Open Letter to A 'Wannabe' Part Three

Some more of L's questions:


How do you go about it? Do you write your plot on flashcards and organize them on the floor or just have at the keyboard?

Everyone has very different ways of going about writing a book. As I explained in a post earlier. There are plotters and pantsters – people who plan each book carefully, think out each scene – write a detailed synopsis and then work from it. I used to do that much more. I would plan out the characters and their story in more details. Some spend a long working on the ‘backstory’ to their characters, perhaps even writing it out, needing to get to know them intimately before they can start. Take a look at Anne McAllister’s blog where she describes some of the way she’s approached her current book. Some just sit down and start.

My emphasis is on the characters. I want to tell these people’s story. When I first started out I would ask myself questions about each character and make sure I could answer them. I would get my husband to ask me questions – anything from what is his favourite film to what type of underwear does she wear. I needed to know them inside out. These days I probably don’t write all that down but I know my characters - I’ve said that it’s almost as if they come into my office, sit down and tell me their story.

Then, yes, I sit down at the computer and I start. These days I work straight on to a computer. After 50 + books, I have a ‘template’ of a book inside my head – those 50,000 words that I know I have to write and the way it needs to start with conflict and move gradually into resolution and then to a happy ending. But how I write now is very different from the way it was when I started – then I would physically count out the 200 pages I needed to write the story, write it in longhand. That would make me realise when I still had more pages to go – so I needed to come up with more plot – or when I was nearing the end so that I needed to weave in more threads that were going to lead to the resolution.



And I’m almost tempted to come up with that ‘how long is a ball of string’ comment again. Because each book is different. Some go straight from start to finish without a hiccup - oh how I wish they all did – some have false starts and I realise I have either to go back and add in something - or cut the first one/two chapters and start later in the story. Some books are easy, some are blood sweat and tears all the way.

One thing I always do is that when I’m I work onto the keyboard, but I always have a notepad and pen beside me so that I can write notes on it to remind myself of things I need to add in, or I can scribble down notes - an image of a scene, or a scrap of dialogue , something that is going to come in much later – so that I don’t forget it.
If I was starting again now, I’d still start with characters – they are the main backbone of a romance- without characters, even if you have the most wonderful plot then it won’t go anywhere without people to take it forward.

And yes, because I don’t have enough time here to do justice to how to write a romance – or any other novel – I am going to suggest you take a look at my 12 Point Guide To Writing Romance because that is where I wrote down much of what I know about writing a romance and the ideas you need to consider and how to go about it.

What do you wish you would have known when you started your first one?

How long it would all take – to get accepted – get published – for the money to come in. In the comments on Part Two of this, Michelle has pointed out that it takes up to 3 years for a book to become profitable in any way, and she’s right. But if you add in the amount of time getting that book written, read by an editor - submissions can take months to be read because editors are very busy people – revised – accepted – then it’s more like 4 years.

So, no this is not the fast track to riches.

I wish I’d known what royalties really mean – 6% of the cover price means that an author gets pennies, or cents from each book – not, as some people seem to assume, the full cover price of each book. I wish! When I had my first book on the shelves locally, they had ten copies – this was of course 20 years ago. All ten copies sold and I was ecstatic – until someone pointed out that this mad made me less than 50p or $1. International sales – Japan, Europe, Australia etc will all add to this - but not all books go to all territories and that all needs time to build up again – and different authors, different lines will sell at different rates.

Serious money only comes in with a backlog of books behind you and a reader base built up.

I wish I’d known as well as I know now that every author struggles at some point – that when a book goes on the shelves it shows no sign of the blood sweat and tears that maybe went into it – one that ‘wrote itself ‘ looks just the same as a book an author struggled to the death with.

I wish I’d understood the importance of targeting in series romance. That the subtle but distinct differences between the lines matter and you need to know which line you’re aiming at, the type of story they’re looking for, the types of characters .

Finally my real word of advice is –

If you don’t enjoy the journey then don’t set out. If all you want is to get to that destination - Publicationville – then I can’t guarantee that. There is no map, no writer’s course, no critique than can. But if you want to write and you enjoy writing and you keep at it and you keep learning, and if you have talent - then one day you never know – you might get to that destination. And then a whole new journey will start out – that of being a published, professional author and you’ll need to keep doing it again and again and again – but this time with deadlines.

So there are the answers to L’s questions. I’m not sure they’re the ones she or many others want to hear. There is a myth that the HMB ‘formula’ is not one for writing a book but one that goes like this:

Dash off one short romance (they’re all the same, of course) + Sell it to Mills & Boon = Instant huge fortune and a place in tax exile.

Well, if you believe that then you should be writing fairy stories.
I love my job. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. But nine days out of ten – 99 out of 100 – it isn’t glamorous or easy and working to a deadline is not really my idea of fun. It’s a job as well as a delight when it’s going right and blood sweat and tears when it isn’t.

Like I said, the important thing is to want to go on that journey and to enjoy the travelling because you may never get there. The truth is that even if I wasn’t published, I would still be writing – I would have to – how would I get rid of all these people and their stories that are inside my head? They would have to come out either in a published book or just in some computer file that only I would ever look at.

So I'd write, no matter what. I'm truly lucky that people enjoy what I write enough to want to publish it. And then more - many more people - enjoy it enough to pay money to read it. But I'd still write even if they didn't.