Hope Tarr | Keeping it in the family-or at least together: Writing the romance series

To paraphrase the late great John Lennon, life is what happens while you’re making other plans.

To directly quote my mother—and mothers everywhere—"Don’t do as I do. Do as I say."

Both sage snippets segue albeit circuitously into my blog topic—how to write connected romance novels, or rather how not to write them, or at least how to recover from (cough, hiccup) going about it all wrong.

My Men of Roxbury House trilogy—VANQUISHED, ENSLAVED, and now UNTAMED—is my first shot at writing connected books. Like anyone’s first anything, in the aftermath, there are lessons learned, battle scars to be shown off—and FYI, I’m not just in it for beads. ;)

Seriously, I don’t write like grownups do. Never have and likely never will. For starters, I don’t write sequentially, linearly, or well, in any reasonable, replicable fashion. You’ll never catch me at a writers’ conference touting my “process,” flashing charts and graphs, or God forbid, instructing others on how to write like me. If anything, I’m the textbook case for what not to do. I do it all wrong—and yet for me, it works.

I write scenes out of order, the characters voicing firing off like canon shot in my head. I’m not a plotter (duh) but I’m not a "pantser," either. I start out with a synopsis, though fat lot of good it does me. I’m what you call a "puzzler," which I’m coming to think amounts to starting down that path paved with good intentions that leads to You Know Where.

In the case of my trilogy books, I thumbed my nose at any notion of creating character sketches, a timeline, a “bible” of people, places, dates, you name it. My muse must have free rein and besides that, all that set-up "stuff" felt like…well, like a lot of work.

Creative freedom tasted sweet for VANQUISHED and ENSLAVED. Then I got to UNTAMED. My challenge (AKA “big problem”) was that Kate and Rourke, my UNTAMED heroine and hero, had already met in ENSLAVED. To keep the sexual tension at a slow sizzle building to burning point, I had to backtrack and start out UNTAMED *prior to* where ENSLAVED left off, all the while keeping clear in my head on where the other secondary characters were at each stage e.g., were Callie and Hadrian (VANQUISHED) married yet and just where were Daisy and Gavin (ENSLAVED) with opening that refurbished theater in the East End?

Memo to whomever manufactures those Post-It notes, please let me know where I can buy stock. Ditto for Starbucks. As to the guy who delivers my carry-out sushi/sashimi, the one whose twins are now contemplating medical school, no need to thank me. I’m always happy to support higher education.

There’s no anchor in a free fall. That said, once you take that leap of faith, there are some pretty amazing surprises that crop up amidst the brambles and screes scraping your knees. In my case, my circuitous “process” has led me to think about adding a fourth book to my so-called trilogy. It seems Rourke’s sexy friend, Ralph, former con artist turned valet is angling for a book of his own. For sure, Kate’s pretty but prickly younger sister, Bea, will be pretty disappointed if he doesn’t get it. I think I will be, too.

What are your experiences of detouring off the so-called beaten path in fiction or in real life? Ever thumb your nose at conventional wisdom—and found yourself thanking the Universe that you did?

Hope’s Unconventional Wisdom:

1. To paraphrase Louis Carroll, begin at the beginning.
   
   
2. If you ignore #1, and of course you will, then at least keep a damned log book, so you can figure out where you went…shall we say, awry.



3. Drink coffee. I recommend a latte with an extra espresso shot—all that shaking keeps you on your toes, or at least awake.



4. To combat being wired from all that caffeine, drink red wine, good red wine, or substitute your mood altering beverage of choice.



5. Keep all carry-out menus within easy reach. Unlike your "work" files, and the character log that in all likelihood doesn’t actually exist, the menus should be kept in meticulous order, preferably alphabetized.



6. Drink another glass of red wine—repeat as needed.

Hope Tarr routinely thumbs her nose at Conventional Wisdom and, hair pulling and teeth gnashing aside, generally finds herself glad she did. To enter her more than monthly contest, and have a shot at winning the latest releases from romance buds Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, and Kathryn Caskie, visit Hope online at www.hopetarr.com/.

Hope Tarr

Leslie Langtry | Greatest Hits Series

Hello! Thanks to Fresh Fiction for inviting me to blog today! As some of you may know, I write the Greatest Hits Series, featuring the Bombay Family – the first name in assassination since 2000 BCE. My first book, ‘SCUSE ME WHILE I KILL THIS GUY, featured Gin Bombay – soccer mom/assassin. My second book, GUNS WILL KEEP US TOGETHER is about her brother, Dakota Bombay – playboy/assassin. I love writing about this family of hitmen. The Bombays have kids to raise, bills to pay, PTA presidents to avoid, and so on. And they kill people. Well, bad people, really.

A lot of people ask me where the inspiration comes from to write about this subject. I have to say that movies like MR. & MRS. SMITH and GROSSE POINTE BLANK as well as books like Hugh Laurie’s (yes, the guy from HOUSE) THE GUNSELLER rank pretty high on the list. I think it’s because the characters are ordinary people with extraordinary jobs. And it’s easy to write about family life because everybody can relate to quirky cousins and a mother who ignores the fact that you are no longer twelve and still buys you barrettes with your name on them (are you reading this, Mom?). My own cousin came up with the tagline for the first book, “You can’t pick your family, but you can pick them off.” Unfortunately, you actually can’t pick them off if you want to avoid jail time, but I still think truer words were never spoken.

I hope you enjoy the Bombay Series as much as I enjoy writing them! Let me know what you think at leslie@leslielangtry.com, or visit http://www.killerfiction.net/!

Leslie Langtry

Stephanie Bond | Why Romance and Mystery Make Great Bedfellows

I just finished writing the third book in my Body Movers sexy mystery series (Three Men and a Body, due out August 2008) in which the main character, Carlotta Wren, works for Neiman Marcus by day and helps her brother move bodies from crime scenes by night. Carlotta’s life is further complicated by the three men in her life: her first love, a cop who has reopened the case of her fugitive father, and her brother’s body-moving boss. For me, romance and mystery are a natural fit, because one helps to foster the other in the story. The suspense of a mystery is further heightened when the players are emotionally involved. Likewise, the romance between characters is heightened by the adrenaline pumping from the suspense scenes. Nothing gets the heart racing like danger!

In writerspeak, mystery and romance make for a great intermingling of external and internal conflict. The mystery is the external conflict of the story, but if, for example, two characters are on opposite sides of solving the mystery, it makes their internal (personal) conflict more real, and more complicated. This is why I love combining the elements of mystery and romance—they are better together than on their own. (An example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.) And it’s why I think we’ll see more and more “hybrid” books on the market in the future that contain two or more elements of separate genres—because readers appreciate the blending of both worlds. When I sold the Body Movers series to Mira, I suggested that instead of making the reader guess what kind of story it is, that we simply tell the reader what to expect, which is why each cover plainly says, “A Sexy Mystery.” In other words, it lets the readers know that there will be dead bodies, and there will be naked bodies.

(Am I the only person perplexed by the phrase “A novel” on the front of books? What the heck does that mean anyway? If it’s fiction, of course it’s a novel!)

The only downside of blended genre books? Booksellers aren’t quite sure where to shelve them! In mystery? In romance? Both places? In some chains my Body Movers series is shelved in romance because that’s my background and where readers will most likely recognize my name; in other chains the series is shelved in the mystery section, and in others, general fiction, which doesn’t exactly help the reader find what they’re looking for. But I’m confident that bookstores will someday have blended genre sections and that more publishers will begin to tell the reader what to expect, either by spine designation or on the cover itself. Until then, if you don’t find what you’re looking for in one section of the bookstore, don’t be afraid to ask a bookseller for help. And expect more genres to be jumping into bed with each other!

Stephanie Bond

Sabrina Jeffries | Rakes Are Just Hell on a Writer

I don’t write many rakehell heroes. The hero of my upcoming book, Let Sleeping Rogues Lie, is really only my third. And why is that, you may ask?

It’s simple, really. I like my heroes to have compelling reasons for what they do, and I tend to think of rakehells as skirt-chasers who just want to have fun. A guy like that is hard to reform, and if he doesn’t reform, well, I worry that he’ll go on chasing skirts after the wedding. That would certainly put a damper on the whole happily ever after thing.

Still, I’ve managed to create a few by digging deeper. For Gavin Byrne in One Night with a Prince, I gave him a fear of rejection that made him skittish of anything but the most basic of physical relationships. Jordan, the Earl of Blackmore from Forbidden Lord, saw himself as unable to love. And my latest hero Anthony Dalton …

Well, I’ll leave that to you to find out. But I must admit that I have a soft spot for Anthony. His chickens have come home to roost, and they’re laying eggs all over his comfortable rakehell life. He handles it pretty poorly at first, which is where my heroine comes in. She shows him it can be fun to be responsible, respectable, and, most of all, monogamous.

Of course, that doesn’t keep them from finding enjoyment in the bedroom. My characters always do. But then, that’s what we like about those rakehells, isn’t it? That they reform while still holding on to the fun aspects of their character?

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you have another reason entirely for liking rakehell books. Maybe you don’t like them at all.

Here’s your chance to voice your opinion. Do you like those rakehells in romance? If you do, then why? If not, then why not? And what would a rakehell have to do for you to decide that he’s irredeemable?

-Sabrina Jeffries, author of Let Sleeping Rogues Lie

http://www.sabrinajeffries.com/

Jennifer Rardin | Biting the Bullet

Hello! (hello…hello) Yes, I am providing my own echo. This is what happens when you’ve been stuck inside waaaaay to long! (Come on, spring!) On the up-side, you tend to get tons of writing done. I’ve finished book four in the Jaz Parks series and am over a third of the way done with the fifth. But what I really want to talk about is the novel that just came out on February 11.

The third of Jaz Parks’ adventures, Biting the Bullet shoves the CIA assassin and her vampire boss, Vayl, into the center of Tehran. Their mission is to partner with an elite team of soldiers to take down a terrorist mastermind called the Wizard. None of their assignments is easy, but this one could break them. Because not only do they have to unearth the mole in the soldiers’ unit, they’re under attack from demonic monsters, a manipulative Seer, and their own unresolved feelings toward each other. And you thought your job was stressful!

I think you’ll like Jaz’s voice. Wise-cracking, smart-aleck, but always with a depth and vulnerability that lets you know she’s seen more at twenty-five than most people manage in a lifetime. Here’s a little sample from Biting the Bullet:

"I gave you this information as a courtesy,” I told her, “because I believe you’ll function more effectively if you understand what’s happening and why. But here’s the deal, Grace. My boss and I have been assigned to kill a man and that’s what we’re going to do. You can be part of our team, or you can be a tool we use to get our job done. Either way we have success. You just have to decide if you want to be happy or miserable."

It was a joy talking to you again! When you have a minute, feel free to stop by my website. I always enjoy chatting with Jaz fans!

Jennifer Rardin
http://www.jenniferrardin.com/