Hi!I'm running BRAINSTORMING TO REVISION, an online class I teach, at Savvyauthors.com in April, 2016. The class will be conducted in the forums at the site, so you can read the lessons and respond at your leisure.
Registration for the class will be open through Wednesday, April 6, 2016. You'll find information about how to sign up here.
As I've mentioned, this class was born when I decided to document and write 12 lessons around the process of writing an e-book, Chain of Kisses, published by Changeling Press.
Here's Lesson 2, Brainstorming the Initial Idea
By
Angela Knight
When
I’m doing something for Changeling or one of the other paranormal e-pub, the
first question I ask myself is, “What would be fun (and erotic) to write?”
I
already know this piece needs to be pretty short – 50 pages -- because I’m
under contract with Berkley, and my editor wouldn’t like it if I did a
paranormal novel for anyone else. Plus, I need to slide this in before starting
my next novel. If I do ten pages a day, I can have it finished in five days. (I’ve
done this recently, so I know it’s possible.)
My
Mageverse novels are a bit grueling, so for this short story, I want to do
something fun, where I can cut loose and have a good time.
If we’re talking
50 pages, I need a publisher that specializes in short and hot. Changeling Press fits the bill, so I’ll go
take a look at their submission guidelines, here: http://www.changelingpress.com/submissions.php
According to
the guidelines, they want: “Paranormal,
Dark Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Futuristic, BDSM, and Action/Adventure
romantic love stories. All submissions must be targeted for at least one of
these genres.
What's a Love Story? While there should be
both highly erotic and romantic elements to the book, relationships and endings
should be plot driven. We don't demand your characters trot off to get married
at the end of the book, though we do ask for a HEA (Happy Ever After) or, in
the case of serials, a HFN (Happy For Now).
Please keep in mind, we've only got one
heat level. Over-the-top hot! We can handle anything you send us as long as it
meets our guidelines! We do not accept simultaneous submissions. We do accept
multiple submissions.
Length: We accept outside submissions from
10 to 28K for single titles. Serials from unsigned authors must be submitted as
a completed set.”
Whenever I
decide I’m interested in a publisher, the first thing I do is look at their
submission guidelines. Then I read a couple of their books to see how well
they’re edited and what the quality is like, and whether I’d like to write
something similar.
Does their
website get a lot of reader traffic? The more readers a site gets, the better
the paycheck is. E-mail some of their authors and see whether they like the
publisher and are treated well. Check them out with Preditors and Editors to
see how they’re rated, here:
http://pred-ed.com/ That site has listings for both
agents and editors.
If you’re offered
a contract, read it very carefully and make sure they don’t want to keep your
pen name or something. If they do, see if you can strike the clause you don’t
like; often they will. Check the details of the contract with a lawyer or agent
if possible, or other writers if not. You can easily be screwed otherwise. (I
have been, and it wasn’t fun.)
Remember that the
lawyer who wrote the contract was working for the publisher, not you. He wrote
the contract to give the publisher the advantage. You have to look out for you.
Pay particular
attention to how quickly the contract says they’ll publish the book, when, and
what percentage of sales you get paid and how often, and what happens to your
rights if they go out of business before they publish it. Also, which rights do
they want? Those details are the kind of thing that can bite you on the ass, so
you need to be careful.
I’ve been writing
for Changeling for seven years, so I’m comfortable with them. They’re not going
to go out of business, and I trust the publisher not to screw me.
Now that we know
what market we’re targeting, let’s start brainstorming the book. I like to take
a big whiteboard on an easel and just start writing down whatever comes to me,
without criticizing the ideas, just letting them come. You can also brainstorm
with Post-it notes on corkboard, or software on your computer, or a spiral
notebook. Hell, cocktail napkins. Whatever
works.
In my case, I find
that writing my ideas on the whiteboard often triggers other ideas, and soon
I’m zooming right along. There’s something about those big words and my handy
eraser that frees me to play with ideas.
I know I want to
do a captor/captive story. I haven’t done one of those in a while, and they’re
always fun. The bondage thing Changeling wants is built right in to a C/c, and
if you add a big, sexy hero, you’ve got all you need to get my motor
running.
That last bit is
really crucial to writing an erotic story. You can’t write something that
doesn’t turn you on. For example, I’d never try to do a ponygirl story. Women
playing at being horses just doesn’t do a damned thing for me. Not that there’s
anything wrong with that -- it just doesn’t hit my buttons.
You need to
identify what’s really hot to you, because that’s what you’re going to write
best.
You also need to
be honest with yourself about whether you can
write erotic romance. Some people just don’t want to reveal their deepest
sexual desires to utter freaking strangers. Like me telling this list I like
bondage. Hey, Angela Knight is KINKY!
(Like you didn’t know that just from reading Jane’s Warlord.)
If writing hot sex
makes you squirm and imagine the reaction of your preacher, priest or rabbi,
don’t do it. You won’t be able to pull it off. You’ll be happier writing more
traditional romances, and you’ll do it more effectively and believably.
Once
you have the basic subgenre, start with the obvious questions. WHY is she a
captive? Why would a hero TAKE her captive?
He’s got to have a good, heroic reason, or he’s not going to be sympathetic.
And if he’s not sympathetic, the story won’t work. In 50 pages, you don’t have
a lot of time to set up the characters. They’ve got to be instantly likeable as
well as hot. You don’t have time to do a big growth arc from asshole to good
guy. That might work in a novel, but not in 12,000 words.
This
is what I wrote down as I brainstormed the book last week. The italics are my
commentary for this lesson.
Why
is she a captive?
Hostage
against someone’s behavior?
War
prize? He won and demanded her as his payment for not destroying her people?
Why
HER? Maybe she is an enemy general/princess.
He
is from a culture where men and women take sexual captives and practice
dominance. (Note that it’s not just MEN
practicing dominance. I wouldn’t want to live in a completely male dominated
society, because it would drive me nuts. I just want to play submissive games
in the bedroom, so I need to set up a more-or-less believable reason for the
hero and heroine to do that. This is, after all, fantasy.)
As
the story opens, she is bound and waiting for him to approach. She is aroused
but pissed. (I can really FEEL the
potential in that scene. Imagine being all tied up as a big, sexy guy strides across
the bedroom, his schlong leading the way…. YUM!)
Is this TMI? Ah, deal with it.
Futuristic.
I
like writing futuristics for Changeling, because Berkley limits me to straight
contemporary paranormal (at least when I was writing CoK). When I get to play, I want to do something different.
Besides, when you’re doing something like bondage, which has so many explosive
political implications, you’re better off setting the story on another planet.
Then you can just enjoy the fantasy without worrying about your NOW membership.
He
is hyper masculine. His people are very aggressive. They want mates who have
proven their intelligence and skill in battle. He became fascinated by her when
he fought her, which is why he decided to go after her.
How did he fight her? Hand to
hand wouldn’t work; he would have kicked her ass, unless she’s got super
powers. He’s a big guy, and he knows how to fight.
Maybe
she’s a ship’s captain, and their ships battled in space. Female Captain Kirk
type, swashbuckling, has had a string of lovers. (I don’t like virgin heroines when I’m writing a guy that dominant. A
meek little virgin just wouldn’t be a proper opponent for him. They have to be
equals, at least mentally, for a romantic conflict to work. Otherwise he just
runs all over her, which means he’ll come off as a bully. A romance between a
bully and a rag doll is just no damned fun at all.)
Thing is, I have already done
a captor/captive with two ship’s captains before. (“Roarke’s Prisoner” in Secrets 2 for Red Sage, which was my very first published romance.) So I have to
find a way to give it a twist.
Maybe
they’re royalty. She’s the youngest daughter of the empress on a matriarchal
planet. He’s the king of a neighboring empire. At one time, they were engaged,
but she called it off because she was unnerved by her strong reaction to his
dominance. He was aware of her reaction, and swore to have her anyway. She
threatened to leave the empire and become a pirate if they forced her to wed
him.
Ehhhh. Not sure that works.
He sounds like an asshole, and she’s no better.
Continuing to brainstorm…
They
have known each other since childhood, when they visited one another’s palaces
during various events. As a child, she had a crush on him. He was older,
handsome, dashing. They were engaged when she was two and he was fifteen – one
of those royal treaty things. (When
you’re doing a story this short, you have to have the characters in love to
start with. It’s very hard to get strangers to love in 12,000 words. Giving
them a romantic past solves the problem. The story’s conflict is how they
overcome whatever has been keeping them apart all these years.)
At
17, he went into his empire’s military, where he got a reputation as a fierce
warrior while fighting off an attempted invasion by reptilian invaders.
When
she was 17 and he was 30, they were supposed to get married. But she found him
so intimidating and dominant, she broke it off and ran. The result caused a
rift between their empires. Ten years have gone by. He is now 40 and she’s 27.
She’s a mercenary ship’s captain. (I do a
lot of mercs, because it’s a good way to involve a hero/heroine in someone
else’s war.)
He
attacked her ship and defeated her in combat. He then demanded her surrender in
return for the safety of her ship’s crew. Under the treaty between their
people, he feels he’s still entitled to have her.
Ehhhh. I’m Not Happy. He’s
still an asshole, and I don’t like the idea of marrying a 30-year-old to a kid.
He ought to understand why someone that young would get unnerved and run, given
the kind of Alpha Male he is. What would give him a good reason to take her
sexual captive ten years later?
When
she was five and he was fifteen (Reducing the age difference age difference ), her mother,
the planetary empress, engaged the heroine to the hero, who is the son of the
emperor of a neighboring planet. The mother’s planet was being menaced by an
alien race of reptilian warriors who were on the verge of invading and killing
everybody. The treaty gave her planet protection against the invaders; the
hero’s father, the emperor, declared war on the lizards and drove them back out
of his empire. The hero went to war and fought the aliens. He became a war hero
and conquered several planets during the next twelve years.
Now it’s a little more
understandable. A lot of his people (maybe his best friend?) died protecting
hers over that treaty, and she spat on it by chickening out and running away.
No wonder he’s pissed. But now she’s the asshole; I have to work
on that.
When
it’s time for her to get married to him at 17, (which makes him 27, which
sounds a little better), her sister, the heiress to the throne, tells the
heroine the elder sister wants him. The sister is a bit older and a little
slutty. The hero does something (I have
to figure out what; maybe the heroine saw him having really dominant sex with
someone. Her sister? No, that would be kinda asshole on his part. Somebody
else. He doesn’t know she saw them.)
This
incident freaked her out. She ran, rationalizing that her sister would marry
him and everybody would be happy. But he wanted nothing to do with the sister;
he wanted HER. The treaty was salvaged when the sister married his younger
brother, but it was a great scandal, and the hero was PISSED.
The
heroine assumed a false identity as a spacer, then later became a mercenary
captain. He has been hunting her ever since; it’s a matter of honor now. Too many warriors died for her world and SHE
OWES HIM, DAMMIT.
I’m still not happy about
her. Running away was cowardly.
The
fact that she ran away from him has been eating at her for years. In
retrospect, she bitterly wishes she’d married him as she was supposed to. Her
cowardice almost resulted in the destruction of her people. Besides, he’s been
a subject of her secret fantasies for years. So when he captures her, she’s
secretly delighted, though she’s also outraged by his gall and a little
frightened about what he intends to do.
Now this is a little more
understandable. Most of us have done something when we were kids that we
regret, so I think readers will be more inclined to cut her some slack. This is
also why I need to keep the age difference. If she were 20 when they were first
supposed to marry, it wouldn’t work at all.
So
that’s my initial process. I come up with a rough idea, and then start
brainstorming reasons for the characters’ actions that the reader can
understand and sympathize with. I also rough in the idea for the paranormal
world, but not in great detail. I figure out just enough to go on to the next
step.
Now
I need to nail down the characterization for the hero and heroine before I can
brainstorm the plot. So Wednesday’s lesson will be on creating the hero.
Any
questions?
Oh,
and I’ll do a crit for the first two people to submit rough plot ideas. First
come, first served.
Angela
Knight
I hope you'll join us at Savvyauthors!
