Part III: Style

As I’ve mentioned before, agents and contest judges periodically said my writing style is too formal. This criticism, probably more than any other, stung. After all, I was a lawyer for several years. Lawyers write. And when lawyers write something to submit to a judge, lawyers write formally. My bosses routinely complimented my writing style. I was a decent legal writer. Therefore, I reasoned, I would be a decent romance writer.

See the logic?

“You need to write in short, declarative sentences,” an agent told me as she rejected my manuscript.

Excuse me?

Shocked, disbelieving and determined to prove that the lousy agent didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, I took another look at the book. To my horror, I discovered the following:

“She did not really want to find herself without a job as she stared down the disciplinary panel of the state supreme court and tried to explain that her phone calls and kisses with Jack had not compromised her client’s case in any way.”

Who wrote that monstrous sentence? Me? Surely not. I read further:

“Mandy had already gone to the ladies’ room, and Sondra had hoped to have a private word with Jack before he left, but she could see that Cynthia was taking her sweet time packing up her stenograph and apparently hoped to have a word with Jack herself.”

Ugh. Maybe my sentences were a little too … dense.

“Your writing is too formal,” another agent said as she (you guessed it) rejected my manuscript.

Too formal? No way. Not MY writing. Not a chance. Slow to learn and unwilling to believe what was right before my eyes, I read the manuscript again and found this:

“When she had composed herself sufficiently … ”

Composing herself sufficiently? Is that anything like calming down?

Well, fine. I finally got it. My writing was jumbled and formal. Stilted, even. I needed to write in short, declarative sentences. I could do that. If only I knew what a short, declarative sentence looked like.

I took another look at Brenda Joyce’s “The Game” and quickly found an example:

“Katherine did not move, stunned.”

Wow. So that’s a short declarative sentence, huh? I would have written:

“Frozen and petrified, Katherine stood with her feet rooted to the floor and tried to gather her wits about her but was unsuccessful for several seconds.”

Since that stunning moment of clarity, I’ve focused on keeping my writing less overblown. I say “less” because it’s a constant struggle. My internal default setting is formal, and I have a tough time getting around it. But at least now I know I have a problem, and once you’ve identified the problem you’re halfway to the solution, right? So now when I write: “Since childhood she’d despised cooked carrots” in the first draft, I change the second draft to read: “She hated carrots.” Much better, huh?

Short, declarative sentences. Gotta love ‘em.

Part II: Conflict

WARNING! SPOILERS!

My first novel, “A Delicate Situation,” about two lawyers who fall in love while opposing each other on a divorce case, didn’t sell. I can go ahead and tell you why, but first you better pack a lunch and go ahead and call off from work tomorrow, because it’ll take a while. Some of the problems–like the book’s stilted, formal language and glacier-like pace—are fixable. But one problem killed the book dead bigger than an extra large can of Raid kills bugs. One problem is the death knell for any book unfortunate enough to encounter it: lack of conflict.

“I liked the book,” said one of the seemingly hundreds of agents who rejected my poor manuscript. “But it just didn’t have enough conflict.”

“But, but … “ I spluttered. “But they argue all the time. Isn’t that enough? And it’s about lawyers falling in love while they’re litigating a case against each other. That’s a BIG conflict of interest. They could get disbarred!”

“Yeah,” she said. “But the case will be over soon and they’ll get together then. You need something stronger to make the reader think these two will never get together.”

Well, fine. Eventually I stopped trying to sell ADS and moved on to my second novel, “Trouble.” Early drafts of this book had the hero realizing within seconds of meeting her that he wanted to marry the heroine. “Uh-oh,” wrote one of the contest judges in blaring red ink as she gave “Trouble” terrible marks—and I mean TERRIBLE—in the conflict category. “You need more conflict.”

“Well, what the heck does more conflict mean?” I asked the judge in abstentia.

She thoughtfully answered this question in the comments section of the score sheet. “Think of a reason why these two wouldn’t get together even if they were marooned alone on a desert island. A reason for them each to think that the other is the worst person in the world for them to fall in love with. THAT’S conflict.”

Oh.

Interesting.

It was at about this time that I re-read my now dog-eared copy of “The Game” and had a light bulb moment of Oprahian proportions. In “The Game,” you’ll recall, Liam the pirate kidnaps Lady Katherine so she’ll be his mistress. What conflicts keep these two apart and make their Happily Ever After seem impossible? Let me count the ways:

1. She hates him because he’s kidnapped her and won’t let her go.
2. She thinks he’s a bloodthirsty pirate.
3. She thinks family honor requires her to marry a nobleman or at least a gentleman.
4. She thinks being a pirate’s mistress will ruin her chances of making a good marriage.
5. He thinks he’ll never marry and have children because of his unfortunate lifestyle and heritage.
6. He thinks he doesn’t deserve a fine lady like Katherine.

All these conflicts make for one exciting book and I started to get the picture. Every time these two reach a truce and begin to understand each other, Joyce throws a new conflict their way, ripping the rug out from under them again and again. Would any of these conflicts keep Katherine and Liam apart if they were marooned on a desert island? Oh, yeah.

Oh, and one other thing, but I have to warn you I’m about to give away a major plot point: Katherine marries someone else. That’s right. In Elizabethan England, where divorces were uncommon to say the least, Katherine marries a young, healthy man who seems in no imminent danger of dropping dead and leaving her free to marry Liam.

I remember my despair when I first read this part of “The Game.” How could she marry Liam if she was already married to someone else? How could they live happily ever after? For a few stricken moments I even wondered if “The Game” was a true romance novel because I just couldn’t see how those two would ever work out their monumental problems. At an even worse point in the novel, Katherine and Liam have a HUGE blowup and say such vile things to each other I had a hard time reading it. Again I despaired. They’d never resolve their issues. Never.

Now THAT’S conflict.

I studied some more. I attended Debra Dixon’s seminar “Goal, Motivation & Conflict” and devoured her book of the same name. Thus educated, I rewrote “Trouble” (for what seemed like the billionth time) and my agent sold it. I think I get conflict now. And since I hate to leave things unfinished, I’ve figured out how to cure the lack of conflict problem with “A Delicate Situation” and I’m going to rewrite it the first chance I get. It’ll still be about lawyers falling in love and a divorce. But this time the conflict’s going to be (I hope) explosive.

And if I do it right, maybe a reader somewhere will despair of the hero and heroine ever getting together. If so, I’ll know I’ve done my job.

Part I: The Alpha Male—“Grab a Toothbrush, You’re Coming With Me”

Several years ago, my sister, a devoted romance reader, loaned me her battered copy of “The Game.” Brenda Joyce’s novel, the first of hers I’d ever read, promptly blew my mind—for many reasons. The setting: not the colorful but tame drawing rooms of Regency England. Oh, no, no, no. Joyce treats us to the dangerous, intrigue-filled world of Elizabeth I. The characters: Lady Katherine, a beautiful, convent-bred virgin, and her polar opposite, pirate/privateer Liam O’Neill, son of a notorious criminal. The conflict: O’Neill, falling into instant lust when he sees Katherine, decides to kidnap her for his mistress, thereby thwarting her plans to find a noble husband.

That’s it in a nutshell. For nearly five hundred pages I watched these two match wits, fight, and fall in love. At one point (more about that in Part II: Conflict), I actually tossed the book onto the sofa and yelled at the characters (“Oh, my God! What are you doing to each other? Stop it!”) because I couldn’t bear to read the scene. Not because the lovers were stupid but because they were so effectively tearing each other apart. If you’re an author, you know you’ve hit a grand-slam home run when you make a reader care enough about your characters to yell at them.

But the thing I remember most about first reading “The Game” is its powerful hero, Liam O’Neill, the consummate alpha male. Proud, arrogant, overbearing, cunning, manipulative, he’s also smart, sexy, funny and endlessly vulnerable where Katherine is concerned. Even as I watch him bully and manipulate her, I root for him. Why? Because although he doesn’t yet realize it himself, he’s so desperately in love with her he’s willing to do ANYTHING–including, if necessary, kill—to get her. If she doesn’t like it, that’s just too bad. When she complains about this treatment he says he’ll bend her to his will. Of course he does, and the two live happily ever after.

But it’s Liam’s unyielding stance—we’re going to be together, no matter what, and you better get used to it—that I think is at the heart of the alpha male. In his purest, most elemental form, the alpha male is someone who says to the heroine, “You’re mine now. I’m sorry if you don’t like it. Grab a toothbrush, you’re coming with me.”

Thrilling.

Katherine reasons. She negotiates. She begs. She cries. Liam feels bad for her, but never changes his mind. He bullies. He manipulates. Slowly, he reveals a softer side. He waits her out and proves he can be trusted. He protects her. He wins her.

Think about it. What could be more exciting—and challenging—for a strong heroine than coming up against an equally strong hero? Rhett Butler tells Scarlett that he wants her, will have her, and won’t be bullied by her. And he’s right. In “Outlander,” Jamie tells Claire she’s his wife now, whether she likes it or not, and damn well better act like it. In Joyce’s wonderful “Deadly” series, Calder announces to Francesca that they’re going to be married. She says no they’re not. He says we’ll just see about that. They battle it out. Next thing you know, Francesca is eagerly anticipating their wedding night. In … well, you get the idea.

I LOVE alpha heroes. For me, a romance is exponentially better if the hero knows, immediately, that he wants the heroine, will have her, and will be manipulative about it if need be. As a writer of contemporaries, this is tricky. How do I create a powerful hero who’s willing to go to great lengths to get a woman—and not make him seem like a stalker maniac?

I struggle with this problem with every hero I create. And I’ll keep struggling. No cuddly, beta heroes for me. No, thank you. Because, as Brenda Joyce well knows and “The Game” proves, the alpha male is worth the struggle.

Something thrilling happened today, and it was more exciting than a day at the beach, but not quite as miraculous as winning the lotto: I finished the first draft of the book I’ve been writing.

That’s right. I created a man and woman out of whole cloth, gave them personalities, a whole lot of problems and a fierce mutual attraction, and watched while they forged a relationship. It was tough going for a while. They didn’t always like each other. They didn’t always make smart decisions. But they stuck it out, had a lot of laughs and discovered they want to spend their lives together. So this afternoon I told them good-bye and sent them on their happily ever after.

And I pretended I’d never have to deal with them again. For now, I’ll act as if I don’t have to deal with their occasional whining, crying and gnashing of teeth through (at least!) two more drafts. Just for a while, I’ll ignore the fact that I have a lot—a whole lot–of editing to do. I’ll pretend this manuscript came in at the right word count, isn’t filled with purple prose, adverbs and clichés, and explores the relationship between men and women in a revolutionary and fascinating new light.

And while I’m at it, why don’t I pretend the manuscript is already sold? No. Wait. Why don’t I pretend a couple big publishers got into a bidding war and one bought the book at auction for a record price? That right here, on my computer’s hard drive, is a future NYT bestseller to rival “The DaVinci Code”? That Oprah’s producers are pounding on my door, begging me to do her book club?

I know, I know. I’ll have to face reality one day soon. But not today. Today I’m going to enjoy the natural high that comes from finishing a book.