This weekend is the Moonlight and Magnolias conference in Atlanta. It’s the yearly conference for Georgia Romance Writers.

I’m so excited because I know how valuable conferences are, not only for meeting new people, but the workshops can really help a writer’s technique. It’s also a very rare opportunity to pitch a book  to editors, allowing one to skip over a couple of very frustrating steps, if the editor is interested.

Evidently, some people do much better in person than on paper. (myself included) It’s great to be able to share my enthusiasm for a project with an editor and hopefully stand out in a crowd, more so than my query letters have done thus far.

3 days learning to be a better writer, meeting authors, and hopefully helping my career…I can’t wait!

Hope to have stories to tell on my return.

Suza

Okay, I totally think that it does rule…as in cats rule and dogs drool…but what I’m actually getting at are the writing rules for fiction and how those for romantic fiction can differ.

I have been struggling with something called backstory, those pieces of information about a character or a place that the writer simply tells the reader. For example:

She came from money.  Not the good kind, earned over years of toil and honest days of work, but the dripping crimson coin called blood money.  Her family was mafia.  And as such, they expected Celia to fall in line and marry a good old mafia boy.  One who hunted people instead of wild game.

(That was written on the spot, so forgive me if it stinks) But you get the picture, right?

In my last writer’s group it was pointed out to me that I’m still bogging down my chapters with backstory.  Also, according to “Writing the Breakout Novel” by Donald Maass, a writer should avoid backstory for at least the first 3 chapters.

Screeeech!  That’s the sound of my romantic feet skidding to a stubborn stop.  After reading that part, I ran to my stash of favorite re-reads and feverishly went over the first several pages of each.  Approximately 3 out of 5 had some sort of backstory in the first chapter, which is supposed to be a fiction no-no.  Hmmm…what to do?

The points made by my co-writers in the critique group were dead-on about my overuse of backstory in chapter one. It bogged down the action! Yet, at the same time, it’s a tool I’ve read over and over in romance books that obviously passed through and got published.

So here’s where I am now. I’ve been reading over the master’s work (she’ll go unnamed, but any romance die-hard should know to whom I’m referring ) and I think I’m coming to a happy medium.

Multiple paragraphs of backstory, especially in the the first few chapters, can lose the reader. However, snippets of backstory interspersed in a way that tells you more about the character or setting can be employed, but carefully so. (I also looked over some Clive Cussler etc. and backstory makes an appearance again, but not in a way that slows the current action)

To each his own, and if you write fiction, I say tread lightly, and do as the professionals say. It seems to be a recurring theme that backstory in the first chapter is a RED FLAG to agents or editors. I, however, plan to dip my toe lightly in the back story pool, but only when absolutely necessary and only if it makes something in the present story more vivid or likable.

It’s amazing how much I learn on a weekly basis. I want to go back and red-ink my last manuscript, but I’ll wait until I know more about its success or failure. Keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I’m working on some new projects, and I’m viewing backstory as smallpox. I don’t want the whole thing, maybe just a little bit of an inoculation.

With love and murder,

Suza

To the nearest writer’s group that you can find!

I was a little worried about joining a speculative fiction critique group, but it has turned out to be wonderful! I have been introduced to different styles of writing, and the critique didn’t feel as bad as I expected. In fact, they mostly pointed out flaws I already knew were there but had been too unsure or lazy to go fix. Today I rewrote a good portion of a chapter and feel SO energized!

A writer’s group is a great way to learn about others, your own style of writing, and the business in general. Hanging out in a coffee shop isn’t half bad either.

Being a part of a this group has really been a much-needed injection of re-focus jamba juice! (Do I seem a little excited? I am, and it’s not the coffee this time!)

Woo hoo!!!!! Rock on acidophilus and beavers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With love and murder in mind,

Suza