Three Things Thursday

Cheryl:

In literature, I’ve always been a fan of romances that are more of a “slow burn” than “love at first sight.” Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy rather than Cinderella and Prince Charming, if you will. 

I think part of the reason is that the reason I love books is that they are the only medium in which you can truly understand a character, heart and soul. And because of that, I want to learn to love them as a person, not just as a pretty face. Don’t get me wrong, I love staring at Channing Tatum’s abs as much as the next girl, but it’s just not the same as longing for Mr. Rochester and wishing he’d stop flirting with that stupid Blanche Ingram.

What do you think? Are there brilliant literary romances that work as love at first sight?

Brenda:

UNwrite Your Way To Success ! ! !

Many years ago, as a great fan of Irving Stone (think The Agony and the Ecstasy, Lust for Life, Men to Match My Mountains, etc.) I found out that he, TOO, was an over-writer.  It’s one of my biggest problems.  I know this story is true, because I heard him tell it myself: he had a layover in Salt Lake and came to speak to the League of Utah Writers.  He said he’d offered The Agony . . . to a number of publishers but was always turned down.  Desperate for help, he gave it to a secretary he knew and asked her to take a look at it and tell him what the problem was.  She insisted she knew NOTHING about writing, but he insisted “fresh eyes” might help.

She read the manuscript and told him he’d said everything three times.  She went through it again, trying to see where he’d said it best.  After they UNwrote great segments of it, he sent it out again . . . and it SOLD!  (The sweetest part of his story: he took the advance and used it to marry her — and she edited all his books after that.)  How’s THAT for UNwriting?

So a check-list for me —maybe it will help you to UNwrite too:

CUT as much as possible in 
 1.  Redundancies
 2.  Deliberate repetitions for “special effect” if it’s NOT special
 3.  Over-explanations
 4.  Words/ideas/sections I wrote for the “literary effect”
 5.  Now look at the pacing to be sure it’s clean, crisp, quick

Carol:

Thank you for coming to my signing last night. It was no where near as terrifying as the last one.

Thank goodness.

A Little Bit of Love

So I was thinking about my Chicken Book–the book I loved writing–and I think I loved it so much because it had ROMANCE in it. In fact, it’s all about Drugs, Sex and RockandRollBaby. No, really.

I think every young adult novel needs to have a nice dash of romance in it.

And middle grades needs to have a bit of spice, too.

So it’s that time of year when I look in my SPAM box and see what I can glean from the cool stuff there. This time I will think about LOVE. And one can ALWAYS find LOVE in the SPAM.

And since I am thinking of putting a lot of kissing and stuff in the YA I’m working on, well, maybe some of these will inspire me. Or you! Please feel free to take any one of these. In fact, if you need a link, let me know.

1. Single Christians in your area are looking for YOU.

2. Meet singles over 50–It’s FREE TO LOOK.

3. Penis Growth Sample–Your package is set to grow.

4. Last more than an hour today

5. Force Factor–Free Testosterone Booster has Explosive Results

And my favorite:

6. Life is Short. Have an affair.

What makes A Perfect Romance for you?

I looked this up online because the internet has tons of great stuff, right?  There’s a book out there called A Perfect Romance, which is an adult novel that’s supposed to be funny (mixed reviews). There’s also a TV movie called Perfect Romance where a mom uses a dating service to help her–well, I couldn’t read any more than that and when I pressed on the link is said ILLEGAL stuff was happening.

Here’re some of the things I like in a perfect romance. And this is not mentioning terrific language and strong plot. Those are a given, right?

a perfect partner–there has to be some tension

a perfect kiss–there has to be lots of these

some hilarious stuff–and even more of this

some sad-ish stuff–but not like that one Louise Plummer lady writes!

Some naughty stuff–and don’t put your naughty stuff off-screen. Let us see it. Plus–naughty stuff depends on YOU. It doesn’t  have to be sex. Or even related to sex. Naughty stuff to me is sometimes a touch. Or a stolen vehicle.

Here are some links to check out to help you with your romance writing.

http://www.millsandboon.com.au/perfectromance

http://voices.yahoo.com/five-tips-writing-romance-novel-editors-1048153.html

And then there’s this. All you have to do is fill in the blank.

http://www.healinglovenotes.com/perfect-love-letter.html

And don’t you think we should all take a month–the same month (February????)–and all write our own romances? There probably IS a Romance Writing Month. But think of all of us writing our Fantasy, Contemporary, Dystopian, Mystery, etc together and then celebrating at a romantic restaurant. Yes, that writing marathon would be fun.

I’m off on my morning walk and to think about what sexiness to add to this latest ghost story.

One last SPAM help me.

You Got What I Want and Baby it Ain’t as Cheap as I Need but it is Way Bigger.

(Okay, I made that up.)