Karina Bliss - romance writer

Harlequin SuperRomance - romance has never felt more real!

The tagline says it in a nutshell. Write real for SuperRomance. If you're targeting the line, think contemporary, believable romance with a modern tone, incorporating today's women's concerns.

Because Super's core value is home and family it's easy for aspiring writers to think the line is limited (dare I say tame :) in its scope. Wrong!

Here are some examples of recent plotlines.

A Kiwi developer inherits custody of three kids with his ex wife, the woman he divorced because he blamed himself for the cot death of their son. (Second-Chance Family, Karina Bliss).
An Atlanta businessman uses an abandoned baby to beef up the public's perception of him as a great guy (The Diaper Diaries, Abby Gaines).
A heroine opens the door to an adult son she gave up for adoption at sixteen...the product of rape. The hero is one of the suspects. (Second Chance Family, Tara Taylor Quinn).
A hero who fathered not one but two babies to different girls as a teenager, then married out of duty and lost the woman he loved. (How to Trap a Parent, Joan Kilby)

Wow, right?

SuperRomance accepts a huge diversity of plots - from romantic suspense to family sagas, and Westerns. Sensuality levels range from sweet to multiple love scenes depending on the author's preference. What all Supers have in common is that family relationships are complicating the hero and heroine's life and their romantic happy-ever-after. Note: Family could comprise some or all of the following: parents, cousins, friends, siblings and kids (not necessarily the hero/heroine's own).

Super expects subplots and minor characters and you can even write scenes in a secondary character's point of view. But remember all your secondary characters are in the book to add depth to the reader's understanding of the hero and heroine. That means your subplots/minor characters have to complicate the romance in some way. A great example cited by senior editor Wanda Ottewell is that if the heroine's goal is to get her long-lost brother home, the brother has to be someone the hero doesn't want to see.

Author Abby Gaines who specializes in secondary romances, says "whether the secondary is a contrast (the main hero can't find it in himself to trust the heroine, but the secondary hero takes everything on trust); OR a parallel (the main hero and heroine are reuniting, and so are the heroine's parents); OR a spur to action for the main hero and heroine - the writer needs to make sure that tie exists.

"You'll usually have more than one option for a subplot in your story," continues Abby. "Make sure to choose the one that raises the stakes the most in the main romance. When I submitted my forthcoming SuperRomance, The Groom Came Back (Jan 09), to my editor, she pointed out that I'd overlooked the opportunity to write a subplot about the hero's parents, which would have directly impacted him more than the subplot I'd chosen about his aunt. She was right, which meant I had to rip out seventy pages of my story and rewrite them with different characters. Ouch! If I'd thought harder about it before I started, I could have avoided that pain."

Super editors buy on voice, which explains the huge diversity of tone and writing styles in the line. So you get lyrical writers, staccato writers, comic writers and writers who make you reach for the hanky. Aussie-based author Joan Kilby says she loves writing for SuperRomance precisely because of this freedom. " In my own books I've run the gamut from tear-jerking drama to light comedy with never any suggestion from my editor that I should stick to a certain type of story."

Super editor Victoria Curran wants manuscripts with a genuinely individual quality. "I've been thinking about it a lot as I see unpublished stories with saleable "hooks" and a plot that appears to be exactly what we'd publish for SuperRomance (babies, pregnancy, cowboy, dysfunctional family)," she says. "Yet the story is middle of the road and doesn't make it to contract. What lifts a manuscript above the pack, given similar story substance? The editors have to believe the characters have a life outside the pages they're on.

"The form of a romance has to be boy meets girl, something keeps them apart, eventually they get together and live happily ever after-predictable. Because of that, we're looking for stories that surprise us with unexpected and unpredictable internalization, dialogue and plotting. Ultimately, we want SuperRomance readers to wonder how on earth this hero and this heroine are ever going to get together in the end. In my mind, that's what "manuscripts with a genuinely individual quality" means.

Victoria says the editors "welcome stories about characters from other countries (such as Australia and New Zealand), as long as they are identifiable and dealing with recognizable situations for our contemporary-predominantly American-readership. "Relevance" is a word we use a lot in the Harlequin editorial department. We try to publish stories that are relevant to our readership. In the case of SuperRomance, that means a contemporary story grounded in realism. Not many billionaires and princes in our line!"

But that doesn't preclude writing hero or heroines that are movie or rock stars as long as you make sure their career/wealth is only a backdrop to family conflict. For example, I'm currently writing a burnt-out rock star hero but I've made damn sure he's got a Mom with a health problem, a brother whose embezzling him and is idolized by my disapproving heroine's secret son! His core problem won't be groupies; it will be finally growing up and accepting familial responsibility.

"My advice to aspiring Super writers," says Joan Kilby, "would be to concentrate on your characters, bringing an appealing and realistic hero and heroine together in a family-oriented story with as deeply personal a conflict as you can devise."

Super Tips:

Keep it real - in emotions, language and motivation. Avoid clichés or generic, worn-out romance words and phrases. Avoid coincidences and accidents. Believability is vital if you want to sell to Super. Says editor Victoria Curran: "We want to see a similarity in character's lives with people we know." To illustrate: Four Super authors, including myself, are writing a miniseries for Harlequin's 60th anniversary next year. It's a three generation family saga with a diamond necklace in dispute. In the excellent Diamonds Down Under series by Desire authors the reflected the current wealth of its characters. But in Super, the diamonds represent former glory. See the difference in emphasis?
Ask yourself: What inherited patterns/beliefs is your hero and heroine taking into this romance? How is their life and romance complicated by family in the book? The more links you can make between subplots/ minor characters and the romantic conflict between the hero and heroine, the stronger (and more plausible) your book's likely to be.
Reading new releases will give you a feel for the line's core values and how different writers play with them.
Google "SuperRomance podcast" to access an eharlequin.com interview with SuperRomance editors Wanda Ottewell and Victoria Curran

This article was written for Romance Writers of Australia's November 08 Hearts Talk newsletter.

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The secret to getting and staying published

We all know there's a magic formula, quality, secret...whatever you want to call it, that separates the published from the unpublished. When I first joined RWNZ and met published authors I knew they'd cracked a code more important than Da Vinci's but whenever I asked, (subtly or stridently), they gave me vague, unsatisfactory and often contradictory answers, obviously protecting the secret that was keeping me out of the hallowed club.

On my own I decided it was talent. Except time went by and I discovered a lot of talented people weren't getting published, including (obviously, :) me. In the absence of editor/publisher interest I wrote to contest deadlines, and even won a few, which I was sure would catapult me into publication. What actually happened was that the rejection letters got longer, a promising thing I was told by the published writers, bless their sadistic hearts. Personally I couldn't see the upside of editors taking another page to tell me why my work was unprintable.

I came to believe that craft was the magic ingredient. So I learned what GMC was, and how conflict differed from bickering and how to escalate sexual tension without letting them DO it. My own tension also rose as the years went by.

As a last resort I forced myself to write regularly rather than TALK about writing or STUDYING the writing craft. Forget the magic sledgehammer; I resigned myself to doing it the hard way - chipping away at the coal face with a broken fingernail.

And one day a wonderful thing happened. I got the Call. Somehow I'd bluffed or lucked my way into the secret club without knowing the magic password. I was 'in.'

First book: Every word I write is precious and perfect; my editor said cut 50 pages.

Never mind, no one gets rejected after publication - my next proposal was rejected... the line had just bought two control freak heroines, didn't need another. Send us something else.

I sold a second book on sixty pages and a synopsis... worked hard to get it in on time and started to relax. Okay, obviously the magic quality was self-discipline - a quiet steady progression to the Holy Grail of all writers which is (obviously), an easy writing life.

The editor rang and said, 'partly my fault for approving the synopsis but you have a structural problem - Supers are full of people and you've isolated the hero and heroine on the river for 100 pages...bring more people in on the river journey and while you're at it, change the hero's motivation and back story. Oh, and do it in two and a half weeks.'

I thought about my choices. I could refuse, complain or bawl which would really help my career. I could say I'm a slow and painstaking writer who produces around a page an hour. Or I could say yes, I'll do my damnedest.

And at that moment I knew the magic secret. The one thing everyone needs to start and maintain a career in romance writing. It's GRIT. And strangely that made it easier for me to say yes. Because grit's a choice, not a gift like talent, or a skill like craft. Grit is a commitment to try...I could do grit.

So I didn't mention to the editor that my house was for sale and had to be kept spotless OR that I had a workshop to deliver which I'd deferred for months because I thought I was too busy OR that my sister who I hadn't seen for two years was arriving from Ireland with her new baby to spend quality time with her family. I did say I would have fourteen writing days to achieve a complete rewrite. The editor said 'great.' Eventually my agent got me another week. And by challenging every perception I had about myself as a writer I made the deadline.

Defining grit

Grit is the ability to persist with passion despite setbacks and studies have shown that it's at least as good a gauge of future success as talent, which generally accounts for around twenty-five percent of success.

If you want to succeed it's just as important to be focused, hardworking and able to bounce back from setbacks as it is to be talented. Experts often speak of the "10-year rule"-that it takes at least a decade of hard work or practice to become highly successful in most endeavours, which explains why the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is so important in major achievements.

Geniuses are the exception, not the rule and because we all love 'instant gratification' stories the facts are often mythologised. In his diaries, Mozart wrote that an entire symphony appeared, supposedly intact, in his head, and that's the part that's often quoted. But no one ever mentions the next paragraph, where Mozart talks about how he refined the work for months.

At Kara Writing School I remember Daphne Clair and Robyn Donald saying they couldn't tell which of their students would make it as a writer. Some with a lot of talent gave up; others more moderately blessed honed their craft and polished and persisted and went on to publication. Now I know they were talking about the grit factor.

Grit is good; where do I get some?

The good news is that New Zealand tends to produce grittier people because our immigrant forbears needed to be energetic risk-takers to immigrate here in the first place. But don't just rely on good genes, here are some other techniques:

Feed the passion - Attend or do online workshops, read craft books, go to conference, develop a writing support network and read fiction that inspires you. Passion will help you through the hard times. Some great books to tap into for feeding the writer's soul are: Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and its sequel Vein of Gold; Stephen King's On Writing; and Ann Lamott's Bird by Bird
Set challenging long term goals - Gritty people don't say 'I'm going to write a paragraph today' but 'I'm going to have a book finished for the Clendon Award.' They set seemingly impossible goals - I'm going to have a book on the New York Times bestsellers list within five years. Working towards a BIG goal makes the smaller goals appear both manageable and achievable.
Develop self-discipline, defined as the ability to refrain from doing something ie: stop procrastinating, get on the computer and write something.
Develop perseverance defined as the ability to keep doing something - stay at the computer until you've written x number of pages.
Develop an attitude of optimism. You have to believe you're going to win and until you do, you're going to keep on pushing. The Lord of the Rings trilogy were great movies because all the characters kept going despite every setback. Frodo and Sam crawling up Mt Doom epitomised Grit.
Encourage grit by rewarding yourself for effort rather than result. If you pin everything on this submission or this contest or this contract then if you get a rejection or negative feedback you experience that as a failure. The doing is under your control; reward yourself for the doing - for having the guts to try.

Grit is encouraged by commitment. I became a writer when I started thinking of myself as a writer and wow, what a difference that made to my progress. Now I know that regardless of whether my editor rejects or accepts a book, regardless of whether I place or not in contests, I will be a writer as long as (yes, there's a catch :), I write.

Grit's the secret, pass it on.

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Advice for aspiring romance writers

For years I wanted to be a romance writer without actually doing much about it. I read ‘how to’ books and attended NZ romance writers’ conferences, then wrote a paragraph and rested until next year. I waited for it to become effortless but it never did. Once I decided to make a concerted effort it still took five years before SuperRomance bought my third completed manuscript.

The key lessons from the wilderness years were:

Small writing goals are better than no writing goals - Thirty minutes at the computer does make a difference. Prolific author Nora Roberts says, You can fix a bad page but you can’t fix a blank page.
The story is the only thing that will get you sold...concentrate on writing, and getting better at it.
Finish a book. Writing beginnings won’t teach you how to write middles and endings.
In romance, plot turning points need to be emotional. Base them on the characters’ greatest fears and values.
You need craft, patience and practice to make the book in your head match the one on the page. Give yourself that time. It takes an average of five years and 4.5 manuscripts before romance authors get their first sale.
Take the heat off yourself and accept you’re going to get rejected. Everyone does. It’s not personal.
Never give up on a book. Use advice you receive from rejections or contest judges to keep improving it. If you’ve exhausted every avenue put it aside. As you become a better writer you will see how to fix it. Or the market may change and become more receptive to that story.
Studies have shown that perseverance, endurance and hard work are as important as ability and creativity in gauging future success.
Competitions are a microcosm of publishing – they help you get used to having your work read, and teach you how to handle rejection and act on constructive criticism.
Keep a life going in tandem with your writing. Your family will like it and it will help you keep rejections in perspective.
Remember - you’re doing this for FUN.

Favorite craft books

~ Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain

~ Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

~ On Writing by Stephen King

~ Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

~ The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

~ Heroes and Heroines by Cowden, LaFever, Vivers

~ The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler

~ Story by Robert McKee

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Celebrating rejection

Okay that got your attention. Why the hell would any sane person do that? Here’s two reasons:

Rejections come frequently in the pre-pubbed years

Why? Because you’re inexperienced and need to learn and practise your craft. It doesn’t mean your writing’s crap, just that it’s not yet to a publishable standard (in the early years) or suitable for the editor or line you’re targeting (in the later years).

Handling rejection successfully will determine whether you achieve publication and probably (as a two book author I’ll get back to you on this), build a career as a romance writer.

M Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Travelled, starts with the memorable line: “Life is difficult.” Accept that fact, says Peck, and you can transcend it.

Well, getting published is difficult. Oh sure, we all want to be the exception, the shining talent, the Charlene Dickens whose unmistakable genius is picked up on the first book. I just rang the only person I know who had their ‘first’ book published, the fantastic historical writer Helen Kirkman and she told me the book that sold was her fifth manuscript. She just didn’t submit the first four.

Rejections will tell you whether you really, REALLY want to get published and force the commitment of time, study, and writing that makes that possible. Or not...you may decide you don’t need the heartache and that you’re happy writing for yourself. Either way, you get clarity.

These days when rejections come, I try and see them as an opportunity to take stock. Is it time to put this book aside and work on something new? Is it time to investigate whether I’m targeting the wrong line? Is it time to get a craft book out and bone up on an aspect that’s holding me back? The first rejection I got after publication reminded me that I’m better writing the whole book rather than submitting a synopsis and three chapters. Rejection can point a direction, strengthen resolve...okay I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to get published but hell, now I am sure!

Accept that you’re going to get rejected and rejections will lose their crushing importance. Everyone gets ‘em; they’re a rite of passage, welcome to the club. These days I’m damned if a rejection letter is going to leach me of creativity for more than 24 hours. I’m saving my energy for the book. Of course I still have to trick myself by saying, okay I’ll write half a page and then I’ll grieve/sulk/overeat.

We often hear that Harlequin gets a trillion manuscripts a year – Gee, what chance have I got, you ask, clutching your latest rejection. Exclude the books on gardening or hunting sea slugs and that number drops substantially. What would the odds be if you knew your market, knew your craft, and never gave up? Honey, publication’s a cert.

Sound far-fetched? How many Australasians sold their first book in the last twelve months. Twelve? Fifteen? Yvonne Lindsay had been trying for ten years, Maxine Sullivan for twenty - kudos to them. I can guarantee that every one of us ‘newbies’ has had a knock-back that made us think, ‘To hell with it, I’m going to be a party girl instead’. And then somehow dragged ourselves back to the keyboard.

That’s the only choice you need to make when you get a rejection. To give up. Or not give up. (See how easy this gets ?) The worst rejection I ever got was on a manuscript that later won a Golden Heart. Imagine if I’d dumped it? And you know what, that damn manuscript still won’t sell because I can’t get it right despite fabulous help from writers and editors. But it has earned its keep by giving me credibility with editors for the next book. Sometimes a loss is a win.

We write conflict, epic battles against self; we like dark moments and prevailing against all odds. Rejections are another milestone on your road to publication, gatekeepers between you and your dream. Your heroes and heroines don’t turn back in adversity - that’s what makes them heroic, admirable, worthy of respect.

And neither will you.

This article appeared in the September 06 newsletter of Romance Writers of Australia.