Egg or Chicken? Plot It!

Which came first – chicken or the egg? What’s more important to start a story – characters or plot? Well, lizards were laying eggs long before our feathered friends arrived, so egg before chicken, surely? That’s what I feel anyway. And that goes for plot before characters, too. 

That belief comes after completing my last submission when I started with the characters, reincarnated (in part) from the ashes of previous rejections. I thought having pre-fabricated characters would make it easier to find a suitable plot.  Twenty-six versions later… starting with a plot has to be the way to go!

By plot I don’t just mean the story idea but the skeleton of the story that can be fleshed out later. A structure that will stop me wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of my imagination. That’s a lot of fun –if all I intend to do with my writing is fill up computer storage with unpublished work but that’s not my goal. So I need a plan. A plot.

So I started with the synopsis BEFORE writing the manuscript. So far that’s working well – the characters have changed names, jobs, opening scenes (within the first page, rather than after 50). Less time wasting, less patchwork passages that don’t connect and less going back to the beginning to re-write everything so I can get the ‘flow’ of the story again.

The plot-map-synopsis beforehand is rather like keeping a budget – it shows just how much substance there is to go on. An idea that plays out like a Hollywood movie in your mind, when written down lets you see that it’s a child’s stick drawing that’s best stuck on the fridge not hung in an art gallery.

Writing a category romance at least makes it easier to start. What am I going to write? A romance. Not a murder. Not a cookbook.  But a romance. And a romance is really a fairy tale for adults.

Looking back at some of the fairy tales that have endured for centuries, the plot lines are as follows: 

• Sleeping Beauty eats poisoned apple from evil stepmother, gets the kiss of life from handsome prince. Lives happily ever after. 
• Cinderella gets a makeover from a Fairy Godmother. Goes to the ball despite all efforts to the contrary by evil stepmother and evil stepsisters. Loses shoe. Prince finds her. Lives happily ever after.
• Ugly duckling turns into beautiful swan and gets the prince
• Beautiful princess kisses cursed frog and gets a prince.

Important ingredients:
Beautiful woman shows her goodness in the way she reacts to evil. Attracts the man next in line to a kingdom. They fall in love despite the odds. Live happily ever after.

Not all fairy tales have a happy ending – think original Little Mermaid. But in a modern romance, it’s important for the Grimms Brothers fairy tale to have a Disney-fied ending. After all, that’s why I consume romances by the dozen (as a reader). 

So back to the plot: the best place to start is the ‘who, what, where, when’ of journalism. Except newspaper journalists have to cram those edicts into the first paragraph. The crux of the story has to be in the opening sentence, as that is all most readers will skim on their way to the sports pages, daily horoscopes and celebrity do-dahs.

Of course, you don’t have to cram everything into the first sentence of a novel. Instead of a postage stamp space, you have 200 pages to go forth and conquer.  

So back to the plot and who, what, where, when. Now that we have the questions, where do we find the answers. The best place to find them is with the intended publisher and the category (if applicable) of choice. In my case, Harlequin Mills & Boon who advise the following in their Sexy Romance category writing guidelines:

"Although grounded in reality and reflective of contemporary, relevant trends, these fast-paced stories are essentially escapist romantic fantasies that take the reader on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Written in the third person, they can be from the male or female point of view, or seen through the eyes of both protagonists. All are set in sophisticated, glamorous, international locations.

"With its focus on strong, wealthy, breathtakingly charismatic alpha-heroes who are tamed by spirited, independent heroines, the central relationship in a Modern novel is a provocatively passionate, highly charged affair, driven by conflict, emotional intensity and overwhelming physical attraction, which may include explicit lovemaking."
(For more check out www.millsandboon.com.au/authorguidelines.asp)

Who: A spirited independent woman capable of taming a strong, wealthy, breathtakingly charismatic alpha male.
What: Passionate affair, driven by conflict, emotional intensity and overwhelming physical attraction.
Where: Sophisticated, glamorous, international locations
When: Today. Now. Not a hundred years ago.

Then there’s this from the Maryville High School (Tennessee, US) study skills guide to composition, under the helpful heading Laws of Plot:

• Plausibility:  the story should be convincing on its own terms, but not necessarily realistic.
• Element of surprise should be present.
• Suspense:  we should not know how the story turns out.
• Foreshadowing: hints at the direction the story will take.
• Logical:  events should be believable in their relationships to one another.

(To read the complete guide, go to www.ci.maryville.tn.us/mhs/studyskills/CompGuide/LitAnaPlot.htm)

(See also How to Develop A Plot By EmmaRileySutton, at www.ehow.com/how_4567141_develop-a-plot.html).

So where can we find a plot for an escapist romantic fantasy in an age with no classic evil witches or fire-breathing dragons in sight? Easy. Today’s evil witch/step-mother is the in-your-face ex-wife, the snotty mother-in-law, the back-stabbing friend, etc... And the fire-breathing dragon that needs to be slain so our lovely couple can live happily ever after is usually the reasons why they are completely, obviously, blatantly unsuited for each other… like a vegan going to work for a butcher.

Okay, a vegan going to work for a butcher is not a good plot for Mills & Boon. Unless the vegan-feisty-sexy woman applies for a job as station-manager, working for the richest-macho-bastard cattle station-owner in Australia. Or did that plot-line die out in the seventies…? Whatever. The main thing is to make the conflict so obvious you can write it down in one sentence, but remember that the suspense has to be strong enough to carry the story for approximately twelve chapters.
If it’s not strong, you’ll need a lot of plot props or padding to keep the story going and that usually results in the reader getting lost in a maze of half-baked ‘what-the…?’ and in the process, land your submission in the reject pile. Believe me, I know.

To help with conflict and suspense, always ask yourself what makes you want to read a book, watch a movie or tune into every episode of ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ (to see which farmer gets a girl, which girl he chooses and if they are getting married – romantic suspense in spades). The best way to judge if you’ve got a good plot is to read the synopsis/blurb/preview of your story as if it were written by someone else, then ask yourself ‘would I pay to read that?’. If the answer is no (be brave and true about this!), junk that plot and start again…

Reading, Reading and Reading...

The first time I read a Mills & Boon novel I was 14 years old.
It was school holidays. My sister and I were visiting my parents who were working in Sharjah at the time.
After getting through my holiday reading of Agatha Christie paperbacks, my choice of entertainment was either watching wrestling on television or sifting for seashells in the sand in our backyard.
Then my father brought home a bag of books that someone had given him. Inside were dozens of Mills & Boon romance novels.

Heavens!

Romance novels had the same status of illicit drugs back in my school days – teachers warned you off reading them as they would "rot young minds"; students smuggled books in brown paper covers – books that had been ‘borrowed’ from the shelves of their mothers, aunts, elder sisters; and trades were done in the greatest secrecy under desks and outside school gates.

And here my father had given me a whole bag of the same.

The first book out of the bag was by Anne Weale. The title is lost in memory but I do remember being unable to put the book down.
"What are you reading?" my father asked curiously, when I was battling motion-sickness to keep reading in the car. It was another gem from the unexpected treasure trove of Mills & Boon.
 "Yes, read out loud so we can all enjoy it," encouraged my mother.

…His lips met hers in heated passion…his hands cupped her turgid breasts…

Fortunately, my sister seeing my face quickly provided a distraction by pointing out the window and asking guilelessly, "What’s that?"
Years later, my sister grew up to have the biggest collection of Mills & Boon novels in my household.
As for me, from that first moment I was hooked.

But like those famous words by Forrest Gump – "life is like a box of chocolates" – so are romance novels. You have to search for the one that doesn’t make you skip to the last page after reading ten lines of the first chapter. The novel that doesn’t make you roll your eyes and thrown a metaphorical bucket of water on the heroine or smack the hero for being a rude, arrogant pig (and no, saying ‘I love you’ in the last couple of pages doesn’t make up for 180 pages of bad behaviour). The novel that doesn’t make you rush out and plant a tree in place of the one that lost its life for such aggravating, nonsense.

Then, suddenly, you find it. Magic. In a Charlotte Lamb or Robyn Donald; an Emilie Richards; a Susan Napier and practically every single Nora Roberts. The ones you wanted to read from start to finish, then go back and read again.

When my mother started giving me an allowance. I spent it all on books. Not new ones, as that wouldn’t have bought many new-and-imported books from K.V.G bookstore on Galle Road, Bambalapitiya. But from the ‘Bookman’ who visited customer homes, through word-of-mouth recommendations.
He carried pre-loved books in a gunny sack on his head and he’d rent/sell books for between 50 cents to one rupee – depending on when the novel was published and the condition of the book.
The only bad thing about the Bookman was that he refused to visit during exams because he didn’t want to ‘spoil my studies’.

He really was a very nice man, but what would my romance writing journey have been like if the Sri Lankan public education system had Anne Mather and Catherine George on the curriculum instead of algebra and chemistry? Hmm…

Dealing with Rejection

I was in the middle of the ‘final edit’ of my latest manuscript for Mills & Boon/Harlequin, when I received a rejection letter for the previous submission.

I used to think rejection letters were "aaaargh!".
One minute I’d be having visions (read: delusions) of my name on a paperback cover, holding the publisher’s unopened envelope in my hopeful hands. The next minute, I’d be pouring my heart to my bewildered my dog about a ‘cruel, cruel world’, with my writer’s confidence lying in tatters after another ‘no, thanks’ had sunk in.
But after the five stages of grieving  (shock, anger, chocolate, acceptance and more chocolate), I’m finding that rejection letters are not that bad. In fact they are very instructive for a would-be author. Specially as the editors are getting more detailed in their constructive criticism.

Here are some examples :

Rejection letter - May 2006"Whilst we appreciate the care and attention that has gone into the preparation of your submission, regrettably we feel that your story and characters would not be suitable for  publication in any of our publishing programmes."

Rejection letter - May 2009"We have read this with interest, but regrettably have decided not to pursue this project further. Your material is competently written and you have obviously researched the genre. However, the feeling is that, while we enjoyed the lightness of tone in your voice, this isn’t currently being balanced by enough character depth in your protagonists. We are not seeing enough of (male) and (female)’s emotions and it is not clear what will keep them apart emotionally in this story. Furthermore, there are a lot of secondary characters who distract from our focus on the central romance."

Rejection letter - November 2010 (my favourite, so far)"We appreciate the care and attention that has gone into the preparation of your submission, regrettably we feel that your story and characters are not sufficiently developed for publication in any of our publishing programmes.
Here our top tips to bear in mind for your next submission (they’re expecting more, lovely!)
1.  Ensure that your story and conflict are character-driven
2.  Focus on the internal emotional conflict of your characters
3.  Use secondary characters to add richness and depth to your central romance but don’t let them take over!
4.  Target your work to a particular series - means you need to read current books in the series you are aiming for and understand what the series delivers to the reader.
…
Find more writing tips at www.eharlequin.com and www.millsandboon.co.uk"