Why Emma’s Book Didn’t Sell

Some of you asked why Emma’s book didn’t sell. I can explain.

Here’s Emma’s synopsis again:

A broke thirty-nine-year-old single mother and author of one semi-successful literary novel goes to Nantucket out of season to write a romance novel to make a quick buck even though she’s given up on men forever and has almost as little faith in literature. She does some research on a forty-year-old murder mystery to give her romance some plot and deals with her seventeen year old daughter while trying to keep her romance under control. She also copes with the house which is in terrible condition with the help of the landlord’s son, an exasperated contractor. The harder she tries to keep her life and her plot under control, the more things spiral out of hand: her daughter’s dating an island boy who looks like pure trouble, the house is coming down around her ears, her romance heroine keeps going off in her own direction, and no matter how she tries to deny it, she definitely has the hots for the contractor who has somehow ended up in her book. And as an added irritant, somebody seems to be spiking her research, getting nastier and nastier the more she learns.

Now let’s look at the basic story here.

Who’s the protagonist? Emma

What’s her goal? Write a romance novel.

Who’s her antagonist: Whoever’s spiking her research. (Spiking?)

What’s his or her goal? Stop Emma from writing the book.

Those of you who have done conflict boxes can already see the problem, but to put it in the form of a question:

Is the antagonist stopping Emma from her goal? No.

The antagonist is making it harder for her to write this particular book, but since all Emma wants is to write a romance novel, she can write about anything. She has no need to write this particular novel, no reason to spend that much money on a rental, and every reason to abandon it if the antagonist becomes violent or threatening because she has her daughter with her. Therefore, there’s no conflict lock and no center to the book and no reason for a reader to care. You may think Emma is fun, but just following a fun character around for 100,000 words does not make a story, especially if you start wondering why the fun character doesn’t pick up her daughter and get the hell out of Dodge before the kid gets hurt.

Then look at the writing-the-sex-scene scene.

Who’s the protagonist? Emma

What’s her goal? Write a sex scene.

Who’s her antagonist: There is none.

Mason’s in there but he’s not stopping her from writing, in fact, he’s in the other room fixing the sink and only interrupts her at her request. At the end of the scene, neither of them have changed the other and the plot hasn’t moved. It’s one of those scenes that’s full of air and color and does absolutely nothing to advance the story. And the problem with those scenes is that the reader will try to make them work because he or she will assume there’s some there there. Yes, Emma and Mason are attracted to each other, but they’ve been that before and they don’t do anything about it here.

So the whole proposal was me tap-dancing, doing fancy twirls to show off my brightly colored underpants, and doing absolutely no storytelling. Then add in that I set it in a location I knew nothing about that my editor knew well, and it was never going anywhere. She was absolutely right to reject it.