Yesterday, after completing edits on my first two chapters and synopsis and sending them in to a contest, I decided to make character sketches instead of writing more. My pictures are limited by the magazines and catalogues I have: The Economist, Backpacker, Martha Stewart Living, JCrew and Victoria Secret. I didn’t get many photos of my hero, but Martha had a great big picture of an old fashioned sailing vessel that was perfect for him.

This is my collage of my Heroine. For those of you who have read the first few chapters (Daddy and Laura), do you think my vision of her character comes out in my writing?

I just wrote my very first synopsis, and good lord it was tough, despite the advice in a recent PNWA lecture. I’d rather pull out my toe nails!

Presentation: Writing the Synopsis
Presenter: Robert Dugoni
Date: January 24, 2008, 7 pm
Organization: Pacific Northwest Writers Association

Thriller author Robert Dugoni presented to a full room of PNWA members on how to approach agents and editors to get your book published. Basing his talk on Elizabeth Lyon’s Sell Your Novel Toolkit: Everything You Need to Know about Queries, Synopses, Marketing and Breaking-In, Dugoni focused on the holy trinity of publishing applications: the Query Letter (the Business Card), the Synopsis (the Resume), and Sample Chapters (the Interview).

I. The Query Letter

The first paragraph should be about your novel and should wet the reader’s appetite to find out more…in the form of the synopsis. The second paragraph should tell about the author and include professional organizations (related to writing) and publishing history. It should demonstrate the author’s dedication to the craft.

II. The Synopsis

Dugoni recommended following Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey story structure as outlined in Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. These are: Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor, Crossing the First Threshold, Road of Trials, Approach to the Inner most Cave, The Inner most Cave, Seizing the Reward, Return with the Reward, The Resurrection, The Reward. I suggest following Blake Snyder’s 15 plot points instead, unless you don’t mind identifying the gate guardians and goddesses in your story.

For each beat of story structure write one to two sentences about your story, you’ll end up with a synopsis. Yay! Most contests I have looked at ask for a synopsis that is no more than 5 pages. Dugoni said 2 is fine

III. The Sample Chapters

The sample chapters are almost always your first three chapters. You should have strong opening and closing sentences to hook your reader.

Anyways, I got the first and third parts down, but the synopsis is killing me. How can I condense my story into a few pretty sentences. That’s the problem – making it pretty. And exciting. And attractive. Oy vey.

I also found this helpful website with sample synopses and tips on writing a good one.

Title: Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel
Author: Lisa Cach
Publication Info:
Genre: Contemporary Romance/chick lit
Rating: <3 <3 <3

Cinderella is every little girl’s fantasy. The fairytale is not about marrying money and being rich, however, it’s about finding true love in a man who sees the real, compassionate, strong, beautiful woman beneath the facade of dirt and servitude. Eloisa James wrote a lovely article on the use of the Cinderella story in romance novels, most of which focus on the transformative nature of the story. Personally I’ve read a few that leave me with a “he likes her for her looks” icky feeling, but since I can’t remember any of the names of these we’ll just fugettaboutit. (Needless to say, I have a high bar for judging Cinderella stories – they need to be about self empowerment.) Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel happily satisfies this ideal and is humorous to boot.

Kati Orville is an out-of-work tech writer from Seattle (whoot!). She adopts Oprah as her personal mentor and has a series of very funny dreams in which Oprah, actor Ian Richardson, and an iguana show her the path to true happiness. (A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep…) Kati decides what she wants is the fairytale: to marry royalty and live in a palace. She flies to London to find her dream, crashing a society wedding, meeting the queen at the Ascot, and gracing the tabloids in full glory in the process. Unfortunately she finds herself not attracted to the polished but unctuous Viscount Stanley, but to his sloppy organic farmer cousin Will Eland. Can money buy happiness? Is love enough to survive a life of poverty? She must discover for herself if what she really wants is the castle or the true love of finding the prince of her heart. (Guess which one she picks?)

The book is not subtle in addressing the questions of true happiness and the value of money and the secondary characters of Trevor and Helena are one-dimensional, but it’s delightfully charming non-the-less. Kati and Will are both quirky and endearing. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a light hearted read and certainly anyone who likes Cinderella.

From the New York Times: Japan’s best celling authors (LOL) are using their thumbs to write. The authors and readers are mostly young women and the stories are mostly about tragic love. Sentences are simple and descriptions are limited. The writing resembles text messages, with shorted slang and smily faces. Cell phone authors upload their text to various cell novel websites where they are displayed in serial novel form. Publishers have started reissuing these books as published hard copies, where they have gone on to become best sellers.

OMG, I think this is crazy cool – talk about empowering the masses! The internet has opened doors to new forms of literature and self expression. Take blogging – now anyone can be a journalist! E-publishing has expanded the number of authors and types of books that are published. (Though the traditional publishing world is still wary of it – At the PNWA conference we were warned away from self-publishing on the internet.) And why shouldn’t we embrace new opportunities for creativity? I don’t think I’ll be reading a cell phone novel anytime soon (I hate tragic stories) but I applaud my generation for its entrepreneurial spirit. Pick up those iPhones and set your thumbs a-tapping!

(PS this is a picture of my beautiful baby Shadow. He’s 17 and a half and I adore him! )

Presentation: Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need
Presenter: Blake Snyder
Date: January 18, 2008, 7 pm
Organization: Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America

I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up to the crowded classroom at the Phinney Ridge Neighborhood Center Friday night. I wasn’t writing a screenplay. What could a screen writer teach me about writing a romance novel? As it turns out – a LOT. Mr. Snyder was funny, inspiring, and informative. I recommend attending one of his talks no matter what medium or genre you write. Move over Joseph Campbell, Blake Snyder’s 15 beats are straightforward and essential to developing a successful story line! (Threshold Guardian? Meeting with the Goddess? Yeah, ’bout time someone simplified it!)

What does “Save the Cat!” refer to? It is a ritualistic moment early on in the story where the hero does something noble, like saving a cat, making the audience like him and root for him for the rest of the story. It is a vital part of introducing the hero.

Mr. Snyder started off by listing similarities between screen writing and romance writing. Both are structured, targeted at specific markets, and criticized at being formulaic. Neither genre is formulaic: both use particular types of a wide variety of stories but follow the same structure. Structure does not equal formula.

“All stories are about transformation,” he argued. “In every story a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.”

Love stories are about transformation in which the hero and heroine’s lives change for having met the other. There are 5 types of love stories: Romantic-Comedy (romcom) Love, which features mistaken idenity, confusion or lies that keep the hero and heroine apart through the story despite their attraction; Epic Love, such as Lord of the Rings, Titanic, and Last of the Mohicans; Pet Love, such as Free Willy, Black Stallion, or ET; Forbidden Love, such as Romeo and Juliet and Brokeback Mountain; and Professional Love, such as Lethal Weapon.

The rules of love stories are that the hero and heroine must hate each other but also have to be together. These two warring desires create the tension and conflict that drive the story. If the hero is a fireman, the heroine should be a pyromaniac. There must be sufficient conflict so that both main characters must transform to achieve their Happily Ever After.

Mr. Snyder stressed the importance of starting off with a poster or hook before writing the story. If you can’t sum up your story in one or two sentences, or with a movie poster, then you don’t have a story. You should never have to explain scene by scene to tell what your story is about. He suggested hitting up the local Starbucks to test your hook on a random stranger in line. His example: “Would you see this movie: Granny – she’s off her rocker?” The poster/hook is usually taken from the Fun & Games section of the story.

Titles are also important. For instance, in Born in Fire by Nora Roberts, the title is referenced all the way through the book. It refers both to Maggie’s glass art, which is made in fire, and also to Maggie herself, who is conceived in passion but not a lasting love. She struggles with this herself – is her relationship with the hero also born in fire? Or is it really love? Does it burn so hot it cannot last? Or is it like the glass teardrops that are born in the fire but are so hard they can’t be broken on rock?

Mr. Snyder used Born in Fire to illustrate his 15 Beats of story structure:

The only person not transformed by the story is Maggie’s mother. Brianna eagerly awaits the sequel (as do I!).

NOTE: The Theme is stated on page 13 by Maggie’s father “A marriage is a delicate thing, Maggie, a balance of two hearts and two hopes. Sometimes the weight’s just too heavy on the one side, and the other can’t lift to it.”

Mr. Snyder also spoke briefly on the “Bad Dialogue Test“, in which you cover up the name of the characters and try to guess who is speaking just by the diction and lexicon. He also told of the “Pope in the Pool” method of burying exposition by drawing the audience’s eye to something startling (like a pope swimming in a pool) to distract them from the background information dump.

I realized during the talk that I have been naturally crafting my story along the lines of the 15 beats, but I didn’t have them cemented in my head. It is incredibly helpful to have them laid out so clearly for me. I was also inspired by the idea of a movie poster as the hook for a story. I definitely have a poster (aka book cover) in mind for my novel: a woman in a Regency ball gown waltzing with a man also in elegant Regency attire; Her back is to us, but she is looking back over her shoulder to give an audacious wink and mischievous smile. One hand is holding up her skirts and her heel is kicked back, displaying the modern running shoes under her ball gown. (It’s a time travel regency romance.) It is very clear in my head, and I’ll do my best to draw you a picture of it in the coming week.

I won a free autographed copy of his book. I can’t remember ever winning a drawing before. It was quite thrilling.

Thank you Blake Snyder for your wonderful talk and thanks to the Greater Seattle RWA chapter for asking him to speak!

Title: Born in Fire
Author: Nora Roberts
Series: Born in series, book #1
Publication Info: Jove, October 1994
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3

Though I usually go for stories that are more fairy-tale in nature, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The main and secondary characters were complex and the relationships were well developed. I enjoyed learning about the secondary relationships – the hero and his grandma, the heroine and her sister, the heroine and her father, and especially the heroine and her art – just as much, if not more so, than the relationship between the hero and heroine. Ms. Roberts’ descriptions of the heroine’s artistic process touched me; she put into words the frustration and elevation I feel when creating.

The heroine, Maggie Concannon, is a glass artist in Clare, Ireland. She is fiercely independent, proud, stubborn, defensive and sometimes rude, but also extremely generous and protective of her family and friends. She has a tempestuous relationship with her bitter mother. The hero, Rogan Sweeney, is a rich gallery owner from Dublin who desires Maggie’s work from the first time he lays eyes on it. He is a driven businessman, by turns pompous and overbearing, but also a compassionate man who takes as much pride in his work as Maggie does in hers. Maggie has difficulty letting Rogan manage her artwork because she feels she is betraying her independence and selling her soul, but Rogan won’t take “no” for an answer. Yadda, yadda, they fall in love and live happily ever after.

Not only did I read this book, but I annotated it. (Dr. Lightfoot would be so proud!) I read this book a year ago, but didn’t remember much because I consumed it in my typical fashion: gobbling it like candy, seeking that sugary sweet high. This time I paid attention to word choice, sentence structure, character and plot development, and, of course, misprints. Whoops! (I only found 3.) It was fabulous! Who knew annotating could be so much fun? La Nora is a talented author

Ms. Roberts’ use of the brogue to express moments of greater emotion in her dialogue is genius. When Maggie gets angry or upset her speech develops a heavy irish cadence, inverting her sentences and replacing “me” for “my”. For example, when Maggie and Rogan are discussing their business arrangement and Rogan demands 35% profit, Maggie gets angry. Rogan says that he does all the work and all Maggie has to do is “merely to create”. She responds (p69):

“‘Oh, as if all it takes is sitting on me ass and waiting for the inspiration to come fluttering down like raindrops…. Oh, it’s clever you are, Rogan, taking a quick turn from money into fame.’”

Ms. Roberts has a lovely way with words. In a number of places she used adjectives that start with the same letter to emphasize a certain description or mood: “The kiss sizzled, sparked, smoldered,” (p87). Her descriptions are fabulous, at times sensuous and at others playful: “The light and the music sparkled down the staircase like fairy dust along the curve of a rainbow,” (p166).

Tonight my local Romance Writer’s of America chapter is holding a lecture by author Blake Snyder who will discuss plot structure using this book (hence the annotating.) Tomorrow I will regale you with my notes and more in depth analysis of Born in Fire.

NORA ROBERTS BOUGHT HER GRANDCHILDREN TEE-SHIRTS WITH MY DESIGN ON THEM!!!

Ooooooooooooooooo! I’m soooooo excited! Seriously, I’m all a-flutter. I’ll be sporting a Big Silly Grin on my face for the rest of the week.

Here is her note posted on the Smart Bitches comments (we’ll pretend that she didn’t spell my name wrong – I can’t be one to quibble about spelling errors!):

“Ciana, thanks!

My grandbabies will be sporting anti-plagiarism ferrets!

Posted by Nora Roberts on 01/17 at 01:48 PM”

Forgive me while I run out and buy all her books!!!

Networking? Hmmmm. I don’t know how I can justify the last few hours, but I made a lovely picture!

Haven’t been following the joke? Read the article in Newsweek by Paul Tolme entitled “Move Over, ‘Meerkat Manor‘” on being plagiarized in a romance novel. Do it. It’s funny.

Inspired by Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books, Nora Roberts, Paul Tolme and the Black Footed Ferret, and the lovely Bitchery readers. I uploaded it to cafepress if you want to get it printed on something.

I believe that everything that ever could be said has been said about this topic, but since even my non-romance-reading friends and family have suddenly popped up to tell me that they heard about it, I thought I’d post this hilarious summary of the Great Debate. It’s really all you need to know.

Oh, and the Smart Bitches are Goddesses. I worship the ground they walk on, and even if you don’t read romance novels they are funny as all get-out.

This just in: Nora Roberts has come to the aid of the black footed ferrets, as written about in Defenders of Wildlife Magazine and plagiarized by Cassie Edwards. She will match up to $5,000 donated by readers of Smart Bitches to the Defenders of Wildlife nonprofit and you can contribute by following the directions here.

I never followed Nora before, but she has really impressed me during this whole debacle. Sign me up for the WWND fan club!

And another thing: I designed this and uploaded it to cafepress after Bitchery reader Julianna first suggested a “Ferrets Against Plagiarism” tee-shirt. I was inspired. And I can’t spell to save my life.

Title: The Perils of Pursuing a Prince
Author: Julia London
Series: Desperate Debutantes series, book #2
Publication Info: Simon & Schuster, April 2007
Genre: Regency Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3

Let me start off by saying that I love the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast, so the fact that this book followed the fairy tale’s plot almost exactly didn’t bother me. I picked up Ms. London after reading a short story by her in the School for Heiresses anthology. (Sabrina Jeffries, Liz Carlyle and Renee Bernard also wrote stories for it, which are all lovely!) The book is well written. I appreciated that both the hero and heroine were flawed (ie human). I can’t stand when one is perfect! It was also nice to have a hero who wasn’t unbearably gorgeous (Duh, he’s the Beast!). He was real, vulnerable, complicated, and much more alluring for being so. I could definitely fall in love with him. The heroine was naive but strong. I sympathized with her struggles being far away from home and surrounded by lies and seduction. She was believably conflicted. The only thing I would have liked to see was a baby epilogue, cuz I’m a sucker for those. Since the book is the second of a trilogy, though, Ms. London is probably saving the baby news for the next book. (I hope! Corpus bones, how I <3 babies!!!)

Belle is Greer Fairchild, an orphaned gently-bred 22-year-old who travels to Wales to find her inheritance when her guardian dies and she and her cousin are threatened with being married off without their consent. Since she has no money the journey takes months longer than it should have and along the way she meets up with the unctuous Gaston, aka Percy, who proposes marriage in an effort to manipulate her out of her money. The Beast is Rhodrick Glendower, Earl of Radnor, also known as the Prince of Powys, who is 38. (A 22-year-old and a 38-year-old? Kinda squicky, but let’s just pretend we didn’t notice.) Low self-esteem at being huge and scarred and a broken heart over the death of his wife and child have made him a grumpy recluse. When she arrives in the company of notorious black-guard Percy, the Beast demands that Greer prove her identity before he hands over her inheritance. He imprisons her in a tower; She runs away into the forest and gets lost; Rhodrick sees a storm coming, goes after her, and saves her life; She falls in love with his library; He demands that she eat dinner with him or starve. The servants burst into song and dance – oh wait, wrong story. Meanwhile Greer tries to remember things about her long-deceased mother who is haunting her dreams. Rhodrick and Greer struggle with their mutual mistrust while trying to restrain their mutual attraction. They overcome quite a few misunderstandings, secrets, and family histories that get in the way.

They fall in love. They get married. They live happily ever after. Aaaaaaaaah, wuv, true wuv.