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February Online Class: Plot Fixer

January 26, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,

OCCRWA Proudly Presents: header

February 11 – March 10, 2013

Plot Fixer: Fixing Your Story Problems

with Kara Lennox
About the Class:
Do you create wonderful, three-dimensional characters who then stumble around blindly in your book, trying to find a story?  As a frequent critiquer, contest judge, and the recipient of many, many rejection and revision letters over the years, Kara Lennox has witnessed and personally experienced just about every way your plot can veer into a ditch. 
In this workshop she’ll cover the fifteen most common problems, how to spot them and how to fix them.  Some common problems covered include :
  • A premise that isn’t compelling enough (includes discussion of “high concept”)
  • the cute meet that goes nowhere
  • starting in the wrong place
  • lack of clear-cut goals for your characters
  • weak conflict
  • too many conflicts
  • stakes are too low
  • the plot moves too slowly
  • the dreaded saggy middle
  • plot moves too fast;
  • plot is too predictable
  • episodic plots
  • plots that rely on convenience, coincidence and contrivance
  • the drama doesn’t build
  • loss of focus
  • weak black moment
  • unsatisfying ending
The workshop includes illustrative examples from well-known movies, books, the author’s own supply of failed plots, and samples made up just for this workshop.  If time permits, the author will take questions and make suggestions for solving plot problems on the spot.

About the Instructor:
Kara LennoxKara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo, is the award- winning, bestselling author of more than sixty novels of romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin and Bantam/ Random House. Currently she is working on the next installment of her romantic suspense series, Project Justice, published by Harlequin Superromance. Also, several of her classic Bantam Loveswept novels (writing as Karen Leabo) have been re-released in e-book form by Random House, with more scheduled for next year.
Enrollment Information
This is a 4-week online course that uses email and Yahoo Groups. The class is open to anyone wishing to participate. The cost is $30.00 per person or, if you are a member of OCCRWA, $20.00 per person.
For more information on enrollment, please follow the link.
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New Language

January 24, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as

I was thinking I should learn a new language.

You know what they say, keep the mind active, learning, getting exercised.  Maybe Spanish?  My year of Spanish in 8th grade was a hazy memory, and learning Spanish through the advertisements on the New York Subway had not been a successful foray in effective communication….

Cucarachas? Mandelos a un Motel!

Not the best way to win friends and influence people (unless, of course, they are Spanish speaking cockroaches).

But then as I struggled with vocabulary words, grammar and syntax, I realized I was already in the middle of learning a new language: Tech.

When people (of a certain age) say they find technology confusing, daunting, that they’re not good at it, I don’t think they’ve taken on board that Tech is a new language.  Would you expect to be able to speak a new language fluently after an hour’s class?

I didn’t think so.

If anyone complained that even after many hours of learning French they were unable to read a novel, watch TV, or that they were unable to speak quickly and fluently, articulating their every nuanced point, most people would think: Huh? It takes more than a few hours to become fluent in a new language!

This point is not to discourage non techfluent types, but just a request that everyone realign their self expectations to a more reasonable level. To stop beating up on themselves because they are harboring absurdly high expectations of fluency, and appreciate learning tech, like learning a new language, is a process.

And the language metaphor doesn’t stop there.  As countless childhood development research statistics have indicated, when we are young, our ability to acquire new languages is remarkable.  Thus everyone that has grown up learning the language of Tech has internalized it fairly effortlessly.

I can recall my horror and distress when I came across my first French child, a six year old, and I could not fathom how it could have learned French so well at the age of six, when I was still struggling at the age of 21 after years of classes.

Thus many of those that have grown up speaking Tech and are now explaining it to you may find your struggles incomprehensible.  It’s easy.  It’s natural.  It’s intuitive.  It’s obvious.  Sure different dialects (games, new programs, operating systems, upgrades) can present a challenge, but for many, the challenge is fun to overcome.  Just like people enjoy learning new languages, or new vocabularies, or new accents and idioms.  But it’s often not so easy for a non-native speaker.

And as it’s a new language, it is constantly changing, adding new words, sprouting new dialects right and left, even the basics changing and morphing to fit this brave new world.  It is going to take all my efforts to build my vocabulary and figure out how to effectively communicate and make myself understood.

Parlez-vous tech?

Oui! Un petit peu….

Isabel Swift

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IF WE WRITE THEM, WILL THEY READ

January 19, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , , ,

Monica Stoner, Member at Large

 
Does romance end after a certain age? Is there some preordained cutoff for intimacy? I’m sure many young people might want to believe their parents only did the deed often enough to produce children because thinking about the alternative might give them nightmares.

Fact is, romance doesn’t die at any one specific age though to peruse the Romance section of a book store one might draw the conclusion a heroine over thirty is also over that proverbial hill. At a time when publishing decisions were based on advice from people barely out of college, that might be understandable. But in this very brave and shiny new world of small presses and self publishing, why don’t we see more heroines, well, our age?

Could the lack of mature heroines be caused by habits and standards established in those earlier days of publishing (all of five or so years ago?) Or do we write what we believe people want to read? Do we worry if we were to write about people falling in love at the same time their arches are falling, we won’t find enough of an audience?

Remember the phrase “Love, like youth, is wasted on the young” from that lovely 1960 song “The Second Time Around?”
 

“Love is lovelier the second time around

Just as wonderful with both feet on the ground

It’s that second time you hear your love song sung

Makes you think, perhaps, that love like youth

Is wasted on the young…”

Words by Sammy Cahn and Music by Jimmy Van Heusen

-Performed by Bing Crosby in the 1960 film “High Time”,

This is considered a classic love song, well at least by the people I knew in high school. A lot of those people read books, and some of those readers peruse the Romance shelves. How many of your friends read Romance? And how many of those readers do you think might be just a bit tired of flawless skin, perky body parts, and an air of wide eyed innocence?

It’s an intriguing question. Right now the hot age group seems to be teens into twenties, and some of those books are extremely well written. Does this mean we should all be pounding out our own YA or MG books? I admire these authors but teens live in another universe with their very own language from me, and I sincerely doubt I could ever create a book in that genre. Having survived my teens, twenties, thirties, and beyond, I believe I could create a story about those young people many decades later.

What do you think? Is there a need for books about people whose libido didn’t dry up and blow away the day they bought their first pair of support hose?

Monica Stoner writes as Mona Karel in multiple sub genres.

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emaginings: Blogging Around

January 16, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , ,

Last month I promised a report on the blog hop and mini-tour I’d planned for my latest release How To Woo… A Reluctant Bride. I ended up doing a second blog hop in January, so will include that also. This is by no means scientific, but just the results of my little experiment. Keep in mind that this was an attempt to revive a blog that had been essentially dormant for several years, so there was little or no base of support to draw from.

Note: I’m only going to discuss sales at Amazon.com since those were the only ones of any size.

The Secret Santa Blog Hop was first, from Mon. Dec. 17 through Thursday Dec. 20. My story was uploaded to Amazon on Dec. 11 and was live by Dec. 12, so the blog hop took place the following week. The grand prize for this blog hop was a Kindle Fire preloaded with a bunch of the participating authors books, including mine. The prize for commenting on my post was a $15.00 gift card, and over the course of the hop + tour, I also gave away two free e-books (winners choice). I got 25 entrants for the gift card. Not bad. The page views during the hop ranged from 66 the first day (some of them me until I figured out I could check comments from the Dashboard) to only 14 on the last day.

I checked my sales on Sunday and again on Thursday and saw I had picked up ten sales. Might have been more if I hadn’t offered e-book giveaways for the mini-blog tour. Someone, I’ve forgotten who, said not to do that. Offer something other than a book so they will buy yours. I think it’s good advice.

Starting on Thursday, Dec. 21, I blogged at several other sites including the main TRS (The Romance Studio) blog on Dec. 21. There were very few comments and I have no idea how many page hits were involved. However, by Monday, Dec. 2 4, I had sold another 15 copies. Again, not too bad when everyone is getting ready for the holidays. By Dec. 29 I was up to a total of 79 copies.

This month I participated in the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop from Thu. Jan.  10 through Sun. Jan. 13. Page views ranged from 26 to 42 and I had comments from 27 people. The grand prizes for this hop were gift certificates from EdensFantasy and two other gift cards of the winner’s choice. Again I did the $15.00 gift card giveaway.

I also guested at Louisa Bacio’s blog on Jan. 11 and she told me there were 138 page views. That’s awesome!

By the evening of Jan. 11, my sales for that month at Amazon were up to 102, in addition to the 79 in December. I realize that might not sound like a lot to some of you, but it was more than I expected, so I am happy.

My thoughts:

I liked the blog hop better as there was some camaraderie with the other writers involved and I only had to come up with one blog post for each tour. Writing blog posts can be time consuming. The mini-blog tour (3 days, 4 different blogs) was more stressful as each one had to be different. Next time I will try to plan further ahead to lessen the stress, but this was thrown together very last minute. 

Did the blog hop and mini-blog tour help?

I’ll never be certain, but I can’t imagine it hurt. The objective was to raise my visibility online and I do think that happened. Next time I may do a smaller amount on the gift card giveaway, but this is all a learning process. I’m not sure I recommend doing two blog hops so close together, but with a new release, and at this time of year, I think this was a good move. I would definitely blog hop again and I’m grateful to the writers who organized the hops, namely Tabitha Blake (Secret Santa) and Jennifer Wright and Lisabet Sarai (Something New, Something Naughty) as well as our own Louisa Bacio.

UPDATE: I forgot to add thanks to Tara Lain for her fabulous talk on blog tours at the November OCC meeting, and to my three Yahoo support groups where I learned about self-publishing and discovered organized blog tours: Indie Romance Ink, Authors Network and Marketing For Romance Writers. And a big thanks to Vivienne Westlake, author of A Marquess For Christmas, for doing an excerpt exchange.

Now I have to stop blogging for a bit and work on another story!

Has anyone else tried blog tours or hops? Any thoughts on their effectiveness? 

Linda Mac w/a Lyndi Lamont

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Romancing the e-Reader with Jina Bacarr

January 11, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guess who?

I’m your new e-Reader. All sexy swirls and curly Qs. Just waiting for you to click me on and take you to paradise.

Yes, I know, your rabbit vibrator made the same promises…but I’ve got something special to offer you.

I’ve got romance.

I can sweep you away to that special place in your mind where you can fall in love over and over again…and have great sex.

So, put away your bunny vibe and hop aboard!

I’m trim and gorgeous. Sexy design. Botox-smooth case.

Slimmer than I’ve been in years.

Clear, no-glare screens. And those cute keyboards. Like sassy, high-heeled shoes. Makes you want to let your fingers do the walking.

And no more of those pesky page numbers to get in the way. It’s like weighing yourself after you’ve gone on your mocha latte splurge. Who wants to know?

I do have a pet peeve about those TOCs. Half the time the Table of Contents key doesn’t work, sending ahead in the story and you know who’s sleeping with whom before you’ve guessed. it.

And don’t talk to me about Bookmarks.

They’re like old boyfriends who won’t go away. Once you’ve marked them, you’re stuck with them.

Ah, but I can’t stop drooling over the hunky guys on the Cover. Muscle-bound heroes to die for.

Hmm…if I could add just one thing to my e-Reader software…

It would be to have the Cover Hunk in 3-D.

All of him…and you know what I mean!

Happy Romance e-Reading in 2013!

Best,
Jina

www.JinaBacarr.com 

PS: If you want to try out your new e-Reader with an erotic short story, download:

“Breaking the Rules” — FREE today on Kindle Amazon  

A working girl who learns you have to ask for what you want.

At work…or in bed.

—————–


Or try an erotic short story: “Nice Girls Do It” for 99 cents on Amazon Kindle and e-tailers everywhere!

A stormy day and Chloe gets caught in the rain until a mysterious stranger who calls himself “the Hunter” offers her shelter in his old Victorian mansion.

And tells her about the secret ritual of the geisha when she loses her virginity.

Sensual, mysterious, naughty…

Will Chloe lose her virginity before morning comes?

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