your writer's radar can be hard. In the past four months I've had many blips and can't seem to get back on schedule.

Writer's block?
Not sure this is really my problem. To blast past writer's block I believe a person simply has to give themselves permission to just write. Write bad, write crap, write out of your normal genre or just blast out some fan fiction. But just keep writing without ego and without care. Write.

Vacation?
Yeah, two weeks in Florida and driving there and back kind of depleted my energy. It was a great vacation, but totally knocked me off schedule. On vacation there is no schedule. You do things because you want to go and see and you do things because you're there with others and you want to spend time with them. The better the vacation, the harder it is to get back to work.

Holidays?
Always a schedule breaker. Instead of spending days working, you're now rushing around trying to get things done, shopping, cooking (okay, maybe I lied about cooking), cleaning. Writing is the first thing to take a backseat.

Emo blips?
I lost my brother in October. He was the sweetest, most gentlest soul you would ever meet. He was kind to everyone, determined and dedicated to family and friends. He was sick for a while but when he went it was still a surprise. We thought he was getting better and then -suddenly- CRASH! And he was gone too soon. :( It still seems unreal. Like a bad dream you hope isn't real. You see something and think, "I gotta share this with Mike." But Mike is gone. I still talk to him, hoping his spirit hears me and knows I care and miss him. This also slowed the writing and determination to finish things to a halt. I think it just needs time. Five stages and all that.

Another blip?
Unemployment ran out. :( And I live in NJ. A place with the highest unemployment in the land and no real jobs program. If you look to the State for help they offer classes to help you get employed. Too bad their classes are decades behind what employers are looking for in today's computer age. Even the people I spoke to at Unemployment know this, but are powerless to help. So every morning I send out resumes and then think about writing. I need to be more of a producer. Get things written and put them out there. I know this. What I don't know is why I can't.

School?
Last semester an HTML/CSS/XHTML class kicked my *ss. I would spend days working on assignments and often had to go to the computer lab for help. I scored a B- in that class and almost fell off my chair when I read that grade.

So does any of this excuse not writing? No, of course not. I have to nail down a schedule and stick to it. Help! What's your schedule and how do you stick to it? Any advice?

Short Story Sales

Investigating short story venues and finding a lot of places to submit these babies, too. However, in reading about the volume of submissions they get, I  have to wonder if collecting these stories and publishing them as a book of shorts on Amazon would be more lucrative.

I'm seeing some writers who sell them on other websites that specialize in shorts and considering submitting to them, too. Nokblok is a new one, (the editor responded to one of my posts here) there's a Sci-fi one that sends me emails with a new story every week. I'm sure there's more that I'm just not thinking of right now.

I crashed on Constant Content this week. :(
Over two years ago I sold a few articles there and did okay. Had one rejected.  Then got a new job and stopped using them. Last month I resubmitted my rewritten rejection and it was rejected again. Then submitted two and both were accepted. Yay! Both those were on cooking. My next submission was a How-to art project. It was rejected so fast I don't think the editor had time to actually read it. The reason for rejection was grammar/punctuation. A blanket response I've seen other's complain about on the CC forum. Its like the editor's lazy response for "I found a mistake/don't like the subject/its 1 a.m. and I'm tired" excuse. That doesn't sound like "editing" to me. It really upset me at first because I work hard on these articles. Then I went into the forum and found a lot of questioning about the editor's responses. Mostly it seemed they just had cut and paste responses that they tossed out haphazardly. Some even questioned if there was a new editor on staff that wielded a reckless sword even on writer's who had 100's of accepted articles. After the third rejection in over two years they suspended my account. Three strikes you're out. Blah.

That experience got me thinking. Do I really want to write that stuff? Sure, it's money and I can find another place to sell, but really? Is that what my soul wants to write?

No.
Simply, no.

I want to write stories. Which brings me back to the short story questions. Where and how to sell.
I also thought of another idea which might be toooooo ego driven, but hear me out.
What about a blog to post these stories with a note; If you liked this story please help keep the stories flowing. Contribute $5 via paypal here.

Would something like that work? Would it make more or less than the few bucks a short story place would pay?
Pros;
I could write what I want. Any genre, any time.
Blogs are timeless. You can write something three years ago and it's still crawling around the internet today.
$5 isn't much so people might think, sure, why not.
Blogs are free...where's the risk?
Adsense could be added to this blog (not that Adsense ever made me much anyway, but hey, a nickle is still a nickle.)

Cons;
Nothing could happen. No readers, no income. Readers without income. (so what? I just take the blog down)
How do you tax this? Pay taxes?
I'm not a well established enough writer to bring in the crowd.
It's on honor system...does that ever work?
If it doesn't work and I want to sell these stories to magazines, some won't touch previously pub stories. Even on blogs.

Still thinking about this idea. I have several stories in different genres, some love stories, some mayhem, some paranormal so I'm not sure if I have enough to fit one genre collection.
And I'll probably start sending to the True's again. They pay slow but pretty good. I generally score about $150 a story there depending on word count.

Where do you sell? What do you think of the Story Blog idea? Am I crazy? (or desperate...that's understandable too. :)