South Carolina Writers' Workshop

Guest Blogger: Nikki Poppen

Hi All,

The conference is just a little over a month away and I can hardly wait to meet and work with so many of you! Fall is a fun time for me as a writer because it’s my ‘writer’s new year’ and everything is fresh. You probably have a ‘new year’ too depending on your own writing cycles. My new year is marked by two things: the start of any new contracts I’ve acquired over the year, the start of the ‘fall book’ (I write one book every nine weeks, so essentially every academic quarter). Fall traditionally has not be a time for me that is filled with revisions and finishing work from my editor, so it feels like my plate is cleared and I am ready to begin again! As proof of that, I just finished the revisions from my editor on a manuscript I completed in July, I just began writing the opening three chapters of the fall book and I just got the new contract for this year’s Undone Shorts at Harlequin to go with the three books slated to be written this year. It’s been a great week, and my mind has been on beginnings, so I thought I’d focus this blog on some strategies for great openers. For the sake of copyright issues, I’ve limited the examples to my own works.

Great opening lines and chapters are essentially held to the same criteria as an introduction in a public address or a good opening paragraph like the sorts we might have written in college English composition. Here’s what a good opening is supposed to do:

Grab the reader ‘s (audience’s) attention
Create a reason for that reader to want to keep on reading
Get the reader organized around the central plot (the reader needs to know early what is the focus of the story and I am a firm believer that happens in chapter 1).
Create a ‘road map’ of where the story is going (this can be a work in progress that spans the first two chapters).

The blog will talk about the first step, and if you’re interested in how to do the other 3 steaps, come to the ‘writing the romance’ session I’m hosting at the conference!

Grabbing attention, or how to construct exciting opening lines:
Here’s some techniques to help get that first line just right:

1. Start with a startling claim: An example might be the opening line from “The Viscount Claims His Bride,”
“Valerian Inglemoore, the Viscount St Just, had a secret, a dreadful secret that caused him to tremble in guilt and self-loathing as he stood alone on Lady Rutherford’s verandah.”

As you can see, the startling claim doesn’t have to be shocking or vulgar or even all that sensational. But this startling claim does do double duty. Think of all the things you now know about the hero in roughly 30 words.
a) The hero is a titled gentleman (so that creates some plot, behavior and lifestyle expectations on the reader’s part).
b) The hero has a secret AND we know how he feels about that secret. He is ashamed. This also builds in some anticipation. The reader knows at this point that he’s got to do something distasteful in regards to that secret, or that the secret is going to affect his life.
c) We know where the hero is.

2. Start with deductive reasoning: a large claim that is narrowed down specifically to the character in question: Check out Jane Austen’s opening to “Pride and Prejudice” and how the large claim is narrowed down to Mr. Darcy specifically (I’m not sure about copyright so I am not going to risk re-typing the lines here). I used this strategy in the book I just finished for Harlequin and I can put that opening lines here.

“Ballrooms were made for business. All the standard trappings of festivity aside, ballrooms were a gentleman’s office. They were the places a gentleman conducted the most important business transactions of his life; ensuring a place in society and arranging his marriage. Jack had already done the latter and had no intentions of doing the former.”

This provides us in just a few lines with a sense of:
1. Place and setting
2. An interesting ‘philosophical thought’
3. A brief look into the hero’s psyche. We can guess at this point a few things
about Jack.

3. Go ahead and opening with something shocking. I did this in “The Earl’s Forbidden Ward,” Here’s the opener:

“Peyton Ramsden, fourth earl of Dursley, was doing what he did best—technically superior, emotionally removed sex with his mistress of two years. Certain of her fulfillment, he gave a final thrust and withdrew to make a gentleman’s finish in the sheets.”

4. Start with the action! In many ways I’ve said the best for last. Here’s two examples. The first one is from “Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady”

“She would not be sold like a prized mare at Tattersalls! Julia Prentiss’s elegantly coiffed head swiveled in disbelief between Uncle Barnaby and Mortimer Oswalt,the lecherous old cit who had come to offer for her.”

Think of everything we now know about Julia:
1. She’s mad
2. She is probably living with relatives and at their mercy since there isn’t a father arranging this marriage for her
3. She’s a young woman of rank, as reflected in her knowledge and association with Tattersalls and her opinion of the merchant-class man who has come to offer for her.

And most importantly, there’s the action. We open up right away with a bargaining scene. We don’t start with Julia being called downstairs or with any back story about how she’s something of an orphan or that her family has fallen on hard times etc. We just start with the action and all those things get neatly inferred into the scene.

The second example is from “Pickpocket Countess.”
“Even in the darkness, he could sense the subtle alteration of the room. The room had been disturbed. Brandon Wycroft, the fifth earl of Stockport, muttered curses under his breath. The Cat had been here.”

Brandon’s home has been burglarized. Again we start with the action. If you read two paragraphs down in the book the reader immediately discovers the Cat is still in the room and there’s a glorious, passionate scramble for escape.

One great tip I picked up from Claire Delacroix a couple years ago is: Don’t be afraid to throw out your first 2-3 chapters. The action probably starts with chapter 3 and that’s where your final draft of the story should start too. This tip has never failed me! All the back story, all the exciting things we as writers know about our characters can be worked in throughout the story instead of laying tons of ground work too early.

Enjoy! Come by the romance writing seminar and introduce yourselves!
Nikki Poppen, writing as Bronwyn Scott

Critique Madness: Here They Are!

Here they are! All neatly organized and ready to transmit or mail!

Since I'm handling critiques this year, lots of you have called or emailed to ask about the process. How we organize, sort, transmit, etc. I thought it might be interesting to have a blog post that explains the whole murky process.

The manuscript you sent via email is saved on a flash drive, in folders by faculty member. This drive will be taken to the conference just in case another copy of your submission is needed for any reason. (This does NOT mean you shouldn't consider bringing your own flash drive.)

The manuscript you mailed traveled from the post office to my house, where it was stored in a large tupperware bin until all of them arrived. Then, on September 6th, I moved all the furniture in my living room to the side and sorted them. (For once, I was very thankful for my impractical formal living room---it's long instead of wide and I fuss about this constantly---just ask Mr. Husband. He knows a millon reasons why the fireplace SHOULD BE ON THE LONG WALL. But, he admits, he doesn't know WHY it isn't.) After they were alphabetized, I put them in boxes and under lock and key. If your faculty member asked for paper copies, he or she will be sent one copy and the conference will keep the other. Again, in case we need a copy once we get to the conference site.

Take heart----I take the care of these submissions very seriously. The only eyes that will see them and the only fingers that will touch them are mine and you faculty member's. They are safe with me!

What happens when the conference is over? You can pick up your copies or we will shred them. This will be done before we leave the beach. I give you my word---they will be shredded.

Faculty members chose, when they signed their contracts, how they wanted to receive their manuscripts. Some chose mail and some chose email. So, I'll be sending them out the next few days.

Keep your fingers crossed. This just might be your year!

For the record, I read Nikki Poppen's THE DOWAGER'S WAGER yesterday. Bravo, Nikki!

http://www.amazon.com/Dowagers-Wager-Nikki-Poppen/dp/0803497873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252262135&sr=8-1

And today I REALLY AM working on line edits. All day. No matter what. Even if Mr. Husband wants to whisk me away to some tropical beach--HINT, HINT---I'll be here in my office.

I Know I Should Be Working. . .

Are You Too Married?

A manuscript is an extension of you. In a way it's like a child---you create it, play with it, train it, and hope to share it with the world. But remember, you love your children like no one else in the world. You also love your manuscript more than anyone in the world.

You SHOULD love it, but. . .

It's easy to get too attached to your manuscript. After all, you've spent countless hours working to make it perfect. You've sacrificed time you could have spent with family and friends writing your masterpiece. You've weighed every word, deleted and reinserted the same scene several times, rewritten dialogue for weeks at a time. And now it's finished. And it's perfect. And YOU'RE NOT GOING TO CHANGE A DARN THING.

If you feel this way, you're too married to your manuscript. After you've spent months, or years, with the same story, it's impossible to see your own work. You need the advice of other writers, agents, editors. Change can be a good thing. Don't resist. Listen, weigh, and go back to your masterpiece. Usually you will see that at least a few of them are right.

When writers are too married to a manuscript, a red flag pops into the heads of publishing professionals. If you're unwilling to change a single word, a single scene break, they're going to think you're high maintenance. And you know what that means, right? In the words of my mother, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." If a few changes could make the difference in whether you get published, consider making those changes. Consider listening.

Here's the disclaimer: If the suggested changes mean you have to compromise a theme or change the whole concept of the book, think long and hard before you decide.

On the other hand, if the changes are mostly window dressing, maybe you should make them. After all, it's better to improve your manuscript for your readers than to get your way.

Literary CSI: Are you fingerprints on file?

I'll bet you can name a handful of authors that you simply ADORE. You buy their books in hardback, watch the bookstores for signings, search amazon.com to find out when the next masterpiece will ship. What makes them so special? Why do you love their work?

I would argue that, in most cases, it's because you like their VOICE. Voice is like an author's fingerprint. It's what makes the writing unique and individual. It's a combination of phrasing, diction, dialogue, character development. It's simply what makes Faulkner Faulkner or Hemingway Hemingway.

Voice is a difficult thing. It seems like it would be an easy task. We're all different, so we should all write differently, right? Unfortunately, it's not always that easy. Sometimes you have to work at finding your voice. You have to play with composition, structure, and all the other elements that make up your work.

Think of it like this: When you bake a cake, you use the standard ingredients: Flour, eggs, oil, baking powder, salt, vanilla extract or cocoa, sugar. But do all cakes taste the same? No---it's the pinch of cinnamon, or the cup of pecans, or the helix of lemon zest that can make all the difference. And why does your wife's pound cake taste so much better than your mother's? (Or maybe it's the other way around at your house. LOL) And even though your mother has given your wife that recipe a dozen times, it never tastes the same, does it? Is it the proportion of the ingredients or the temperature of the stove?

VOICE is your literary fingerprint. It makes your book, or story, or poem special and unique. Sure, it pays to read other authors in your genre, but not so that you can copy their recipe. You should read them in order to expand your thinking, open your creative channels, so that you can create YOUR OWN VOICE. Finding YOUR OWN VOICE will make your characters leap off the page, it will make your settings tangible, and your dialogue snappy. It will also help move your manuscript from the slush pile to the center of Mr. Dreamagent's desk.

When you present your cake to the world, you don't want it to be a Betty Crocker Mix with icing from a plastic canister. You want it to be your recipe---the one you've slaved over, perfected and polished. You want everyone to say,"I LOVE THIS CAKE . IT'S THE BEST CAKE I'VE EVER TASTED!" And you want them to mean it---because it is yours and only yours.

Guest Blogger: Nikki Poppen

Critique Madness: Here They Are!

I Know I Should Be Working. . .

Are You Too Married?

Literary CSI: Are you fingerprints on file?

About Us

2012 Conference

SCWW links

Blog Archive

Labels

Guest Blogger: Nikki Poppen

Critique Madness: Here They Are!

I Know I Should Be Working. . .

Are You Too Married?

Literary CSI: Are you fingerprints on file?

About Us

2012 Conference

SCWW links

Blog Archive

Labels

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