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Why Do The Endings Stink?

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I am about to write “The End” on my WIP, Road To Passion (in another ten thousand words or so, but who’s counting?)

And I think I know why I am so disappointed in the last quarter of almost every romance novel I read: They stink.

See, the last quarter is when everything is resolved–wrongs are righted, lovers are reunited, evil is punished, the just are rewarded, and the sick get better. Good, right? Sure, but also boring. It is so much more fun to read about danger and chaos and drama than things going right in the world.

I also think that by the end the poor author is so freaking sick of her characters she rushes to the end without worrying as much as she did in the first three quarters about proper word choice, interesting scenes, etc. I JUST WANT TO FINISH THIS THING might be all that is going through her mind now. Just saying.

Do you start getting bored when you know for sure everything is going to be okay? If you disagree with my stinky endings opinion, what book endings really worked for you?

Thanks for sharing your opinion!

THE END (of this post)

Megan

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You Can Never Be Too Rich, Too Thin or Too Sexy

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I am closing in on the first draft of my Regency-set historical (65,000+ words, Amanda, for next time you crack that Hello Kitty whip and ask how it’s going!), and find that my hero and heroine are having a lot more sexual encounters than I’d originally anticipated.

Which is good for the ultimate sellability of my book, and it’s nowhere near as hot as some of the hottest historicals out there (never mind the erotic romance), but it does beg the question, how much is too much? By pushing the envelope one way, or we backing people into a corner another way?


For example, do you remember the hoopla when Lisa Valdez‘s Passion came out? I thought it was a fantastic book, but some people thought it crossed over the invisible appropriate erotic line. But in that book, the hero and heroine only had sex with each other, and it was all fairly vanilla, if quite frequent and usually public.

One way for authors to avoid being tagged “erotic,” and therefore not put into a further genre is to go the fantasy route; if your hero or heroine is otherworldly, of another species, you can have them do all sorts of things: Demons, angels, seals that turn into humans (are those selkies?), werewolves, ghosts, and yes, trees all get busy.

Jane Lockwood had a post about the evolution of erotic romance at the Spiced Tea Party yesterday; she says she and her fellow erotic writers are concerned erotic romance “was losing its romantic side, and, worse yet, wasn’t even story telling; that it was becoming formulaic and more like porn . . that there wasn’t enough emphasis on plot and characterization, the nuts and bolts of storytelling.”

I have read Jane’s book, and Pam Rosenthal‘s books, and Colette Gale‘s, and they are frankly sexual, but yes, have a plot. And although I would argue Pam’s books are, there is no way Jane or Colette’s could be called “historical romance” (despite what the marketers of Jane’s book say), but they are definitely not straight porn.


In some ways, I’d say books written by Jane, Pam and Colleen are suffering the same kind of fate traditional Regencies did a few years ago: With historical romances getting hotter and hotter, erotic authors are moving further and further into previously uncharted territories, leaving erotic plot-driven books stuck uncomfortably in the middle between hot historical and straight erotic.

I would argue, of course, that labeling books is silly; I liked Elena‘s suggestion awhile back of rating the hotness factor, the way All About Romance does, and leaving the categories alone.

What do you think? How much sex is too much in a historical romance? Do you read erotica as well as historical romance? Would you want your books labeled for their hotness factor?

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I [Heart] Jung!

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Although I enjoy the scent of patchouli once in awhile, I am not an earth-mother-y type at all. I look really bad in tie-dye. Clove cigarettes make me wheeze.

But there is one thing I do believe in: The Workings of the Subconscious Mind.

I think your brain is smarter than you are. I think, if you give it a problem, it will work it out in a reasonable way you might not have thought of on your own. Enter the unconscious.

For example, I am persistently and continuously tired. Not sure why, all the time, but the fact remains that, given ten minutes and soft place to lie down, I will pass out.

BUT sometimes I court that moment because it’s during those unconscious periods I solve a problem. Say, a plot problem. This happened at the laundromat the other day. I was waiting for the towels to dry (pesky things, they still weren’t dry at the end of the cycle. I showed them, I hung them up in the bathroom to air out). And, as is my wont, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I had solved a plot problem. And this has happened many times before, too many times for me to chalk it up to anything but my mind working while I’m sleeping.

I am fascinated by the brain and how it works. How come I can remember the birthday of my best friend growing up, a guy I hadn’t spoken to in over 30 years (I just googled and found him and confirmed the date), but I can’t remember why I went in the kitchen? Why does my brain bother doing anagrams–ALL THE TIME–when there are things like bills to pay and books to be written?

And yes, this has a been a particularly intense stream-of-consciousness post. So sue me, I’m tired, and the MIL has just left Brooklyn.

So–what are you thinking about today? What spurs your brain to solve problems? What oddball things do you remember that there is no reason for you to do so?

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Time’s A Wasting!

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Most any author you know will complain about not having time enough to write. I am no different, but today, I want to discuss productive ways to procrastinate!

See, if you are being creative–even if you’re not creating right at this very minute–I believe your brain is working on your WIP, or getting you geared up to balance the budget, or help your kids with their homework, or finish that report, or whatever it is your mind needs to concentrate on next. So I present some tried-and-true sure-fire time-wasters, as well as some new ones you might not have known about.

1. Check email. Because someone legitimate might have decided to offer you a million dollars in the last ten seconds.

2. Visit your news site of choice: Mine is the Huffington Post (’cause I’m a Proud Liberal; your causes may vary).

3. Free Rice: This site is a vocabulary test that donates ten grains of rice for every word you get right.

4. Mind Habits: This site provides mind games to “reduce stress and build self-confidence.”

5. Your library, to check how your request list is shaping up (I’m 42nd in line to get 300, Diane!)

6. Go Fug Yourself: Plenty to mock.

7. The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks: If you’re a word and grammar person, this is punctuation porn.

8. Hello Kitty Hell: Just in case you ever think you have a small obsession with your books, check these people out. Even Amanda isn’t this nutty about HK! (Are you, Amanda?)

9. Amazon. You never know when you might see that ohmylord my favorite author has a new book coming out! Must get!

10. Clive, Orlando, Gerard, Jeremy Northam, some nude statue Janet saw, Elena, ‘fess up who’s your secret crush, Sean Bean, Takeshi Kaneshiro, etc., etc. ad abdomen.

So–what’s your favorite way to procrastinate?

Megan

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Cocktails Are Go!

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I have a headache. Not the usual lord-it’s-my-turn-post, what-the-heck-am-I-going-to-write-about headache, but a HEADACHE headache.

As in, I went out last night to see Jane Lockwood and Colette Gale read from their respective works last night and had a few cocktails headache. Ouch. Remind me not to make that a habit, it’s painful.

Anyway, although I am not generally a fan of listening to people read aloud, I really enjoyed what I heard; Jane’s book, for example, has some really funny parts that would probably get lost in the reading if it were just me and my old inside-head reading voice and not Jane’s delicious British accent. And Colette imbued her much more serious reading with a stark intensity that matched the mood of the book.

So, yeah, it was fun. And drinks were had. And the best part, of course, was hanging out with other authors.

Today, I have to take that inspiring feeling of camaraderie and sit down by myself at the keyboard and continue writing. A solitary endeavor, yes, but I’ve got virtual support all over the darn place. So headache and all, I am going to knock out some pages so I can feel proud to belong to such great groups as the Riskies, the community of authors, and women who don’t mind saying naughty words in public.

I have no witty questions to ask (remember the headache thing, above?); just a ‘thank you’ the community we’ve gathered here, and it’s fabulous having such great friends. And, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go be lying down for a little bit.

Megan

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