Julianna Keyes's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

SHOW YOUR WORK

Remember when you were first learning to do long division and the teacher made you “show your work” so you couldn’t just cheat and write the final answer? This is a pretty apt analogy for how I feel about instalove in romance novels. I know a lot of people are willing and able to overlook it, but it drives me insane. That’s why there are zero instances of instalove in any of my books. Insta-lust? Sure. I can buy that. But instalove is a firm no.

My favourite part of reading romance is seeing the characters fall in love. Being told on page nine that they can’t live without each other feels like a cheat. I think the reason instalove is so prevalent in modern love stories is because of the pressure to “get your story started” right away. You have to “hook” a reader/agent/publisher immediately, so characters simply lock eyes and begin drowning in their desire for one another on page two.

I’d much rather come to the conclusion that a couple is meant to be 2-gether 4-ever on my own. And I like to come to this conclusion by reading about the progression of their relationship, by seeing their interactions (and not just the sexytimes), reading the dialogue, and *feeling* something.

I want to see couples be real, be funny, be foolish, be frisky. Trying to find the balance between showing these things and keeping up the pace so the reader/agent/publisher is invested is not always easy, but when a writer takes the time to do this, I give them an A+ for effort. (*ahem* I’m saying give me an A+.)

What do you think? Do you find instalove irritating or is it a non-issue?

PACE YOURSELF

I give a lot of thought to structure when I’m plotting a book. I want to make sure things are happening in a reasonable, orderly, and interesting way, and that my pacing isn’t too fast or too slow. I generally draw out a little three-act chart and map the major story points, then fill in the details as I go along.

One of the first scenes I envisioned before I ever started writing was the scene at the Halloween party. This is the mid-point (halfway mark) of “Undecided.” Because school starts in early September, that was Labor Day. Hmm, I thought. Interesting. Why don’t I use holidays to mark the major story beats? And so…

INCITING INCIDENT: Labor Day
MID-POINT: Halloween
2nd ACT TURNING POINT/CLIMAX: Chrisgiving (you’ll see)
RESOLUTION: Valentine’s Day

For those of you eagle-eyed readers, I skipped the 1st Act Turning Point in this example because it doesn’t happen on a holiday. In fact, I was not aware of any holidays (in the US) between Labor Day and Halloween until I googled them just this instant. I suppose National Grandparents Day, Columbus Day, or National White Cane Safety Day are all good options, but it’s too late now. (For the record: I’m Canadian and while I’ve heard of Columbus Day, I honestly had no idea it was in October.) Anyway, if you’re curious, the 1st Act TP is the day Crosbie helps Nora build her bed. That’s the moment readers are supposed to think, “Aww. There’s no going back now! Crosbie + Nora 4-ever.”

Crosbie sort of outlines this holiday structure toward the end of the story, but I thought I’d mention it here so you’d know I thought of it first. It was all my idea.

RELEASE WEEK POST 1




THE GOOD FIGHT

I started writing “The Good Fight” in early 2015. By July I had finished it, and sent the first few chapters to my editor at Carina. I can honestly tell you I’ve never submitted a book I didn’t think was good. I’ve certainly written ones that aren’t good, but they’re stashed away in a drawer somewhere to be burned under the cover of darkness. So when weeks passed with no response, it started to sink in that the news wouldn’t be good. And sure enough, I eventually got an email from the editor saying she was sorry, but she would have to pass on this book as it was. I wasn’t surprised, but I did feel pretty dejected. (Well, maybe VERY dejected.)

I’ve been rejected before so I knew that this disappointment would fade and I’d regroup and either rework the project or move on. The editor gave me a thoughtful list of the reasons the chapters hadn’t worked for her, so I made a mental note of those issues and let it sift around in my brain for a while. In the meantime, however, I had another idea percolating, so I decided to get started on that. It was a New Adult story about a good-girl-turned-bad-girl-turned-good-girl-sorta, who moves in with the campus heartthrob and unexpectedly falls for his best friend. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever finish it, or what I’d do with it if I did, but I wanted to flex my writing muscles, so I started typing. In early fall, I felt re-inspired to work on TGF. I set aside the New Adult story and started revamping TGF, incorporating the editor’s notes and making new changes. I realized the ending was pretty awful and needed a complete overhaul, so I spent a couple of months writing and re-writing new chapters until I had a stronger story than the one I’d originally submitted. I resubmitted it, this time with a feeling of nervous dread.

There’s no telling how long someone will or will not take to get back to you, so I resumed work on the New Adult story. By Christmas I had a first draft. It needed some tightening, certainly, but I felt pretty good about it. I’ve learned something from every story I’ve written, and I feel like each book improves upon the ones before. These two were no exception.

Then I got an email from my editor—she liked my changes and wanted to acquire TGF! Oh, hallelujah! I could sleep soundly again. She told me TGF would likely come out in summer 2016, and I felt a bit anxious about having such a big gap between books. (“In Her Defense” had come out in September 2015.) I thought about the New Adult story I was working on. Could I self-publish? I know other people do, but could I? I decided I could, not only to avoid having nearly a year delay between books, but for the experience.

All this is to say, there are many ways to fight the good fight. It’s not always about winning, or even getting right back up when you get knocked down. It’s about what you do while you’re down there, how you regroup so you get up stronger every time. That rejection stung, but I (eventually) went back to my desk and opened a new Word doc. I called it “Undecided,” but there was never any question. I want to be a writer, so I write.

What’s your good fight?

RELEASE WEEK POST TWO






WANT VS NEED

In my second year of university I took a creative writing class. You had to submit samples and be accepted, so getting in made me feel very elite and accomplished. The class was hard. And because I’m a keener, I tended to be the only person who actually completed assignments and then brought in the requisite number of copies for everyone to read…and critique. You know what it means when no one else brings in their copies? That the whole class is devoted you…and critiquing you.

They were mostly pretty nice. We were all young and new and everyone thought I was brave (or dumb) for always bringing in my stuff. I mean, bringing in your stuff was the rule and I’m not sure that any of those people passed the class, but it was a pretty soft introduction to learning how to take criticism. Until one day I wrote a poem. I’m not a poet but it was the assignment, and one freezing winter day I was walking home and I passed a tree with a handful of birds sitting on bare branches, their silhouettes still and pretty against the horizon. I wrote a poem about that. I spaced out the lines and used only one comma as punctuation. I thought it was pretty great. After everyone sat silently and read it (and I chewed off nine of my fingernails) the instructor looked at me. “Why did you do that?” she asked. I stared at her blankly. “Do what?” “Write it like this. The spacing. Only one comma, no periods?” I didn’t know what to say. I just…did it. Because I wanted to.

I’d like to tell you I came up with a brilliant answer to her question, but I just sat there helplessly until some kind soul changed the subject. But that moment stuck with me. “Because I wanted to” is not a good enough answer. Did I need to? The truth is, I spaced it like that because that’s how the birds looked. Why the no periods? I don’t know. I thought that was poetry. But I learned a valuable lesson: have a reason. Wanting is not enough. Why does my poem/story/song need to be written this way?

I tend to write single POV stories because I don’t think they need two POVs. Do people want two POVs? Sure, I see that comment often, sometimes for my books, sometimes for others. But so much of the time I read dual POV that feels unnecessary, it’s just an opportunity to tell the reader what they want to hear, and I don’t think that does anybody—the author, the reader, the characters—any favours. Don’t tell me that you want it. Tell me why you need it. The challenge I enjoy about single POV is that it forces me to get creative when writing the other characters’ actions and dialogue. I have to think of new ways to convey that information without simply feeding it to you through an internal monologue. I like that challenge as an author, and I respect it as a reader.

Now let’s take a moment to sing the chorus of the Rolling Stones song we’re all suddenly dying to hear: You can’t always get what you want/But if you try sometime/You just might find/You get what you need.

UNDECLARED

RELEASE WEEK POST 1

SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Supporting characters are a tricky thing. You want them to be great, but not so great that readers wish the story was about them instead. You want them to be familiar enough that they don’t feel like strangers popping in and out of the story at convenient (or inconvenient) moments, but you don’t want them to feel familiar because they’re taking up too much page space. At the same time, they can’t be so infrequent that readers have to flip back to remember who they are each time they make an appearance, either. They have to add value without detracting—it’s a difficult balancing act.

“Undeclared” has a lot of supporting characters, most of whom we met in “Undecided.” Crosbie and Nora are back, of course, and so are Marcela and Nate. We get to know Dane, Kellan’s frat brother who we met briefly in book one, and a new frat brother named Choo. These characters represent three different relationship dynamics: Crosbie and Nora are the settled down couple Kellan is terrified of becoming; Marcela and Nate are the dysfunctional pair he’s also terrified of becoming; and Choo and Dane are the safer middle ground.

When Kellan started college he had a vision of what his life was supposed to be like, the college life we see in the movies. And it’s only now that he has that life that he’s realizing it might not be what he wants. As the story develops and the various relationships deepen, he finds himself with a ragtag circle of friends he might not have expected, but most definitely needs.

If we were handing out awards for Best Supporting Character, I think we’d all agree that title would go to Marcela, and if we dared give it to someone else, she’d pull a Kanye and get up on stage and take the mic anyway. Characters like Marcela are a gift to authors: they’re impulsive and decisive, they take action, and they’re admirable even when they’re horrible. Marcela is a constant lurking threat of terror for Kellan, showing up to shove him along the story whenever he might linger or turn back. She’s not a friend he would have chosen, but he’s stuck with her now, even if she’s just as likely to club him with her award as mention him in her acceptance speech.

UNDECLARED

RELEASE WEEK POST 2

TIME TO WRAP IT UP

Figuring out when to write “The End” is harder than you might expect. Figuring out whether or not you need an epilogue is also a challenge. Some time ago (quite a long time ago, actually) I wrote a post about Want vs. Need, and I generally use that thought process to determine whether or not a story should have an epilogue. As a reader, I’m fairly indifferent. I don’t love them, I don’t hate them. Sometimes it’s an unnecessary bonus, a few extra pages with characters you’ve grown to love. Sometimes it’s necessary – the main story resolved, but we need to see a bit farther into the future to know for certain that things have worked out the way we hoped.

I wrote the epilogue for “Undecided” because I wanted to. I don’t believe it’s wholly necessary, but because so many of the story beats were centered on holidays, it seemed fun to include an epilogue that took place on Valentine’s Day. Lots of readers loved it, though I did see a review that actually deducted a star simply because it existed. Not much you can do about that!

“Undeclared” doesn’t have an epilogue because I don’t think it’s necessary, and I really have no idea what it would be about. Because it wouldn’t have any new information, I didn’t want to write something simply for the sake of it. Kellan and Andi have known each other their whole lives, and once they got their HEA, there was no new ground to cover. I’ve already had a few comments from people saying they wish there was an epilogue, and that’s when want vs. need comes back into play. I don’t think this book needs one, so it doesn’t have one. (Though, in hindsight, I think “Going the Distance” should have had an epilogue, and I now regret that I didn’t include one.)

Writing a book is hard. Getting to the end is hard. And knowing when you’ve reached that “real” end is hard too. It’s just something you know in your gut. Sometimes I shunt aside the want vs. need question and ask myself if I’m satisfied with the story. And that’s my answer.

The end.

I hope.

UNDECLARED

RELEASE WEEK POST 3

W.I.P.

If you’ve been following along on my Facebook page, you know that WIP has traditionally stood for Work In Progress. Now that “Undeclared” has been released into the world, W.I.P. can stand for something else! (Well, today it can.)

Today those three little letters mean Win an Interesting Prize! The prize includes a signed copy of “Undeclared,” and comes with some interesting (obvs) secret bonus gifts to thrill one lucky winner. To enter, all you have to do is like my Facebook author page (www.facebook.com/JuliannaKeyesAuthor) and tell me in the Facebook comments: What else do you think W.I.P. could stand for? (Wow, I’m Pretty! Wild Indigenous Porcupines!) I’ll pick a winner from the Facebook entries on Friday.

Open internationally.

Wanted: Invigorated Postulating

Good luck!

UNDECLARED

RELEASE WEEK POST 4

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING

When starting a new book, readers have expectations. If it’s a comedy they want to laugh, if it’s horror they want to be scared, if it’s romance they want to swoon. Writers have expectations, too. When we sit down to write comedy, we want it to be funny. We want romance to be romantic, and we want horror to keep you awake at night.

When I write, I normally have a general outline. Nothing too specific, but I divide the story into acts and make sure events are happening at certain times to keep the story on pace. I know the characters, their voices, their hopes and fears, what they want and what they need. And I generally know the plot.

That all went out the window when I started “Undeclared.” I knew a lot of things, when I started. And then slowly but surely, they started to change. They morphed into something different, then back to the original, then into something entirely different all over again. I thought I knew what to expect with this story, but I didn’t. That’s not my writing style, and it kind of drove me crazy. I mean, when I write, it’s not simply because I love writing (though I do). It’s because my end goal is to publish a book. That’s hard to do when the story won’t cooperate.

As I was working I thought of the parallels of my own difficulties writing Kellan’s story, and Kellan’s challenges within the story. Then I thought, that’s so annoying. I don’t want to talk about that. And as the story slowly unfurled itself, it turned into something new. It surprised me, in a nerve-wracking but ultimately delightful way. And that’s the real parallel between Kellan’s story and mine. We went into the experience (college for Kellan, the book for me) thinking we knew what we wanted it to be, and it simply refused to cooperate with our expectations. It put us through the wringer on the way, but once we got to the end and looked back, I reluctantly admit that the torture was worth it.

As a general rule I prefer to be the one telling the story, but this time it was the other way around, and once I stopped expecting this book to be what I wanted it to be, I think it became exactly what it was supposed to be.

UNDECLARED

RELEASE WEEK POST 5

MY FAVOURITE SCENE

Early on in the book there’s a scene between Kellan and his course advisor, Bertrand. Each finds the other equally irritating, and in this scene Bertrand is marching Kellan to his first Film Theory course. They stomp along in their mutual bitterness until finally Bertrand asks if Kellan knows why he was signed up for this class. Kellan, who is still firmly in Kellan World with no inkling of the Real World, doesn’t know and doesn’t care.

Bertrand: You know, most people look at a movie—a picture, a song, a book—and see just the surface. They miss the hidden meanings, the subtleties, the nuances. Sometimes they miss the point.

Kellan: Uh-huh.

Bertrand: I mean, sometimes they see all there is to see—sometimes there really is no depth.

Instead of recognizing that he’s the “movie” in this scenario, Kellan gets distracted by a couple of girls jogging past and completely misses the point.

I love this scene because it fully encapsulates Kellan’s character arc, and my favourite part of this story (well, most stories) is the characters’ growth. Over the course of the book Kellan learns to stop thinking about himself and start thinking about…well, himself. But in a different way. To stop considering himself as the shallow campus superstar everyone else sees and look beneath the veneer to the person beneath and determine if there actually is any depth or nuance to his character. (Spoiler: there is!)

Second favourite thing: the first line of the book. Kellan’s known for those infamous lists on the Student Union bathroom wall, and the first line of this book is something Kellan carved on a bathroom wall when he was a kid. I love this symmetry.

And…that wraps up our week of release posts! Thank you for reading along (and reading at all)! Your response and support has been phenomenal and I hope I’ve adequately expressed my appreciation for everything you’ve said & done. Mwah!

MY, WHAT A NOVEL-LA IDEA

I’ve explained that I decided to write a novella as part of an anthology call for royal novellas. Before that, I’d never even considered writing a novella—I’ve read some, but not many, and I’m definitely far too wordy a writer to pack an entire story into half the space I’d normally use. But seeing the call sparked an idea, something that shaped itself into “Bad Princess,” and had the unexpected effect of convincing me that not only could I write a novella, I could write it quickly, because it was short!

Ha!

Ha!

Ha.

So, I did write it fairly quickly, but that’s mostly because it was one of those blessed occasions where the story just flowed. It definitely wasn’t any easier than writing a full-length story, because you still have to make sure you have a solid structure and an interesting plot and unique characters and sizzling chemistry and believable dialogue and all the things that make a book, regardless of length, worth reading.

When the anthology didn’t go ahead as planned, I knew I loved this story and wanted to publish it regardless. And for a brief moment, I considered beefing it up a bit, adding more scenes, more chapters, more words—my favourite—and making it a bit more substantial than a novella. But here’s the thing: I wrote a novella. Not a book that was missing pieces, but a complete story, in 40,000 words.

I thought maybe I could add the wedding scene, but I really didn’t want to. Or insert a chapter before they’re caught kissing—but that would be filler. Or I could change to a more omniscient POV and show other characters’ thoughts and activities, but that would just be different angles on the same plot points, not new information. Or maybe I could create an entire subplot to generate another 30,000 words—but…but I didn’t need to. I’d told a story, and the word count was right for it, so I left it as it was.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write, and other times it’s hard to determine what *not* to write. It’s always a balancing act, and whether or not you strike the right balance is entirely subjective. This post is meant to give you the overall perspective I had while writing the novella, and a couple of the posts coming later in the week will discuss some of those decisions in more detail. Until then, thanks for reading! 😘

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