November 12, 2007
The Prolem With Erotic Romance
Characters with no good reason to do the horizontal mambo.
*sigh*
It does….uh…put a kink in things to say the least–or no kink, as the case may be.
I also have this problem with endings. I’ve got 80 pages of the first novella and 75 of the second so I’m on the home stretch but I still have one novella to write and of course those elusive endings! I know myself well enough to know that there’s a real good chance those endings will come after I write that third novella, so I’m totally not sweating it. And after talking to Raine last night and Lynn yesterday afternoon, I know how the third novella will go, so I should be able to whip it right out *cough* (BTW Lynn we’re going with the shop-o-holic angle LOL).
Anyway I still have to go back and rip that first novella apart. Why? Well besides the fact I can’t get my characters to CONVINCINGLY fall into bed (Convincingly being the key word because if I can’t convince myself they have a reason to get naked, I can’t convince a reader either. ), I realized something.
See lemme backtrack. I got stuck early on (like page three) and decided to write the first novella in third person from His and Hers POV’s, which I rarely do, but I realized a few days ago that his POV didn’t really add anything, there’s no huge character growth and there’s no way to solve his problems in a novella format. If they’d been a single title, I’d keep it and just keep on going but as it is, I’m gonna have to scrap his POV and probably flip it back to first person. *stabs self in eye*
So what does this all boil down to? Knowing yourself as a writer. I know my weaknesses (endings), I TRUST my gut and I’ve learned to listen to said gut and not waste time gnashing my teeth going “woe is me,” because I’m stuck on something.
So, what do you know about yourself as a writer? What’s your weak spot? That thing you might not confess to anyone outside of your critique group? And do you listen to that little voice or no?



So, what do you know about yourself as a writer? What’s your weak spot? And do you listen to that little voice or no?
WHICH little voice?! There are so many!
I know that one of my MAJOR weaknesses is getting too bogged down in plot. I mean, I can start off writing a 75 page novella with 3 characters, and three weeks later find myself with a cast of 20 and bearing down on 300 pages (coughcurrentwipcough).
And yes, the little voice warns me, but I’m a stubborn cow…
hmm . . . I don’t know. I use certain words and phrases too much and am bad at using contractions. I procrastinate A LOT!
but dunno . . . need to think on it some more
I’m a horrible plotter. I own this though. Didn’t use to. I just stayed in denial. Now I accept this and try to work through it.
Tanya I find that hard to believe–esp after having read your work!
My post tomorrow is about the 30 page slump. I tend to stop writing after that.
Oh and I just can’t plot. It doesn’t work for me so I gave up. I need just a spark of an idea and then I can take it and run with it. After I get over that 30 page slump, that is.
Listening to your gut (and your characters) is always the way to go. The characters, after all, know best on what their story is.