Reno - Day 4

Yeah, I know. I'm two days late with this post. But a series of unfortunate events occurred which have conspired against me. First, my AC went out. Right in the middle of editing this book - is there no god?!? And second, my husband "fixed" the wireless modem so that it may never work again. I time warped back ten years and dialed up to post this blog in 400 degree heat. Further, my PC is acting wonky. After this goes up, I'm backing up my files like a banshee.

So Friday dawns in Reno and I wake up feeling ill. I'm not a big fan of speaking, but feel it's a skill I'd better learn now, instead of after that best seller hits (hey, if I don't believe, who will?). I realize I haven't really thought through what I'll talk about. So I go down and grab some food and give my section of the speech to anyone I can find with a pulse.

I started feeling better, so I greedily snapped up some free books. I need more books like I need a hole in my head, but my love of books is what landed me in this job in the first place and free is my favorite word.

Okay - so it's time. We're talking on novellas - common mistakes and how to write around them. (I have to bring my brain out of the fridge to write this part - I'll be right back - ahhh! much better). Judith goes first. She's almost lost her voice and I'm silently cheering her on, since she's kind of the anchor man of this little performance.

She talks about submissions with the following problems:

• Novellas without strong beginnings - too much back-story, ones that don't grab you from the first sentence
• Novellas without endings - wrapping up too quickly, not resolving both the external plot and the romance
• Novellas that have external or romantic arcs that don't arc -- more on this later in my section of the talk
• Too many characters
• Unsympathetic characters
• Novellas without strong conflict
• Novellas that aren't tightly written with every single sentence furthering the story
• She told what she wants to see - a ROMANCE with a happily ever after and sex that is believable and sensual, not just sexual.

Essentially, she believes (and I agree) that novellas are different from novels in the following ways:

• Romance – The novella-length romance arc reflects a more concentrated progression and often encompasses a shorter time frame. The romance is arced using pivotal points within the plot, conflict and characterization to achieve the goal of the HEA. A previous history, whether romantic or not, often assists with the progression of the romance within the limited word count.
• Characterization – The majority of story’s focus is on the hero and heroine, and they are usually brought onto scene within the opening pages. Secondary characters are few in number and are used as a device to forward the progression of the romance, plot or conflict. A novella is not the place for an ensemble cast of characters.
• Plot – The plot must be concise but not too complex, instead a scenario that lends itself to the shortened word count. The lead-in is necessarily brief, and the novella typically starts at the incident that brings the hero and the heroine together. It is vital to avoid “information dump” and keep the back story to a minimum, weaving in only the elements that are integral to either to establishing the characters, setting, conflict or plot. The action must have impact; the dialogue reflect characterization, the conflict or the romance; and the scenes segue smoothly from one to the other without wasted wordage. Scenes in a novella usually are shorter in length, and chapters, if used, often average around eight to ten pages.
• Conflict – The conflict must be simple, believable and act as another device to forward the romance and the characterization arc. In novella-length romances, there tend to be one external conflict and a limited scope of internal conflict.
  Setting – The setting must be well developed, yet introduced quickly and often used as another device to present characterization, the romance or the conflict.
• HEA – The happily ever after still demonstrates the commitment of the hero and the heroine to each other, but in a novella-length romance, the HEA can simply be a commitment to continue the relationship in its present form.
• And never forgets the KISS:
  The novella-length romance epitomizes the “Keep It Simple, Stupid” rule. Keeping many of the above elements simple and not overly complex allows the novella-length romance to focus on the most important part – the love story between the hero and the heroine.

Angela Knight talked about how she grew as a writer by writing comics. Because she only had a very tight amount of space (2 lines per frame) to tell a story, this helped her distill down to the essentials to write novellas. She made a point that people love characters that care about others, so she always writes her characters with this in mind. She also spoke about writing sensual sex. Check out a FANTASTIC article that summarizes her talk Here!

For my part, I spoke first about secondary characters. You need to keep your secondary characters to a minimum. I'm more of a pantzer (someone who writes without a pre-defined plot) and so what I do is write the novella, then make a list of all the secondary characters and their functions in the story. You can do this during the outline stage if you're a plotter. Then I try to combine as many people up as possible, halving the list of characters if possible. So for example, Tim brings the news that the planet is under attack. Roy is later killed defending the heroine. I will then change it to Tim who's bumped off. The reason? Simple - you only have a tiny amount of words to tell this story - you don't want to waste them on setting up nebulous secondary characters.

I went off on a short rant about setting as a character. I write fantasy/SF/paranormal romance, which means I have to set up my world FAST in these novellas (same thing applies if you're writing historicals). If you think about your setting as a character, it will help you trim down the amount of words you use to introduce your world to just the essentials. I go back and take every sentence that sets up the setting and rewrite them, combining them up, punching them up - so that where there had been five sentences, there is now one that will (in theory) convey all that information with a punch to the reader. Thinking of the setting as a character helps me do this. (Yes, some of you think I’m nuts, but it works for me and maybe it will work for one of you, too.)

I spoke about tension. One of the biggest problems authors struggle with in novels or novellas is keeping tension high, but in novellas, it's essential. If I'm writing a 100 page novella, I'll usually have 10 page chapters, leaving me with 10 chapters (you with me? heh). So what I do is take a sheet of paper, turn it sideways and draw ten stairs up the page. Above every stair, I write the increase in external tension I will try to accomplish for that chapter (this coincides with my external plot arc) . Below the stair, I write the increase in the romantic arc for that chapter. For example, in chapter two of a recent novella I wrote, I had above the stair "Monsters are mysteriously getting into the camp" and below the stair "Heroine recognizes hero as her mate, but decides not to tell him of their bond." Then I inch up the stairs, making sure every chapter increases my external and romantic tension.

Finally, I spoke about the fact a novella should have a beginning, middle and end. Rushing the ending is really the biggie Judith sees, but what else is there to say but "don't do it!"

I know you guys were waiting for this. Hope it's everything you were looking forward to!