Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Romance Writing Lesson #1

My name is Keith and I am from the Canary Islands. I love writing romances. Here is my homework.

Hello, Keith. Glad to have you in the class.

WORKING TITLE: Beneath the Dragon Tree
WORKING GENRE: Romance
HIGH-CONCEPT BLURB: From the moment the American gentleman saw our protagonist, he knew he had to have her. However, she has her own life and has no interest in being stolen away from it. Can he convince her to come with him?

BEGINNING STORY SPARK

I know the first thing everyone wants to know about any story is who the protagonist is. What is she like? What motivates her? I suspect that in my case you may find the answers a bit tiresome, so I will give you the briefest of biographical sketches and then will fade into the story like the observer I have always been.

My life began on the tropical island of Tenerife, where I grew up on a cliff overlooking the sea. Life was easy and very beautiful: the warm sun, the sparkling sea, the white sand. Then an American gentleman came and stole me away from my home, my relatives, and everything I had ever known. My roots were very deep on the island, and I suspect he had no idea how badly he hurt me when he tore me away from my beloved home. He was enchanted with my beauty, or so he told everyone when he bragged about how he had abducted me. I was twenty-eight years old, about 5’5” and very slender, and people said I was a striking specimen. Whether this was true, I am in no position to say.

The American gentleman felt it would be safer to bring me back to his country by ship rather than by air. I remember the long trip: how I languished by his stateroom window as the sea rolled by outside, unable to do anything but watch the inexorable expansion of the field of turquoise water between my sad window and my happy island home. Finally we arrived at his home, and he proudly showed me off to his guests for the first few months and then lost interest in me. I sat by his window, gazing out at the anemic northern sun (a pale imitation of the blazing tropical ball of fire that I had always known), and I dreamed of Tenerife.

Like so many American gentlemen, this particular one had atrocious eating habits, and not long after he had brought me to his home, he died of a massive heart attack. He had not thought to provide for me in such an event, and doubtless would not have even if he had suspected such an event was imminent. And so I somehow found myself in my present circumstance, biding my time in the lobby of a luxury hotel. Most people don’t notice my presence; some do, but they will come over, pinch me, and say in surprise,

“It is real! What a cute palm tree!”

Don’t they realize I’m actually a dracaena?

Technically, this portion of the Story Plan Checklist is filled out correctly. However, I’m seeing some areas that could use more work.

First, I do have to point out that, based on your blurb, etc., this doesn’t sound as much like a romance as it does a botany textbook. It isn’t believable that your protagonist could be so passive — unless she knows she has something to gain from the American gentleman. As is, she seems a bit like a wallflower and a clingy vine, traits that aren’t widely appealing in a heroine. I suspect the reason it’s coming off like this is because we don’t get a hint of her true internal conflicts and goals and motivations.

We also don’t get a hint of why the American gentleman wants her so badly—we need to have more internal conflict and goals and motivations for him here as well.

To sum up, the reason your story is coming off as a horticultural thesis is directly related to the lack of deep characterization that will mirror your story here. Include a hint of both characters’ internal conflicts, goals and motivations within your high concept blurb and your beginning story spark—just a hint because you’ll be going into more in-depth later.

We touched on this a bit above, but I have to mention that the bulk of what’s included above is about osmotic tension, which really does put it in a botanical category. If that’s what you want, that’s no problem, but keep in mind that the best kind of botany—the kind that readers can’t put down—has deep characterization along with extremely steamy greenhouse scenes. You truly do want your horticultural treatises to be just as well written as any other story. To be more specific, include hints of the characters’ internal struggles—i.e., those things not related to the botanical aspect of the story—in the high concept blurb and the beginning story spark.

Another area that I was concerned about is that you don’t have a lot of angles for external conflict here. Basically, all we see is horticultural conflict. Even in a botany textbook, you want more conflict than the transplanting and repotting. You may need to think about deepening external conflicts in this story so a hint of those can be included in your blurb and initial story spark as well.

As I said, technically you have filled out this portion of the Story Plan Checklist correctly, Keith. But I do think you will need to dig deeper to get ALL the roots when we get into the characterization, internal and external conflicts, goals and motivation cycles of the checklist in the next several lessons. The characters will need to be explored fully because their internal conflicts, as well as their true goals and motivations are unclear and a bit pale and droopy at this juncture. As you deepen their characterization through the beginning and ending cycles, real growth will be needed, not just some extra foliage. Good start here, but keep working on this.

BAD plant!!!! Why did I EVER teach it to type?? It better not have used my credit card to register for this romance writing class!


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1 comment:

Olivia said...

OMG this is hysterical. This made my day!