When All the Arcs Come Together

This is probably obvious but today I’m mapping out my hero’s relationship with his father. I chose their past relationship (“His relationship with his father was fine. Not super close but his father was present. A little demanding and pressury but not overly. He was distant-ish, present, mostly interested in his own thing, didn’t bother his son too much”). I chose their current conflicts, which have echoes of conflicts from his childhood. I chose how I want those conflicts to resolve emotionally. Now I’m trying to construct scenes that illustrate these conflicts, how they blow up, and how they resolve.

This is actually a pretty small part of the book, which is a romance novel, and mostly about the relationship between the hero and heroine. But it got me thinking about how a writer creates different arcs and different threads in a book, and if you can have them all come together towards the end where there is a situation that ties all the conflicts and pressure points and growth together–that’s very satisfying for the reader.

Can’t Think of Anything to Write!

Usually while I’m still in the middle of one book, the idea for my next comes to me. This time, though, I’ve been waiting for a few months, and nothing has caught my fancy. Sometimes I get an idea from a dream (Once Upon a Time with Olivia and Jack), once I was driving and a scene just came to me (the first chapter in Heart of Steel), and sometimes I get very interested in pursuing a trope (e.g. Revenge Trope with Best Served Cold).

So I’m not used to an idea just not coming to me.

There is a tactic of taking a book description that really appeals to you and writing it your own way. I ended up being seduced by a kindle ad and bought a Hot for Professor trope book that I was very disappointed in. How can you ruin that trope? But the characters’ immaturity, poor decisions, and impulsivity were not sexy at all.

So I was thinking of reworking it but it turns out the ethics issues involved in contemporary romance between professor and student are not so fun (vs. erotica where it’s clear that it’s fantasy).

So right now I’m kind of itching to write but no trope is calling to me. What do people do in this situation?

Maybe I’ll read through a bunch of tropes and see if any tug at me.

The Romance Arc in a Standalone vs. in a Series

I’m reading a series now by Mary Calmes (Marshalls). The thing about a romance series is that you need a new conflict for every book.

When I write romance, I have a basic arc:
In the first half they are getting together.
And then the 2nd half is a minor conflict they have to resolve to finalize it up. Or
The 2nd half is a major fundamental conflict where one or both need character growth in order to be together.
(The 2nd type is stronger but I admit I often rely on the 1st type.)

With a series, you have to keep inventing a new fundamental conflict each book. Book 1: Will they get together. Book 2: How will they handle deployment. Book 3: One wants to get married and one doesn’t. Book 4: What happens if they no longer work together.

I did notice a technique that Calmes uses which is a great romance writing technique and makes it great fun for the reader. I’ll expand on that in the next post.

Whether to Add Weather

I’m at 53K words, on the last chapter. I have to get my hero and heroine together, and my outline says “they start sexual relationship.” That’s just vague enough that I’m getting stuck.

I can’t have them do it at work. Because that’s awkward. Do they get carried away by passion but then they have to go somewhere to have sex? (I already used the utility closet in chapter 13, thank you very much). Then cooler heads will prevail.

Do I have them not carried away by passion but then they decide to just date and have sex like a non-romance novel? Does anyone want to even read that? No, you want swept away.

Do I put them on the street walking so that when they get swept away they are right near one of their homes? How convenient.

And then what time of year is it? Do I mention that it’s pleasant outside? Do we just assume a spring or fall day? Unless I’m making weather part of the plot, and up to this point I haven’t brought in the weather at all. Some books measure time with the changes of season or changes of month. I haven’t done that at all. Isn’t bringing weather a little intrusive at this juncture?

I think I need to add some more details to my outline before further writing. Or I could just put them together and see how they handle it. I just need to find the right setting.

Going Off the Rails on a Crazy Train

I mentioned that instead of having my Black Moment at 88% I was going to do it earlier. And that instead of having them talk it out right away, I was going to slowly rebuild trust in other ways. I’m doing that now. And my characters seem to have a mind of their own. They jumped right into a conversation–a series of conversations, really–that I’m not sure will work at all. But they seem pretty determined to handle it this way.

So I’m writing it. How they tell me to. And then I’m trying to fit it into the rest of my plot.

Here’s the song I’m singing while I do it:

Feels like I’m going off the rails on a crazy train. But it’s a fun ride! Hope it works. My beta reader will let me know when I finish.

Wallowing

When the couple has a big fight over the Big Issue that has been building up, I like a healthy, crisp resolution. In a 14 episode kdrama, I can’t stand if they drag it on for 3-4 episodes.

But I realized as I’m writing the fallout of my hero and heroine’s Big Conflict I do like a degree of wallowing. In kdrama terms, 1 indulgent episode’s worth. 2 tops. I do like to see the emotional fallout, how sad/upset/angry they are. I like that very much. Just don’t drag it out.

Let’s see if I can translate that to the right amount in my romance novel.

Peacemaking Among Primates

My hero and heroine are in conflict. (Yay, I’m finally managing to write conflict!) I’ve decided to stray off the classic romance novel structure and see if I can just gently deepen their relationship until a declaration. I know, I know, I still need work on plotting conflict.

I read this book by Frans De Waal a few years ago

and there are two ways that Primates make peace after conflict. (Aside from grooming each other for lice and ticks and physically grovelling before the dominant one in the hierarchy.) There is overt peacemaking and subtle peacemaking. Overt peacemaking is when they work out the conflict and explicitly agree to move on. They embrace. It differs slightly in different species, but there are overt gestures of apology and overt gestures of acceptance of apology.

And then there is a more subtle option. Nobody talks about the conflict. Nobody acknowledges the conflict. But one of the parties makes a gesture of peace. Offers some food. Touches the other gently. Gestures them over. And then, if the other one accepts, then they have tacitly agreed that the conflict is over.

I’m not a big fan of the subtle option. I tend to feel that everything is better if it’s all explicit and talked out. But ever since I read that book, I see tacit conflict resolution everywhere. Sometimes it’s really hard to make up. And sometimes people find it really hard to talk about what happened. And they smooth things over this way. Friends, work colleagues, family members…

Overall I have to say that I still think not talking the conflict out is long term going to bite you in the butt. But as I’m working through this scene with the hero and heroine–and he IS going to have to apologize–I’m wondering if I can sort of give them a soft landing first of some tacit peacemaking where they reconnect in a more subtle way even though they still haven’t talked about the hard topic yet. Maybe it will make it easier for them to talk about it.

Building Pressure, Keeping Pressure

Wow this book is going slowly. As I mentioned, I’m trying out the Revenge Trope this time. This is not my forte; I’m conflict avoidant in my writing. And I decided that instead of making a black moment at 88%, I’m going to let everything blow up at 70% and spend the rest of the book slowly rebuilding their relationship, and hopefully some sweet and creative declaration to end it.

I just successfully navigated the emotional blowup, which is a big step forward for me. Can I keep this up for the rest of the book, or will I fizzle? Stay tuned…

What if I Leave Out the Black Moment?

When I W-plotted the outline for my current WIP, I outlined a situation that would stress the hero so he would finally understand the position of the person he’s been carrying a ten year grudge against. In theory it was all neat.

But now my characters have been acting on their own, saying and doing unplanned things, throwing monkey wrenches into the plot. I always find that the characters that I envisioned at the beginning of the process evolve and turn into their own people, not quite what I had amorphously imagined at the start.

I’m wondering now what would happen if at 35K words they have a blowup (that’s where I am and that’s where they are headed) and instead of having a dark moment at the end, I just spend the next 15K words slowly repairing the relationship and it just keeps getting tentative closeness, to more intimacy, to growing trust, to more security, to a declaration?

Maybe I don’t need that Dark Moment at 88%?

That’s one of the things I enjoy about self publishing. It may work, it may not work. I get to do what I want and play around.

What I Learned About Romance Writing from Kdramas

Kdramas have mastered the art of nuance in the drama of getting Main Characters together romantically. They take small details and focus on them, on the rich emotional pathos in minor events.

I wrote a detail where my hero is a little bit hurt. I was about to skip over the aftermath and go on to the next point in my plot when I envisioned how a Kdrama would handle this.

There would be no sliding over the event and letting the audience derive and deduce the main character’s feelings. Not at all. There would be another small event that drove it home. And another small event. And we would get caught up in the ballet, in the dance between the hero and the heroine, their looks, their gestures, the significance of all these very minor things.

Kdrama takes very small events and actions and imbues them with romance.

So I won’t move on to the next planned scene just yet. I’ll make a small scene with a very small event with sweeping emotional significance.