A lovely writing buddy (Hi Cath) pointed out that although written in quite a lovely style, it had NIL conflict. That's right my lovelies... NADA, ZILCH, NOT A SINGLE SMIDGE of good reason why my gorgeous hero and his delightful leading lady shouldn't buy a house with a white picket fence and live happily ever after.
So I've been brainstorming ways to torture them a little more. I've hopefully given them pasts and present probs that make falling into love and HEA not quite a simple as boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy and they say 'I do.'
It's meant that I've done a lot of rewriting, adding and deleting. Gosh it's painful when the wordcount goes up and then rapidly down again, but I'm sure it'll mean a stronger mss in the long run.
In the meantime... I'm still WAITING to hear from M&B about the partial I sent in May! I'm at the stage, where I sort of wouldn't mind an R cos at least I'd know where I stand. I thought being able to send straight to an editor's desk would mean the process was quicker - but apparently that's a fantasy. Oh well... I've started thinking about my Maverick and his Christmas Fairy's conflict so that I can enter the new contest if I still haven't heard on my partial by then!!
Right... thanks for listening to my rambles. Hope you are all well and happy and that next time I'll either have meatier news or an interesting craft thing to discuss!
For all those off to the Aussie conf this weekend - have a BLAST! Am sooooooooooo jealous I won't be there. Especially since I'm up for an Award Sat night. Who wants to drink cyber wine with me and hang out on Twitter to see how I go?!
9 comments:
Hey Rach - all the best with the re-writes, I'm sure the updated mss will be fabulous :)
Sorry to hear about the wait - I hope you get a response soon.
I'll be cheering you on at the awards night ... I'll text you :)
Oh Rach - good luck for Sunday.
So sad that i will not be at the conference. Sigh. There is always next year...
You don't really have to torture your characters or give them a tortured past. Let them torture each other. It can be as simple (though not necessarily easy) as asking: What does the heroine want and how does the hero prevent her from getting it? And vice versa. I think this is what Jenny Crusie refers to as a conflict lock.
Good luck with the award RACH! Ill be at Clayton's Saturday night - no doubt I'll be glued to twitter.
No news is good news! Sound familiar huh? Get excited that you haven't heard anything since May. Imagine your ms moving through the ranks :) (at least this is what I'm trying to do lol!)
Good Luck with the award can't wait to hear!
Good luck for the VPA - will be drinking cyber sparklies with you for sure and wishing we were at conference! Claytons should be fun though.
Fingers crossed for the award, and the partial!
Sounds like you're making progress with the re-write anyway. I've found sticking your characters well out of their comfort zones usually helps with the torture :-)
Having just done the delete and rewrite thing, I feel your pain. Think how much better the story will be though...
Great news re the awards! I'll Twitter with you!
Thanks everyone for your lovely comments - love the blog community!
Will keep you updated on the Award and those who wanna "watch" for themselves, follow RWA Australia on Twitter where they'll be updating the Awards as they're announced.
Not holding my breath as the story up for the award is a VERY controversial one. We'll see if Valerie Parv (the judge) likes it!
Good luck in the awards, Rach! And what a top tip from Sussan :)
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