Celebrating a New Year, New Changes with the Historical Team

Before January comes to its frigid conclusion (snow or ice, anyone??? I’ve got lots!) let me wish all our TWRP authors, readers and staff a very happy new year!

One of the things I’m most excited about as we begin another fantastic year in the garden is that we can now consider stories that don’t necessarily fit the typical romance mold.  Over the years in historical we’ve seen many family sagas, or stories that were more women’s fiction than romance, and with heavy hearts we’ve had to inform those authors that we simply could not accept their submission because it wasn’t technically a romance.

For many of us, myself included, change can be a little unsettling.  But rest assured, you devoted readers and writers of historical, this is a good thing! (Yep, I’m channeling my inner Martha Stewart today!)  Not only have many of our established authors already approached us with story ideas and submissions, but we’ve been absolutely inundated with queries from new authors, too.

So with all this talk of change, are you wondering what your favorite historical editor is hoping to find in her submission inbox this year?  Well we still love romance, of course, but let’s ask the editing team that very question.

Allison Byers, what would you most like to see from our authors—established and new—in 2013?

I love historical fiction, especially those set before 1900. I love a story in which the author has taken pieces from the past and woven them into a story that helps the reader see the past through a character’s hardships and happiness. The novel should be plot-driven and richly constructed. When writing, the author should make sure the plot excites, inflames, and inspires the reader.

But let me caution that the story should pay close attention to historical details. There is a new historical fiction entitled alternative historical fiction which is written with a “What if? premise. For example, what if the South had won the war? I’m not interested in this type of historical fiction.

Nan Swanson is sort of our Queen of Vintage Rose.  She loves this line and handles the majority of the submissions that come in for Vintage.  Nan, what are you hoping to see for Vintage Rose this year?

The Vintage Rose line is looking for stories about the 1900s, set anywhere in the world. So much happened during the twentieth century, and so much of it changed the life of every ordinary person, or, as they said back then, “the man on the street” (pre-women’s lib). What better way to learn history than by immersing yourself in someone else’s story as they experience wars, new inventions, social and economic changes, climate extremes, and the widening of their window on the world? Such broad subjects can have intimate stories behind the scenes… The shipyard worker who helped build the Titanic. The woman who cleaned at an inventor’s house, or the gardener or cook there. The family who endured the Dust Bowl and did not pick up and go to California. The half-American orphan in Korea in the 1950s. The family who left everything to come to America but were late getting to the dock so took the next boat and helped rescue survivors from the torpedoed ship they had meant to be on. Anywhere, doing anything, they each have a story that can be told, Edwardians to doughboys to  flappers to G.I.s to rock’n’rollers to women’s libbers to hippies to all the labels of the last few decades before 2000. And Vintage Rose wants those stories!

Susan Yates, how about you?

In the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, a book review website recently featured a Romance Novel Reader Workout. The plan encouraged readers to read a romance novel (always a good thing!) and do exercises when certain things happened in the novel. For instance, when “A tingle or spark goes up the arm of one or both characters if they touch” do ten jumping jacks, or, when “A character looks in the mirror and describes herself” do ten dumbbell curls. The list is not meant to be taken seriously, of course, but it’s a good illustration of how easy it is for authors—and editors too!—to fall into romance-novel clichés. That’s why as a reader and an editor, I’m always looking to be surprised. I love a romance that takes me in a new direction, or that transcends the genre in some way. Whether it’s an under-represented era or a traditional era presented in a new way, I want a story that immerses me in history and that makes me trust the author knows it cold. I love characters that have dimension and feeling, and a plot that throws them into an impossible situation and makes me care about how they resolve it. I love dialog that goes beyond the superficial, that perfectly illuminates the characters. And most of all, I want stories with depth and emotion that sweep me along with them. And of course, I want stories that avoid anything that might turn a reader on the Romance Novel Workout plan into a body-builder!

Cindy Davis, what kind of stories are you hoping to see? 

I would love to see quirky characters, unique new settings, unusual careers. Stretch your imagination. Stay away from the familiar. Research if you have to but go beyond what you read. Go beyond your emotions. Make the story memorable.

And as for me, Nicole D'Arienzo...

Whether it’s romance or not, I want conflict, conflict and more conflict.  Now mind you I don’t mean misunderstanding—I don’t want to see lame or watery conflicts that can easily be resolved with a little explanation.  Nope.  I want angst and emotion.  I want those characters to feel that there’s simply no way to make this work. 

Many authors worry if their conflict is too deep or too complicated, they won’t be able to resolve it, but you know what?  You don’t have to.  It’s okay for your characters to decide that being apart is far more painful than their differences and they can agree to disagree. (Now obviously I don’t mean that one of them is married and the other chooses to accept it, or that one is a serial killer and the other chalks it up to a minor character flaw.)  

Neither should you short change your readers (or editor!) by resolving things too easily simply because you’re nearing maximum word count. Having your heroine suddenly shrug her shoulders on the last page and say “you were right, I was wrong” does not an emotionally satisfying ending make.  

Take your characters on an emotional journey.  Make me feel their inner struggle, torture them just a little …and you have the kind of story I’d love to find in my inbox!

Happy Writing!

Conflict -- An Editor's Dream

One of the things that I see a lot of is conflict without substance. It's become my new little catch-phrase, actually. And I think the concept of conflict is maybe a little vague. Or more precisely "Strong conflict"

Strong conflict is something that takes more than a conversation to work out. It's not just having two divergent character types banging heads and being beligerent or alpha. A strong conflict involves the following set up:

External conflict influences the hero and heroine internally, by targetting their internal beliefs (that are founded on their backstory experiences) and impacts their goals to the point that it makes them resist leaping into a solution.

A person cannot resolve their internal beliefs by having one conversation and everything's good. It takes working through those beliefs, and the events the hero/heroine encounter must contribute to that resolution. The events are either related to the external conflict, or related to the emotional relationship.

Let's look at a somewhat stereotypical example:

Hero is a wealthy businessman whose wife died and left him with a young child. Heroine is the woman he loved as a teen, who was from a poor family and "the wrong side of the tracks". They were involved as teens, but he left her suddenly. Ten years later, after his wife's death, they are reunited through professional endeavors.

Non-existant conflict:
They meet, there's a conversation along the lines of:

Hero: Susie, my parents forced me to. I never wanted to leave, and while I cared for my wife, I was in a loveless marriage. Please be mine again.
Heroine: Oh George, I've loved you too! Yes, that's all I've ever wanted.


Weak Conflict:
They meet, there's a bit of animosity between them. A bit of snide remarks on her part, his banging his head mentally, accusing himself of being a fool, since it's a Champagne title, they hit the sheets, sparks fly, and no one discusses what happened in the past. Eventually after a few chapters of a happy resolution being present in the writing (but not through character's actions or writings) they consent to forgive, forget, and move forward. Afterall, they've been working on this joint professional venture famously, they share core beliefs, and what happened in the past was out of youthful ignorance and the domination of powerful parents.

In this example, the author has made an attempt at keeping them apart. But the grounding isn't present. Both characters love each other from first meeting, always have, and their conflict is on the surface level. Actions portray it, but it isn't internally grounded. One conversation can resolve it between them. And while the conversation may not be as weak as the example in no conflict, it's still a situation that can be resolved by a conversation.


Strong Conflict:
They meet, there's a whole lot of animosity between them because the reason he is on the job conflicts with the reason she is on the job. Both have strong beliefs in their position and their work. They are at polar opposites, so it appears, within their moral compass. Adding into this the heroine feels intense betrayal, that she wasn't good enough for him because of financial positioning or her lineage. The hero, is anguished over what he did, but his reasons for leaving her had nothing to do with his parental domination, (although on the surface that's how it appeared), were in attempts to forge a path for them to be together.

When he came back to get her, she was gone no forwarding address and her parents wouldn't speak to him. Lo and behold, HER parents are the reason they were forced apart.

Yes, they can discuss this. Yes, he can swear to the truth of it. But although that conversation resolves why their teenage love came to an end, it does not address the larger issue of now that they are adults they are at odds with their core beliefs in relation to this professional set up. But before they can resolve it conversationally, they have to have their misconceptions proved wrong. Not just stated as wrong proved wrong.

The external plot -- the professional endeavor -- triggers them to act in ways that force them to grow and evaluate their individual standings. One of them must grow and change internally after doing something (the wrong something) that puts a divide between them, that seems insurmountable.

So if you have an environmental engineer opposing an oil mogul, the oil mogul must go ahead with the plan that damages the environment, despite feelings for the environmental engineers stance on the situation. External factors trigger something that points the oil mogul to the environmental engineer's motivation, and the oil mogul must scramble to right the situation. If the oil mogul doesn't right the situation, the love is forever lost.

These actions are what leave the reader on the edge of their seat, turning pages, wondering "How in the world is this mess ever going to get resolved?"

Conflict is a complicated entity. But if an author keeps in mind STRONG conflict, grounded in personal beliefs that are triggered by internal circumstances, and far deeper than one conversation can resolve, the odds of mastering conflict is significantly increased.

Good luck and keep on writing!

You Want Fries With That????

I'm beginning to wonder if the notion exists that the epublishing industry and the fast food industry are on the same par. Short on nutrition and service, just get ‘em in, get ‘em served, get ‘em out.

In the past few weeks I’ve (or someone I know) experienced the following: (disclaimer: before you read this and think “gasp! She’s talking about me!” rest assured, I am not. If these were isolated instances, they’d hardly be worth mentioning).

Hurry it up! An established author urging her editor to “hurry up and finish” her edits because a friend had just received a release date and it was five months from now. So since release dates were “getting out there” the author wanted the editor to hurry up. Having experienced this one myself, I can tell you that the first reaction from the editor is to think “well, sweetie, maybe if you’d sent me a cleaner manuscript to work with…” Sure I may love your voice as an author, and your heroes may make my toes curl and the love scenes make my heart pound…but I’m still going to thoroughly edit your manuscript. If you truly want to shorten your turn around time, take a look at the last MS you and your editor worked on. What did the edits focus on? Less ly and ing words? Removing dialogue tags? Over or under punctuation? Before submitting your new MS, go over it one more time with an eye toward strengthening the areas you focused on last time. You and your editor will both be happier with the turn around time.

Response times. When I send an author edits, whether she’s a brand new author I’ve just rejected with a two page list of revisions or an established author whom I’ve sent a handful of edits on a contracted MS, I don’t expect it back in my inbox the same day. Certainly not the same hour! Boomerang resubmissions or jumping on your edits doesn’t show me how efficient you are, it tells me you don’t proof read, that you’re not careful, that you don’t—to borrow a line from Hallmark—care enough to send your very best. And that means I’m going to go over those revisions even more thoroughly since I can’t depend on you to do so. Which means I‘ll need to set aside even more time to work on them... which means you'll be waiting that much longer to get them back from me.

And just between us, sometimes an editor likes to put a little space between time spent working on a story. I don’t want to re-read an entire MS again a week after I just finished editing it. Give me enough time for the story to feel fresh again—chances are if I told you to take two weeks, I penciled time in my schedule to work on it again fourteen days from now; sending it back thirteen days early isn’t going to change that. Make those revisions right away if you need to, but let the MS sit for a few days. Then look it over again before sending it back to your editor. You’ll be surprised at the things you missed—and in the long run, it could make the difference between needing a second (or third) round of edits…or proceeding to final galleys.

Did you get my email? Huh? Did you? Did you? I really love it (she said, tongue firmly planted in cheek) when my busy inbox is made even more full by this type of email. While you, the author, may only be working with one editor at a time, chances are your editor is working with several different authors at once. Most of us sort our emails daily and address them in order of importance. I try to respond to all emails within 48 hours, but like you, I enjoy taking the occasional weekend or holiday off, and –also like you--sometimes unexpected things arise that throw my best laid plans asunder. So if you sent me an email late Friday afternoon, please don’t send me a “did you get my email?” message first thing Monday morning... followed by another one Monday afternoon... and another one later Monday afternoon... Wait at least 48 business hours before checking back. Obviously if you have an editor who consistently ignores your emails, that’s a different issue, but 48 hours is a good rule of thumb for checking back on a non-urgent email.

OMG! My release date is when???? While I am not in charge of assigning release dates, I think ours are more than fair. Sure your friend may have gotten a faster release date, but not every manuscript follows the same pattern. When you entrust your work to TWRP, you’re entrusting our team of professionals from the preliminary reader who read and recommended your story, to the editor who took the time to polish that story and make it sparkle to the cover artists who brought your characters to life right on down to the copy editor who had the last look at your MS and the production folks who put all the pieces together and released it.

And none of that can be accomplished in the time it takes to visit your local drive through.