Jan Marquart's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-tip"
Writing Romance
WRITING ROMANCE
Writing romance is not as easy as it seems because writing romance is similar to describing why we love chocolate. So why is writing romance so challenging? I find writing romance is challenging because we not only have to portray the hopes, wishes and desires of the heart, but we face the daunting task of resolving the struggles of two people either falling in love or trying to stay in love. And don’t we each dread that our hearts might be broken if we can’t make things work out?
Readers of romance enjoy being teased to open their hearts hoping all the conflicts will be resolved and love will conquer all. But too often writers of romantic novels struggle to add every detail of a sexual encounter. As we find in real life sex and love are not the same. By writing too many sexual details, it often sucks the life out of the fantasy we want to feel as 'romantic'-- feel the operative word here. Romance is seductive, enticing, playful with an innocence of purity. It begs the heart to open with trust and willingness.
Give your characters a unique slant on what is romantic for them. This will round out and add to the power of the relationship between your characters. What leads to romance for one person might not be the same for another. For instance, finding a red rose on a doorstep after a difficult day might be romantic for one person but another may feel romantic when a spouse buys tickets to a play, is taken to a fancy dinner by their busy husband. True romance, no matter what the content, opens the heart and fills it.
Here are three tips to strengthen romantic scenes:
1. Create a mood: A good romantic scene opens the heart and makes the reader melt before anyone takes off clothing. When someone pays attention to what is important it is romantic because it inspires intimacy. Open the heart, make a connection so the reader will feel romantic too. Ever see a fountain with colorful lights lit against the night sky? Ever hear yourself saying: “How romantic!”?
2. Stop the mind: When selecting words to describe romantic scenes, try stating romantic feelings through similes-but not too many of them. One or two will do the trick because a simile takes the reader out of the literal and drops him/her into a world where the senses take over.
3. Create a union: Readers want to know that love will change unhappiness to happiness and the ordinary to extraordinary. It is what drives us to create romance again and again. Readers want to feel joined to something bigger than them. Loving unions offer hope when something bigger than the two people involved evolve from their connection.
Writers write best when they write what they know. What does romantic feel like for you? What makes your heart unlock? Write those feelings out in great detail. Then give them to your character.
Jan Marquart is the author of Kate’s Way, The Basket Weaver and five other books and two booklets. Her books whether self-help or fiction, are written to advocate the strength of the human spirit and that healing the mind/body/spirit through writing is most powerful. Jan is also a licensed social worker of 30 years. You can connect with Jan through her site: www.JanMarquart.com or visit her blog: www.freethepen.wordpress.com
Writing romance is not as easy as it seems because writing romance is similar to describing why we love chocolate. So why is writing romance so challenging? I find writing romance is challenging because we not only have to portray the hopes, wishes and desires of the heart, but we face the daunting task of resolving the struggles of two people either falling in love or trying to stay in love. And don’t we each dread that our hearts might be broken if we can’t make things work out?
Readers of romance enjoy being teased to open their hearts hoping all the conflicts will be resolved and love will conquer all. But too often writers of romantic novels struggle to add every detail of a sexual encounter. As we find in real life sex and love are not the same. By writing too many sexual details, it often sucks the life out of the fantasy we want to feel as 'romantic'-- feel the operative word here. Romance is seductive, enticing, playful with an innocence of purity. It begs the heart to open with trust and willingness.
Give your characters a unique slant on what is romantic for them. This will round out and add to the power of the relationship between your characters. What leads to romance for one person might not be the same for another. For instance, finding a red rose on a doorstep after a difficult day might be romantic for one person but another may feel romantic when a spouse buys tickets to a play, is taken to a fancy dinner by their busy husband. True romance, no matter what the content, opens the heart and fills it.
Here are three tips to strengthen romantic scenes:
1. Create a mood: A good romantic scene opens the heart and makes the reader melt before anyone takes off clothing. When someone pays attention to what is important it is romantic because it inspires intimacy. Open the heart, make a connection so the reader will feel romantic too. Ever see a fountain with colorful lights lit against the night sky? Ever hear yourself saying: “How romantic!”?
2. Stop the mind: When selecting words to describe romantic scenes, try stating romantic feelings through similes-but not too many of them. One or two will do the trick because a simile takes the reader out of the literal and drops him/her into a world where the senses take over.
3. Create a union: Readers want to know that love will change unhappiness to happiness and the ordinary to extraordinary. It is what drives us to create romance again and again. Readers want to feel joined to something bigger than them. Loving unions offer hope when something bigger than the two people involved evolve from their connection.
Writers write best when they write what they know. What does romantic feel like for you? What makes your heart unlock? Write those feelings out in great detail. Then give them to your character.
Jan Marquart is the author of Kate’s Way, The Basket Weaver and five other books and two booklets. Her books whether self-help or fiction, are written to advocate the strength of the human spirit and that healing the mind/body/spirit through writing is most powerful. Jan is also a licensed social worker of 30 years. You can connect with Jan through her site: www.JanMarquart.com or visit her blog: www.freethepen.wordpress.com
Writing Love Scenes
Readers love getting swept away by love scenes. Romantic novels are selling like hotcakes. I don't know if that's because our personal love stories are failing, since one out of every two marriages ends in divorce, or not. I just don't know. What I do know is that when I counsel couples they seem to want to get back to that magical moment when love first burst open their hearts and swept them up in the magic and power of it all.
Now anyone in a relationship for longer than one month will agree that love has its ups and downs. So when your love life seems to hit a plateau what do you do? For many women, they head to the romantic book aisle to reunite with that feeling of oneness and to reinstate their hope until they can work with their partner to awaken their own experience.
When my agent read Kate's Way she wanted me to add a romantic love scene. I thought she wanted an erotic sex scene. Turns out she did. But I don't write that kind of literature. "It makes money," she said. So be it. But I didn't want to write trash. If I was going to write a love scene I wanted to write about the highest quality of emotions when two people connect in bed or wherever else they decided to lay naked. My agent thought for a moment then stated that I should imagine the way I want to feel in such encounters and write that out. "Use your imagination to its fullest," she said. I suffered over it because being single and thinking about romantic encounters just agitated me. So I watched movies like You Got Mail and read more Elizabeth Berg novels, which wasn't so bad because I love her writing, just to get into that romantic and holiest of mental spaces before I wrote. I watched other movies of the same ilk night after night, sometimes two in one night struggling to get into that space that would let every part of me untetter myself and my pen.
The day I felt ready to write was anxiety-filled. I let my fingers click on the keys with fierce enthusiasm as if I had just met the most fabulous lover and was about to write him a poem from every fiber of my being. When I was through with writing the scene I sent it to my agent, then paced about the kitchen waiting for the phone to ring. I was surprised at how silly I felt. An hour later, when the phone rang, I hesitated before saying hello; I was a wreck. If what I wrote wasn't going to work for the agent I didn't know what I'd do. I'm not even sure how many weeks I spent on the process, too many though, and the thought of having to re-enter that space to work on it some more shook me. "Jan?", she said. "You nailed it."
I'm not writing this to brag. I'm writing this to say that, if I can do it, anyone can. I'm writing this to all the writers out there who want to empower their stories with love and not trashy erotica. I am living proof that you can do it. There is nothing special about my writing skills. I am still learning about how to get my story from my heart to my pen and embolden the reader. But I consider Kate's Way to be a success, and not just because I actually hit the print button and sent it on its merry way to create space for publishing. I consider Kate's Way a success because it stretched my mind to write out my fantasy with dignity.
So if you are struggling with this type of writing there is no need for expensive workshops or classes. Read what other authors wrote. Study their wording and how they got images to take you away to that place that opened your heart and made you ache for love.
And for now, I'm going to believe that writing has the power to manifest...
I'd love to share a discussion about this.
Kate's Way is also an ebook from Amazon for $5.99 just in case you want to read how I pleased my agent. It can also be ordered in book form: www.createspace.com/3498926
Now anyone in a relationship for longer than one month will agree that love has its ups and downs. So when your love life seems to hit a plateau what do you do? For many women, they head to the romantic book aisle to reunite with that feeling of oneness and to reinstate their hope until they can work with their partner to awaken their own experience.
When my agent read Kate's Way she wanted me to add a romantic love scene. I thought she wanted an erotic sex scene. Turns out she did. But I don't write that kind of literature. "It makes money," she said. So be it. But I didn't want to write trash. If I was going to write a love scene I wanted to write about the highest quality of emotions when two people connect in bed or wherever else they decided to lay naked. My agent thought for a moment then stated that I should imagine the way I want to feel in such encounters and write that out. "Use your imagination to its fullest," she said. I suffered over it because being single and thinking about romantic encounters just agitated me. So I watched movies like You Got Mail and read more Elizabeth Berg novels, which wasn't so bad because I love her writing, just to get into that romantic and holiest of mental spaces before I wrote. I watched other movies of the same ilk night after night, sometimes two in one night struggling to get into that space that would let every part of me untetter myself and my pen.
The day I felt ready to write was anxiety-filled. I let my fingers click on the keys with fierce enthusiasm as if I had just met the most fabulous lover and was about to write him a poem from every fiber of my being. When I was through with writing the scene I sent it to my agent, then paced about the kitchen waiting for the phone to ring. I was surprised at how silly I felt. An hour later, when the phone rang, I hesitated before saying hello; I was a wreck. If what I wrote wasn't going to work for the agent I didn't know what I'd do. I'm not even sure how many weeks I spent on the process, too many though, and the thought of having to re-enter that space to work on it some more shook me. "Jan?", she said. "You nailed it."
I'm not writing this to brag. I'm writing this to say that, if I can do it, anyone can. I'm writing this to all the writers out there who want to empower their stories with love and not trashy erotica. I am living proof that you can do it. There is nothing special about my writing skills. I am still learning about how to get my story from my heart to my pen and embolden the reader. But I consider Kate's Way to be a success, and not just because I actually hit the print button and sent it on its merry way to create space for publishing. I consider Kate's Way a success because it stretched my mind to write out my fantasy with dignity.
So if you are struggling with this type of writing there is no need for expensive workshops or classes. Read what other authors wrote. Study their wording and how they got images to take you away to that place that opened your heart and made you ache for love.
And for now, I'm going to believe that writing has the power to manifest...
I'd love to share a discussion about this.
Kate's Way is also an ebook from Amazon for $5.99 just in case you want to read how I pleased my agent. It can also be ordered in book form: www.createspace.com/3498926
Does Your Main Character Have This?
You might or might not make an outline for your book. It's okay either way. Ken Follette, author of Pillars of the Earth, takes two years to write an outline. He maps out every detail and character before he begins to write. I almost can't breathe when I think of it. Outlines don't work for me. They restrict me, confine my characters, put the life of the page in a box and I can't move into a place of creativity having such tight borders.
I start with only a general mental plan and then begin to type. Inevitably my characters take over the page and where they want to go. Inevitably my plans change, and giving my fingers total permission to feel my way in the dark allows me to be creative and see what develops. It might be the only time in my life I like being lost.
That being said, there is one thing my main characters must have: a purpose. And my main character leads in that purpose. I've read lots of interesting story lines without the main character leading with a purpose and I find that those characters usually feel slightly one dimensional despite the interest I have for the plot.
If the main character of a story is an ordinary person with a purpose, a mission, a drive to accomplish or overcome something, the plot thickens, as the saying goes.
A book is much more powerful when the main character grounds you in the story with a purpose because they give you a suspenseful reason to continue reading. Make your characters extraordinary. Give them a clear purpose so the reader can endear to them rather than just be interested in how life unfolds. Characters are richer and hold more of our dreams when they carry the baton. Hand it to them and allow them to run with it.
To check out my novels, the main characters, and their purposes, go to:
Kate's Way (also in kindle $5.99) www.createspace.com/3498926
The Basket Weaver www.createspace.com/3553668
I start with only a general mental plan and then begin to type. Inevitably my characters take over the page and where they want to go. Inevitably my plans change, and giving my fingers total permission to feel my way in the dark allows me to be creative and see what develops. It might be the only time in my life I like being lost.
That being said, there is one thing my main characters must have: a purpose. And my main character leads in that purpose. I've read lots of interesting story lines without the main character leading with a purpose and I find that those characters usually feel slightly one dimensional despite the interest I have for the plot.
If the main character of a story is an ordinary person with a purpose, a mission, a drive to accomplish or overcome something, the plot thickens, as the saying goes.
A book is much more powerful when the main character grounds you in the story with a purpose because they give you a suspenseful reason to continue reading. Make your characters extraordinary. Give them a clear purpose so the reader can endear to them rather than just be interested in how life unfolds. Characters are richer and hold more of our dreams when they carry the baton. Hand it to them and allow them to run with it.
To check out my novels, the main characters, and their purposes, go to:
Kate's Way (also in kindle $5.99) www.createspace.com/3498926
The Basket Weaver www.createspace.com/3553668
