Thursday 26 August 2010

A writers struggle - but she's getting there! Welcome, Lisabet Sarai!


Confessions of a Clueless Newbie
By Lisabet Sarai

Let me begin by making my title clear. I've been writing since I was six or seven years old. I've been publishing for more than a decade. So I'm not a clueless newbie as an author. No, the area where I'm sadly clueless is the romance genre.

From reading author interviews, I get the impression that most romance writers started out as romance readers. Not me, I'm afraid. Before I began submitting to romance publishers, my idea of “romantic” fiction was Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind and Romeo and Juliet. Stories like these tore at my heartstrings, but you'll note that none of them has a happy ending. I read my first mainstream romance (some title by Danielle Steele) in my forties and to be honest, I didn't think much of it.

My earlier publications were basically erotica. I entered the romance world only three years ago, when the owner of Total-E-Bound contacted me about six months before the company launched to ask if I'd be interested in submitting something. I offered them two of my erotic novels that had gone out of print. The books really weren't traditional romance―in both cases the heroine has encounters with several individuals beside the hero―but they did both end with the hero and heroine getting together, and they were sexually intense, something TEB was seeking.

Since then I've penned more than a dozen new tales specifically targeted for the romance market. But it has been tough. I've had to learn new narrative conventions. For instance, much of my previous work was written in the first person, but my publisher made it pretty clear that she preferred third person. I wasn't used to providing detailed descriptions of my characters, but I came to understand that many romance readers want this. I've learned that I can give reign to my sexual imagination―the days of the closed bedroom door are over―but only if I keep the spotlight on the protagonists. I can't have the sexual subplots and the side scenarios that I used to include. One of the most difficult issues for me has been the apparent dislike that readers of M/M fiction have for including any female-oriented sexuality of any sort. I've also had to accept the relative unpopularity of F/F stories, even though I enjoy writing them.

Finally, one of the biggest adjustments for me has been always delivering a happy ending. I know that most of you reading this blog will find this strange. It's clear from the polls that I've conducted that romance readers insist on things turning out well for the hero and heroine (or hero and hero). But personally, I prefer more ambiguous resolutions to a story's conflicts. The problem with guaranteed happy endings (from an authorial perspective) is that they make it really hard to create any kind of suspense. No matter how impossible the obstacles dividing the protagonists, readers always know that everything will work out in the end. How do you make the reader care about the conflicts―how do you make the problems believable? --when a HEA is a foregone conclusion?

I'm still struggling with this issue. I've been reading my colleagues' work, trying to understand the dynamics of romance―what makes it work. I think I'm improving, but like I said, I still consider myself something of a clueless newbie. I hope that my readers will take that into account and be gentle!

My latest release is a M/M/F vampire ménage set in Jamaica called Fire in the Blood. Here's the blurb:

MADDY AND TROY HOPE THAT A CAREFREE VACATION IN TROPICAL JAMAICA WILL RE-IGNITE THE PASSION IN THEIR FIVE YEAR RELATIONSHIP. ON A SCENIC MOUNTAIN TRAIL RIDE, MADDY'S HORSE BOLTS AND CARRIES HER DEEP INTO THE JUNGLE. INJURED AND LOST, SHE IS SAVED BY A SEDUCTIVE GIANT OF A MAN WHOSE MERE PRESENCE KINDLES UNBEARABLE LUST. BY THE TIME SHE UNDERSTANDS HIS DARK NATURE, IT IS FAR TOO LATE FOR HER TO ESCAPE.

BITTER AND ALONE, ETIENNE DE RÉMORCY HAUNTS THE FOREST AROUND THE RUINED PLANTATION OF FIN D'ESPOIR. HE HAS SWORN TO NEVER AGAIN TASTE TASTE HUMAN BLOOD, BUT WHEN SLENDER, RAVEN-HAIRED MADELEINE BEGS HIM TO TAKE HER, HE CANNOT RESIST.

TROY IS HUGELY RELIEVED WHEN MADDY MAKES HER WAY BACK TO THEIR HOTEL AFTER HER ORDEAL IN THE MOUNTAINS. BUT HE FINDS HER GREATLY CHANGED―FIERCELY PASSIONATE IN BED, RESTLESS AND DISTURBED AT OTHER TIMES. THE TALL, ELEGANT STRANGER HE MEETS ON THE BEACH HOLDS THE KEY TO HER TRANSFORMATION―AND SOON HAS SEDUCED TROY AS WELL. EVEN ETIENNE'S MOST POTENT MAGIC CAN'T EXTINGUISH THE FIRE IN TROY'S AND MADELEINE'S BLOOD.

FIRE IN THE BLOOD IS NOW AVAILABLE AT TOTAL-E-BOUND. YOU CAN READ AN EXCERPT AT HTTP://WWW.LISABETSARAI.COM/FIREINTHEBLOODEX.HTML. YOU'LL FIND INFORMATION ON MY OTHER WORK AS WELL AS LOTS OF FREE STORIES ON MY WEBSITE, TOO.

Love, love, love your honesty, Lisabet! We all struggle with this from time to time, I think. HEA is not always easy to achieve if the plot doesn't warrant it - I have had to stop myself several times and go back to rethink. What will guarantee the HEA without making it contrived or 'convenient'. So over to you guys, there must be other writers who want to share frustrations!

7 comments:

  1. Hello, Rachel,

    Thanks for hosting me here at your blog, as well as for your encouraging words!

    Warmly,
    Lisabet

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  2. HEA for me is everyone living through the book and having hope for the future in the end. So, I struggle with the same romance problem. I' starting a new romance now, Urban Fantasy and will have to see if I can actually acheive the HEA status for my characters.

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  3. Hi Lisabet. Just coming over to say "hi." I love your book cover. This is on my to read list.
    Sue B

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  4. I agree. Writing romance is tricky, especially when you need to make your characters and story believable. Not every scenario plays out to an HEA, and to me, sometimes, it just doesn't work. My first attempt at writing an Erotica was rejected by *well-known published" because *gasp*...my heroine had an affair. Boy, that never happens in real life, does it? The reason for the rejection despite them loving my story and writing style..."We feel that an affair may be insulting to our readers." Wow! Really...but everything else imaginary isn't? Given the idea of making love to a werewolf or being bitten by a vampire...I find having an affair much more enticing. :) Oops...sorry if I offended anyone. *smile* Always love your posts, Lisabet. They do tend to make me tell my own story, don't they?

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  5. Ginger - I know exactly how u feel. I wrote probably one of my best stories, Ghost Love and submitted it as one of three writing samples for a grant.
    They actually told me they wanted to give me the grant (they had given me two grants in the past) but b/c Ghost Love's storyline involved an affair, they declined. I was devastated but I realized I took a risk in sending that particular story even though I loved the characters. Of course now it would seem everyone in People Magazine anyway is having an affair, and those are only celebrities(!), and only the ones getting caught or fessing up. Life is complicated. Love can be complicated.
    Maybe happy endings need a slight revision or as my friend says when I ask him how things are going in his marriage...They're good...for now!

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  6. Hello, everyone!

    Thanks for dropping by.

    Carol - Hope for the future is much easier than HEA for me. But I think that hardcore romance readers want something that seems like a guarantee. And in the real world, those don't exist.

    Sue - Thanks! You are so loyal! I really appreciate your taking the time to follow me around cyberspace.

    Ginger - You should submit your erotica story somewhere else. I don't think every publisher is as narrow minded as the one who rejected you. I definitely agree about the struggle for realism. The conventions of the romance genre sometimes make it necessary to throw realism out the window.

    Mary - a granting agency declined to support you because you sent them a story that included an affair. Good grief! Talk about double standards. I just submitted a story in which a middle aged woman meets and falls in love with a master and decides to leave her marriage of 30 years. Now I'm worried!!

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  7. Great post, Lisabet.

    I can't really call myself a romance writer. My problem is creating the sexual tension between my characters. But when I read a romance, yes, I like the HEA. The finding out how they achieve the ending with all the trials between is what keeps me reading. I especially like thriller romance. I'm an action type of author and reader.

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