Admittedly, the things the editor pointed out were things I had wondered after I’d completed the ms and sent the partial away. The heroine’s conflict wasn’t enough for example. The hero, hey, he was fine – joy! – but she needed work. I think I’d got to the point where I just wasn’t sure of the balance. The hero’s conflict was very dark and I thought giving her too much heavy stuff would be over-egging the pudding. Apparently not.

But, happy days, I had an idea to make her conflict much stronger and more intense, and also tied in to the other thing I’d forgotted – external goal. Bah. I’ve even done a blog post on it and yet I STILL forgot in this ms. I got so focussed on creating tension between the hero and heroine that I forgot the external goal could create the tension, not the other little things I’d put in there. It’s like I’d given the hero and heroine bicycles, their conflict driving the pedals and making them move forward, but instead of putting them on the road and letting them pedal to the finish line, they were on a circular track going around and around, and going nowhere. Doh.

In fact, it’s quite amazing how the interaction of conflict, motivation, and goal intersect! Yes, I know, I should have realised this YEARS ago but I haven’t seen it quite as clearly as I have this time.

I guess you learn something new every day. Anyone learn anything else new today?

Well, I woke up this morning to an email from the wonderful editor at M&B about Mr Sheikhypants. They love him and his conflict (yay me for getting the hero right for once!) but the heroine needs a little more work. Best of all I got a great list of the issues that were of concern and some ways to tackle them. So thrilled! They were actually things I was feeling a little doubtful about anyway so it’s great my instincts were spot on. I have to tweak the partial and send back as they were keen to see how I dealt with it.

As you know, my subs with M&B haven’t worked out in the past couple of years so I’m beyond pleased that a) my voice works for Presents and b) they like my hero.   Oh and c) it’s not NO!

Have already sorted out how I can make my heroine’s conflict stronger which will make her pursuit of the external goal stronger too. And everything will tie in together and it will be wonderful and rainbows and unicorns and flying ponies shall flourish.

Here’s to finally getting out of the quicksand! Clearly I need to throw tantrums more often.

Oh and you know how I’ve been waiting in the supermarket? I’ve actually been in a couple of other supermarkets too and now I’ve finally reached the checkout and my goods are being rung up and bagged as we speak.

And you know what? I had an inkling I was doing something that wasn’t quite right and yet I pushed on. Complained to Dr Jax later that night, that I felt I was forcing them to have a conversation they didn’t want to have. And he said, “Why are you doing that? What do they want to do?” My rebuttal to this was that I knew perfectly well what my characters wanted to do but they couldn’t because…because…well, they’d just have another love scene and shouldn’t they be getting further along with stuff by now? Dr Jax’s reply was ‘So? Eventually they’ll have to stop doing what they’re doing and that’s when the conflict happens.’.

Argh! Maybe I should get my husband to write these things instead… Anyway, the wretched man was right. I was trying to get my h&h to have a conversation that they shouldn’t have been having – they’ve only known each other two days, waaaaay too early to be sharing stuff about their dead/hideous parents! My intention was to further their conflict without a love scene because I’ve been trying to avoid the whole ‘sex without emotion’ trap. But of course, love scenes CAN forward the conflict and up the tension so why didn’t I just do that in the first place??

I have no idea. But after deleting the 4k and starting again with the love scene, it was MUCH better. Would you believe my ‘deleted scenes’ folder is now nearly as long as my actual ms??

So, what’s your biggest deletion? Bet you can’t top mine – this ms is on its third complete rewrite.

Anyway, the one good thing I do know is that the editor liked the conflict. She thought it was realistic, consistent and believable. Big yays for me. Apart from the fact that the emotional barriers are quite large ones. Not so big yays.

Which brings me to the part about the mountain. I’m feeling now I’m at the bottom of it and it’s a very long way to the top. If the ed wants more, I have to write the rest of the story and that’s feeling like a mammoth task. Maybe the pressure’s getting to me, I don’t know. Maybe I just need to start writing and get myself enthused. Maybe I need to refill the well a little.

Whatever it is, I’m going to leave you with a personal favourite video of mine (courtesy of Miss Maisey Yates). Please note that I actually do not want to make love to the mountain (unless it looks a lot like my hero in which case I could be persuaded).

BTW, if you want to know more about the Modern Heat winner of the last Mills and Boon contest, visit www.sevensassysisters.com. Miss Jilly Aston is in the house.

The other problem I’ve run into is that I’ve also been constrained by earlier versions of this ms. This is when revisions can be such a b*tch. You change it, but not enough and the old reactions are in there, the old plot. Which now doesn’t work. Sigh. I didn’t want to have my big love scene too early – which was in the old plot – and so fell into the trap of making my characters do what I wanted, not why they wanted. There was no reason to keep them apart except for me not wanting them to get together…cue plot device. Luckily I have now given them their head and they are following their natural inclinations which is a happy holiday fling. Needless to say, it will not end up being a happy, holiday fling. They have conflicts which mean that flings are fine, love is not. Guess what’s going to happen?

Anyway, have now got rid of the old plot that was boxing my characters in. Now, hopefully, the plot will happen much more naturally. At least, that’s the plan! Going to submit my next couple of chapters to the ed this week so we’ll see how it goes. But first, my old nemesis the synopsis…
Anyone want to write it for me??

For all the answers to these questions and more, check out www.sevensassysisters.com.

Blog launches 14th of May. Be there or be square.

P.S. the ed offered to read chapter 1 of my rewrite. So I sent it off to her and guess what? She LIKED it!! Finally, after nearly a year of getting everything wrong, I am getting something right.

IT’S TRUE!

Tears have been shed. Yes, I admit it. Tantrums have been thrown. I have said many times ‘I’m giving up. I can’t do this. I can’t get it right. I’ll never get it right.’ Much swearing occured in our house as I tried to find my way into these wretched characters. I wrote a whole partial! Which will never see the light of day because it was rubbish. And why? Because it comes down to the most basic problem which was the fact that I had not nailed down my conflict. I thought I had but I didn’t go deep enough and therefore I did not know how my charcters would react and so they acted inconsistently.

But. I think I’ve got the conflict sorted now. This is a huge caveat of course because I’ve thought I’ve had it many times before and haven’t. I still don’t know if the first chapter is right or not – I’ve thought that about all of my writing before subbing and been wrong. It feels right but then so has everything else. Ultimately, I have no idea what the editor will say.

Anyway, I’ve rewritten the first chapter twice, both entirely different. This is easier for me because it breaks away from the scene and characters that didn’t work and makes sure I don’t fall into old patterns. I’m hoping that finally I’ve got it. At least they’re acting in a way that is true to their conflict. In the end, though, all I can do is sub it and see.

Anyone else tearing their hair out over their stupid characters?

Why? Because when you get a revision letter that tells you to add more internal conflict, you need to a) know what internal conflict is, and b) how to add it. And unfortunately, that’s where instinct failed me and where I had to put on my big girl pants and actually knuckle down to learn craft. I really didn’t want to. Knowing about character arcs and goals and motivation ruined the spark for me. But, after my partial failed at the first hurdle last year, I knew that instinct wasn’t going to be enough. You can have visions of the wonderful house you’d like to build but if you don’t get the framing right, it won’t stand up.

So then I started unlearning 25 years of writing insinctively, re-learning all the craft stuff and actually paying attention to it. Make sure my characters had conflict, make sure they learned from each other, make sure they changed. And guess what? In the process I DID lose the spark. I was concentrating so hard on making sure everything was in place that I lost sight of my instinct. Even doing these revisions, my characters became cardboard cut-outs that I was moving around. I knew them, but they kept shifting on me (and no, they’re not werewolves. Maybe it would have been easier if they were!), they kept changing.

Maisey then offered some advice (because she’s good like that) – just let it all go. Write from your gut. And so, after six months of learning my craft, I put all the craft stuff aside and wrote the way I used to. By instinct. And sure enough, my characters came alive. I slipped into them and they began to speak not with the words I gave them, but as the people that they truly were.
Hello happy medium!

The idea is that I know my craft better now (and no doubt I will keep learning it) so I can see where something’s going wrong. So I can plot properly. So I get the pace right and the conflict straight. And then I have to write like I don’t. Easy.

Anyone else an instinctive writer and find all this craft nonsense a pain in the rear?

1. My conflict was too obvious, too early. I really needed to give hints of it, not reveal it so starkly.
2. My characters were…drum roll please…too self aware! Which is always a besetting sin of mine. I did a post about characters being too self aware actually and was quite relieved to note that I’d done it in February – at least a month after sending this partial, so I have progressed!
3. My characters thought too much about the past. They fell into old patterns and the romance didn’t feel like something new and exciting.
4. The setup didn’t work.

However, they did say there were some lovely moments and that my character consistency was better.

So there you have it. More bad than good really but at least they gave me some suggestions about how to fix it. I admit to feeling quite daunted about this – at least every time I read that email I do! But in the past couple of days I’ve been discussing suggestions for fixes with various people and now I think I have a plan of attack. Going to post more about it as I go because I got some other feedback about lack of goals that has been hugely helpful too.

Anyway, bottom line is I’m going to nail this, by jingo!!

Anyway, so my choices are revising or subbing something new but since they’ve given me the option of revising, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s an important skill to learn and I want to show them that I can do it. However, I do have a tendency to go to extremes – I’ll either completely rewrite so it’s a new story, or I won’t change it enough. Argh!! Somehow I have to find a happy medium.

So if anyone out there spots a happy medium, can they send it on to me??