Writing Competition Tips: Don’t Let the Plot Get in the Way of the Story
24 Comments August 24th, 2009 in editor, writing, writing contest Posted by AmyAfraid your Harlequin Presents Writing Competition 2009 entry is clichéd? Then check out this post with some tips from the Harlequin Presents editorial team! Great tips for all kinds of romance writing… ~Amy
by Harlequin Presents/Mills & Boon editor Joanne Grant
Hello, how are you all? 
I wanted to share with you some tips from the workshop I gave with Senior Editor, Kimberley Young, at the recent RWA conference.
We’d originally decided to tackle problematic plots after the Editorial team in London assessed around 300 submissions in a short period of time and reported back that we were seeing the same mistakes again and again, and there was a reason why out of those 300 submissions we requested only a handful — so many of them started with clichéd openings.
For those of you in the UK, you may remember we discussed this at our workshop in Chichester last year and we decided to poll the editors again this year to see if we were still seeing the same clichéd openings. Interestingly enough, we found that only some of the old favourites were cropping up, but some new ones, that reflected the current social climate, had crept in! And it wasn’t just that the actual ideas were bad, all genre fiction has its conventions; romance fiction has secret babies and marriages of conveniences, and crime fiction has lone detectives and twisted serial killers — but it was the way these conventions were being executed that made them so clichéd.
So when don’t clichéd openings work?
- They lack originality
- They focus too much on detail
- They are used solely for dramatic effect
- There is not enough sense of character
- They are plot-driven
But your cliché can be turned into a familiar, yet fresh start to a story that encourages readers to keep turning the pages. A successful writer can use convention for its best purpose — by tweaking it, altering it, knowing how it works, twisting it, turning it on its head or ruthlessly using it to throw the reader headlong into the romance.
If you understand convention and how to use it, you’ll have the editor hooked too!
Here are our top tips to avoid the pitfalls of plotting your opening chapter:
- Plot is all about character, character, character!
- Choose your set-up carefully — if it is a conventional one make sure you are bringing unique elements through character and voice
- Understand why the convention works before you twist it
- Make sure your characters are driving the plot
- Use the plot to squeeze all the emotional juice out of your characters!
- Characters must be well motivated
- Don’t use clichéd characters
- Never EVER let the plot get in the way of the romance — change the plot, not your characters!
- The reader is interested in reaction not just action
- Know what plot needs to be on the page
- The black moment should never be a plot device or there just for dramatic effect
- Be wary of using secondary characters to move along your plot
- Prologues and Epilogues — use with care
- Choose a plot that is suitable for the series you are targeting
- Your reader will believe in any plot if they believe in your characters
- The characters are going on a journey — think of the plot as the road not the destination!
More tips from the editors can be found via the Harlequin Presents Writing Competition 2009 tab. And feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments!
This is so my problem!
The biggest lesson I’ve had is making the plot grow out of who the characters are, rather than manipulating the characters to fit the plot.
I look at my early story attampts, and all the conflict is external. Plenty happens to keep the hero and heroine apart, but it’s all other people or the situation.
I’m learning to create genuine emotional conflict- the internal relationship issues that the characters need to learn and grow to overcome, in order to earn their Happy Ever After.
Very helpful, Joanne. Thanks so much!
When writing, it’s so much easier to twist the plot than to mine the potential within your characters. But it’s the characters that bring me back as a reader.
Note to self: print this out and tape it to my computer!
Amy Strnad
Thank you for these tips. I have read through them but will go over them throughly and print them out.
I truly value these tips. They have helped me so much. Well at least I hope they have. lol…
Thank you,
Suzanne
These tips are great.
I know it may make editors everywhere gasp in horror, but I start a story by drafting the characters and fleshing them out in my head. Once I work out who is who and how everyone relates to and interacts with each other at the start of the story, the conflict generally grows from the relationships.
By the way, my favorite tip is this one:
>>>The reader is interested in reaction not just action.
I write romance for the same reason I read it – to get inside the heads and the hearts of the characters. If I just want to see a love story, I’ll watch a movie. I read a romance novel to experience the love and the loss, the tragedy and the triumph of the happily ever after.
Thanks so much for this. They are very helpful. I looked through the two proposals I was working on and I can see why I was going wrong now. Some of the better Presents novels always begin with a key scene, or rather moment, where heroine and hero collide head on. It’s that moment which defines the relationship, and what I like in that moment is how the heroine is presented with what she wants, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
I was looking over some of my stuff and I didn’t sustain that enough.
So I’ve now opened a third file, built around those points. It’s a little bit more sexy than I was expecting, however.
Wow, I am so glad I found this. I didn’t even know this was an issue until I started trying to study some of the learn to write tips at Harlequin. I just don’t want to enter another contest unprepared as I was before this.
This contest is a challenge and I can see where I got bogged down over what seemed a simple issue like plot building. But now I find this has serious depth which I didn’t realise.
thanks for helping me and others on this, right now, when we so need it.
Glad you’re finding Joanne’s tips helpful! Does anyone have another area of writing you would like some tips for?
~Amy
Thanks for asking, Amy. (now I feel like I’m talking to myself!)
How about something like: Top ten mistakes writers make in creating the Modern Heat hero?
I noticed the Modern Heat guidelines were changed recently – most interestingly (to me, anyway): “the Modern Heat hero MUST be very alpha.” This seems to me to be a bit of a change from previous posts of the hero being “more approachable” and (if I remember right) “doesn’t sweat the small stuff.”
Honestly, getting the light, flirty tone with a strong alpha male is a tightrope act that has me pulling my hair out right about now – so perhaps this is purely a selfish request!
(the other) Amy
Thanks so much Amy for posting this and Joanne for taking the time to write it! Really, really helpful! I struggle with wondering whether my opening is contrived to fit the plot rather than characters and your plot was a fabulous eye opener. Hopefully I can take it all on board!
Hey Amy
‘Honestly, getting the light, flirty tone with a strong alpha male is a tightrope act that has me pulling my hair out right about now’.
You and me both!! It’s certainly not easy, but believe me it’ll be worth the effort.
My take on it is, a Modern Heat hero CAN be more laid-back, and he can be charming and funny with it, but the bottom line is, he still expects to get what he wants… But your heroine’s going to make him work for it… Much harder than he ever imagined… Until he discovers that what he thought he wanted isn’t enough anymore… And that’s where the fun really starts.
Remember the Modern Heat hero doesn’t exist in a vaccuum, he needs a Modern Heat heroine to match him and get those sparks really flying.
Good luck
Thanks for the reply, Heidi. It really did help!
I love the MH Hero, the flirty tone, the humor – it’s what brings me back as a reader. Somehow I managed to lose sight of all this with my head buried in the bowels of my current WIP. What I really needed, and you provided, was a reminder of my overall goal (or perhaps a swift kick in the keister- but that’s harder to do over the internet).
Tonight I’m going to reread my printouts from Kate Walker’s blog in April(?) that addressed the Alpha male. I think I need a quick refresher on what exactly alpha is . . . and isn’t.
Thanks again!
Amy
I’m glad that these tips are helpful!
Mary Anne – that doesn’t make me gasp in shock at all, we are always encouraging authors to start from character because it is the characters that are going to pull the reader through the story.
Is there any other topics you’d like to hear from us editors? I cannot promise to provide blogs on them all, but I am sure I can help out on some!
Cliches, please. So far, from the eHarlequin site, I know certain scenes, certain types of characters and long descriptions of life etc are considered cliched. I’d like to know more. Thank you.
How about a twelve step program for members of HHA (Head Hoppers Anonymous)?
And some Point of View tips so we know how much we can get away with if we can’t get over our head hopping addiction?
Thanks!!!
Thanks Joanne for taking the time to write this
I’ve found it very helpful esp “Characters must be well motivated”. For me this has been one of my biggest stumbling blocks in writing.
I’ve also found everyone’s comments very interesting.
And Heidi, thank you for perspective. I love your books and appreciate your input
Just to follow up on Tangiles’s point about knowing what is and isn’t cliche. I had another look at the specimen letter you have up at eHarlequin, and the pitch raised a few alarm bells!
“Set in the Texas countryside, my guarded-heart rodeo-riding hero is a hot-blooded alpha male who was abandoned at birth by his mother and raised by a foster family. My heroine is a city gal reporter with a fear of intimacy who has never even seen a cow up close, but is assigned to interview the hero for a feature article. There’s plenty of tension, romance and hot boiling passion that threatens to set the pages on fire and burn up the manuscript in your hands.”
Apart from the spelling mistake (”girl” not “gal”, surely?), we don’t get anything much on the hero, and we’re supposed to know that he’s alpha-male without any evidence. I mean, Ernest in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest was also raised by foster parents, but he’s pretty obviously gay isn’t he? It’s the last line which jars though because I could equally well write: “My book is the best thing since sliced bread!” But just because I say my story delivers doesn’t indicate that my writing style contains those things which imply passion, tension and romance,now does it?
Would it not help to fix this, say use a query letter from one of your better authors?
Being from Texas, I loved the pitch. By the way, Lauren, I believe it was written correctly as “gal”.
Just wanted to say Thanks for all of the wonderful writing tips. I can’t wait for more.
Lauren,
Much of the insight into a romance novel’s hero and heroine would be provided within the synopsis, and of course in the opening chapters.
My understanding has been that a query letter’s purpose is to quickly and effectively grab the editor’s attention by very briefly summarizing the storyline, introducing the primary characters and their individual motivations, as well as conveying your own special writing voice.
Because each writer’s voice is different, the personality and nuances of her/his voice will naturally come across in a way that is unique to her/him. I’m not certain which line the sample letter would best represent, but it seems to remind me of the tone and “feel” of the Silhouette Desire line. Gotta love those sexy Texan cowboys!
The purpose of the sample letter is to provide us writers with a template to guide us in writing our own query letters. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think it is based on an actual manuscript.
Happy writing!
Trenda
Mary Anne, love that 12 Step Idea!
I’ll stand up and admit it- “I’m Jane and I’m a Head Hopper.”
Every snippet of advice on these pages has been so helpful. I suppose my biggest confusion in the Modern Heat series is how most books have a lot more plot than in the Modern series – and I have to say I love them for it, especially the Australian ones. But recent advice urges us to be wary of too much plot.
Balancing a character driven story with a need for a racy plot is definitely going to be my biggest problem. And I so want a cliched secret baby too!
Lorna, I love secret baby stories too!
Trenda,
Yes I agree that the purpose of the letter is to attract attention. Actually, thinking about it, if the webpage had said “This is the sort of stuff we want,” then just about every manuscript on the poor editor’s desk would be exactly the same!
Lorna,
I agree that striking the right balance between character and plot is tricky, but I think it can be done. I’ve been re-reading Browning’s “My Last Duchess” (I’m sure you can find it on the web) and I’ve been looking at how he managed to get so much into that poem – when on the face of it it’s all first person narrative!
I’ve also been looking at Beowulf as a template for my hero. What I got from that is the idea of raw, masculine energy. Similarly for the close of Homer’s Odyssey, in which the hero proves he is the rightful heir. I didn’t want to do a “yet another version of Mr Rochester!” But I think my main influence has been re-reading Byron’s Don Juan. One has to remember that Don Juan is a satirical poem, which cuts through the cliches and conventions of romance in order to rewrite them.
Lauren
Oh my. Your literary references are terrifying me. I vaguely remember the Last Duchess – about a painting? And I’ve made the mistake of starting to read Blaze books again too; with 1st person narrative, crime scenes and erectile dysfunction. Help! There just aren’t enough Modern Heat romances published each month to satisfy me.
Im sorry to say but in Harlequin presents it is impossible to write a book for you guys without having one of these cliches:
1. A rich dominating male lead(most commonly a billionaire) who always has his way with women. Oh and have you noticed that there are almost no male characters who are virgins?
2. The meek little virgin girl who thinks she can resist the temptations of the dominating male. If the female lead has a child she is either the aunt of the child, or the child is under the age of 5.
those cliches are in EVERY Harlequin presents novel, so it’s impossible to write an uncliched novel for Harlequin.