Great news!!!!!!!

I’ve just signed a contract with Breathless Press for the erotic western that will kick off their upcoming erotic western line, Branded, November 2010 (exact date TBA). I’m really excited about this opportunity.

The story is called Gambling with Love and most of the action takes place in 1883 Denver, Colorado. The story is a western romp between a U.S. Marshal and the lady gambler who stole his heart…then shot him…again.

Blurb:

Disowned by her wealthy Charleston family when she married a gambler, Lainie Conrad lived a charmed life of European travel, good times, and gambling until Rutherford Tolliver decided to claim Lainie for his own. Now, widowed and certain that Tolliver killed her husband, Lainie plots revenge, but she doesn’t want Ford’s life. She plans to ruin him in a high stakes poker game. The problem is, she’s fallen for U.S. Marshal Nick Foster, who is duty bound to arrest her for a murder she didn’t commit. Derringers, poker, and her feminine wiles become weapons in her quest for retribution.

Until then…

kaye

Fall in love…faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances

Story Crafting – Session #6 – Conflict, Part 2

In Conflict, Part 1, I said we’d look at Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean movies and also Frodo and Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies and books. Before we delve into those characters, I have a few words to say about the Phantom character from the book and movie, Phantom of the Opera.

The character of the Phantom, Erik in the book Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LeRoux, is born with  a physical facial deformity, and as he matures, he develops an extreme negative self-concept and learns to live in isolation from society. Man v. Self emerges in his youth, but does not completely take hold in his psyche until he encounters something outside himself that he wants, but cannot have because of his physical appearance. Although he has internalized that he is physically repulsive to others, it is merely an inconvenience until he falls in love with Christine and his feelings for her become an obsession to possess her…with or without her consent. At this point, he becomes embroiled in a combinaiton of Man v. Self because he has to truly face how unattractive he is to Christine and he both loves and loathes himself; Man v. Society because he crosses the line of acceptable social mores when he stalks and kidnaps Christine to make her marry him against her will in exchange for Raoul’s life; and Man v. Man in his determination to keep Raoul from having his darling Christine. Ultimately, the Phantom redeems himself by releasing Christine and Raoul which brings him full circle to live the solitary life he was born into and leaves him struggleing with his destiny (Man v. Destiny).

Now, consider Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean 1. Will is introduced totally against anything remotely related to piracy. Will tells Jack Sparrow that he “practices with a sword three hours each day so when he meets a pirate, he can kill it”.  Jack further offends Will by telling him that his father, Bill “Bootstrap” Turner, was a “pirate and a good man”. Jack’s comment, “you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you’ll have to square with that some day”, foreshadows Will’s ultimate destiny (Man v. Destiny) at the end of Pirates 3. Will fights his destiny through all three movies. Will is in Man v. Man conflict throughout most of all three movies which is the catalyst for his burgeoning Man v. Self conflict that torments him. The very nature of a story at sea pits all characters against the elements, hence the Man v. Nature conflict is inherent in all three movies.

At the end of Pirates 1, Will rescues Jack from the hangman’s noose, thereby pitting Himself against Society, and this thread builds momentum in the second and culminates in the third. During the second movie, we get an inkling that a power greater than Will is afoot, but it isn’t until the third movie that Will must finally face his destiny and, in doing so, sacrifices a happily ever after life with Elizabeth. Replacing Davey Jones on the Flying Dutchman is Will’s ultimate conflict, Man v. Destiny, and he cannot avoid what Fate has meted out for him.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is also an interesting study in conflict. While all of the major characters deal with various aspects of conflict in their storylines, it is Frodo and Aragorn that best demonstrate the different aspects of story conflict.

When we meet Frodo in Fellowship of the Rings, he hasn’t an inkling of his destiny (Man v. Destiny), but when he picks up the Ring that Bilbo has left on the floor of Bag End, we know Frodo’s fate is sealed. As Galadriel tells him, “if you do not find a way (to destroy the Ring) no one will”. As the stories progress, Frodo becomes increasingly aware that his life and the fate of the Ring are one and the same. In essence, when the Ring is destroyed, Frodo (as he was, as he hoped to be, and as he hoped to live) is destroyed and he is eventually offered a place on the last ship leaving Middle Earth.

Frodo struggles within himself to remain independent of the Ring’s evil influence, Man V. Self. He is also fighting an evil force – Man v. Society (albeit an undesirable society ruled by Sauron). He struggles moment by moment against the forces of nature – Man v. Nature. Frodo also faces Man v. Man conflict in the characters of Boromir who wants the ring for his father; Gollum who wants the Ring for himself; and all the other individual characters who are influenced by the power of the Ring.

Aragorn struggles within himself throughout the entire trilogy (Man v. Self) to acknowledge and embrace his rightful place as King of Gondor, which is also his Man v. Destiny struggle. Aragorn, like Frodo, faces many conflicts: Man v. Nature – storms, physical terrain; Man v. Man – conflict with Boromir, King Theoden, Lord Elrond, Orcs, enemy warriors; and Man v. Society – the evil Sauron trying to conquer Middle Earth.

Rarely do you find just one “conflict” in a story. The more conflict you can write into your story, the deeper, richer, and more interesting it will be for the reader.

Next Session: Setting

Until then…

kaye

Fall in love…faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances

Story Crafting…so you want to write a book

 Session #5

 Conflict – Part 1

 Conflict provides the tension and drama that stories are built upon. It involves the “story problems” that must be resolved. The central conflict in many stories is often based on one of the following five common types of conflicts:

Note: the term “Man” is not sexist. Man is used in the global “humankind” sense, regardless of gender, or cosmic/universe of origin.

Character against Character - Man vs. Man: man struggles against another man
Examples: Old West gunfighters and cowboys; James Bond and Batman overcoming the villains…the list is endless. This type of conflict is the easiest to identify because of the one-to-one nature of the conflict. It is someone against someone else.

Character against Society – Man vs. Society: man struggles against oppression, racism, poverty, etc.
Books & Movies: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird gunfighter stories, Falling Down, Michael Collins, Hotel Rwanda, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Batman, Hellboy, Public Enemies

Character against Nature - Man vs. Nature: man struggles against the elements of nature, like weather, animals, etc.
Books & Movies: Banner in the Sky, Hatchet, old west stories of cattle drives, Day After Tomorrow, and Jurassic Park

Character against Self - Man vs. Himself: man has an internal struggle within himself: self-doubt, indecision, depression, etc.
Books & Movies: Shane, Edmund Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo, Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, and Hellboy

Man against Destiny - Man vs. Fate: man struggles against his own destiny
Books & Movies: Greek & Roman mythology – Achilles, Odysseus, Hercules, Percy Jackson series, Leonidis in 300, Hellboy, and Luke Skywalker in Star Wars

Obviously, I’ve left out many other worthy examples, but you have the idea. Now, next time, I will look at the five types of conflict as each applies to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy and The Lord of the Rings movies and books.

Until then…

kaye

Fall in love…faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances

Story Crafting…so you want to write a book

Session #4

Character

The most important element of the story is character. Characters are the people in the story. These are the people you’re writing about. They are the hero and heroine in a romance or the protagonist and antagonist in any genre. Your setting may be exciting and exotic, your conflict may be deep and gut-wrenching, but without carefully crafted characters, you have no story.

• It is your job as the writer to develop their personalities, mannerisms, beliefs, greatest fears and deepest desires.
• You give them longings, joys, idiosyncrasies, and flaws. Generally, you’ll make the reader fall in love with the hero and/or heroine and despise the villain.
• Sometimes, the protagonist and antagonist are not clearly defined and the reader will be torn over this. This is good.
• You want readers to throw themselves emotionally into your story. In order to make the reader remember your characters, you must make them come alive to the reader so the reader will care about the characters’ dreams, fears, and frustrations just as if they were real people in everyday life.
• Don’t overlook the importance of secondary character as critical elements to the development of the story and a tool in which to help define the main characters. It is not unusual for an author to write a spin-off story for a secondary character.

Characterization

This is the process by which authors communicate their characters’ personalities, idiosyncrasies, and behaviors to readers.

• Direct characterization occurs when the author tells readers about a character directly.
• Indirect characterization lets readers draw their own conclusions from clues in the story, such as a character’s appearance, tone of voice, or behavior.

Here are passage examples of direct and indirect characterization of Beau Hyatt from my book, Lonely Places.

Direct:

“How is she still alive? Tell me the story,” Moira said. She listened, observing his mannerisms. Detached though he was in the telling, he didn’t take his gaze from the woman. He watched her shallow breathing, her slight head movements, and his eyes narrowed whenever she moaned. He was normally emotionally guarded, but Moira saw something in his face that she hadn’t seen in a long time. She saw his interest in the woman.

“I wonder why she was traveling alone. And where she was going. Where had she been?” Moira mused.

“I’ve been wondering the same things.”

“Shot in the back. Certainly not very noble.”

“Hell, slitting her throat probably wasn’t the high point of her day, either.”

An imperceptible grin turned up the corner of Moira’s mouth. An imperceptible grin turned up the corner of Moira’s mouth. Although serious by nature, Beau always seemed to find the absurd in difficult and uncomfortable situations. She knew people often found his sense of humor callous and unfeeling. She watched him as he watched the unconscious woman, and she wondered where his thoughts were taking him.

“You appear interested in her, Beau. You’ve not had those feelings for some time, have you?”

His face went hard. “I buried them almost four years ago, remember?” Suddenly, as if the walls of the small room were closing in around him, he moved toward the door. “I’ll put up the horses and bring in her gear.”

After reading this passage, you know directly that Beau has an off-center sense of humor, he’s interested in an unconscious, injured woman, which is apparently unusual, and he buried someone he loved four years ago and it still troubles him.

Indirect:

Beau poured another cup of coffee and returned to the chair. He splashed whisky into the cup and propped his boots on the edge of the small bedside table, checking the Webleys for easy grasp. As he drank, his pragmatic and unemotional mind fully expected her not to make it through the night. But his concealed, passionate heart willed her to live.

“Lady, if you’re tough enough to survive whatever happened to you, you deserve to live.”

He took another drink, uncomfortable that he cared if she lived or died. However, in wishing this for her, old feelings buried long ago touched the fringes of his thoughts. Self-protective indifference surfaced instantly. He had cut himself off from emotional ties years ago, specifically those related to women. He knew he was not yet reconciled with his pain and loss and might never be. Letting himself feel would compromise him, take away his edge, and that was something he couldn’t afford. Ever. It would kill him. Watching the woman, he couldn’t stop the memories of another woman in another time. A woman he missed every moment of his life.

After reading this passage, you should be wondering why he drinks, why he has guns close at hand, and why he’s a dichotomy of unemotional mind and passionate heart. Why does he care if she lives or dies? What happened in his past to make him this way? Who is the other woman who haunts him?

The reason you’re wondering is because you care about the character of Beau Hyatt now. You want to know his pain, his sorrow, and his passion.

Character Development

Be careful with character development. Readers in general tend to expect a likable protagonist and a dislikable antagonist. In romance, if you write a whiny, obnoxious, helpless heroine who doesn’t grow and mature throughout the book, your readers won’t like her and won’t look forward to your next book. It is likewise with the hero. He can be cocky, over-bearing, self-centered, and insensitive (classic characteristics of the Alpha Male Hero), but you’d better balance those traits with ones that eventually endear him to your readers.

In Lonely Places, I had to walk a fine line with Beau. He had the classic characteristics of the Alpha Male Hero, and it wasn’t until the very end of the book that he finally redeemed himself. Had I not given the reader a glimmer of hope that Beau wasn’t a complete and total cad, the book would have been a complete and total failure in character development. 

Bottom line is: #1 Characterization Rule – People are not one dimensional, so make sure your characters aren’t either.

Next session—Conflict

Until then…

Kaye

Fall in love…faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances