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Write a scene in which other characters begin to comment on the feelings that they see developing between the hero and heroine. At this point, your characters will likely still deny that there is anything going on between the two of them.
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Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Act 2 Scene Assignment 4”
Write a scene in which your hero and heroine need to cooperate to get something done. Maybe they will decide to be friends or at least come to an agreement to be civil to one another until the task is complete.
Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Act 2 Scene Assignment 3”
Write a scene that puts your hero and heroine in close proximity with one another where they get to touch each other. How much is up to you, but maybe hold off on actually letting them “do the deed” for the time being. Use this as an opportunity to build the tension.
Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Act 2 Scene Assignment 2”
Do your hero and heroine now hate each other on the surface while secretly wanting to jump into bed with each other? If so, great work! Now you’re ready to begin writing Act Two of your trashy romance novel. For the next few days, I will give you brief scene ideas to keep you moving and hopefully keep your middle from sagging. Here’s the first:
Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Week 2/Act 2”
Since I’m not writing a serious novel for my 2014 NaNoWriMo project, I don’t mind sharing a little bit of what I have written so far. So, without further adieu, here is my first chapter, completely unedited:
“Violet, are you sure you want to do this?” her sister Veronica asked. Veronica balanced a tow-headed toddler on one hip while fending off the toddler’s sticky-fingered older brother with the other.
“Joey, stop!” she said. “You’re getting your sucker all over my pants. Now, go wipe your hands like I told you to!”
“Come here, you little rug rat,” Violet said. She chased Joey around his mother twice before catching him and sweeping him up in a bear hug. “You are making your mother crazy!”
Joey giggled uncontrollably and tried to wriggle away from his aunt as she applied a wet wipe to his filthy hands.
“Of course I don’t want to, Ronnie,” Violet said over her nephew’s giggles. “But I’m tired of being afraid of everything. I need to do this.”
Veronica sighed. “Well,” she said. “You’d better keep it together. I can’t manage two kids under the age of five on a boat in the middle of the ocean and also take care of you in the midst of one of your panic attacks at the same time.”
“I’ll be fine, I promise,” Violet said. “I think the kids will be a good distraction for me. And besides, we won’t be ‘in the middle of the ocean.’ It’s only a three-hour tour.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think we’re all set now, ladies.” The boat’s captain loped down the dock with an armload of life vests. “It took some scrounging, but I managed to get the smallest jackets I have ever seen for your little ones there. Hope they fit, ‘cause I got a schedule to keep, and we’re already behind.” Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2014 | Chapter One Uncut”
The opening scene of my trashy romance novel is hilarious. Anyway, I think it is. I could be wrong.
I’m putting my heroine – who, by the way, is terrified of water – on a boat. She comments to her sister, “It’s only a three-hour tour.” Hmmm… what do you think I have planned for my heroine?
If you’re not giggling whilst writing your trashy romance novel, then you’re not doing it right. You’re more likely to finish it if it’s fun! Continue reading “Are you laughing yet?”
Yesterday we had some fun with our trashy romance novel characters. Today we will get to know them on a somewhat deeper level (okay, maybe not too deep. Just one level deeper than yesterday.)
So, you have figured out what your two main characters don’t like about each other on first impression. Now let’s think about how you can develop these two opposing characters into people who might believably come to like one another later in the novel. Maybe the slick lawyer secretly loves dogs and has a pregnant pooch back home in NYC that she’s worried sick about. Perhaps the grumpy cowboy is secretly writing a business plan that will turn his failing family ranch into an organic vegetable farm that will supply several high-brow restaurants in the nearest big city. Continue reading “Get to know your characters a little better”
Yesterday, we spent a few minutes thinking up dreamy names for our characters. Today, let’s take a few minutes to get to know them better, shall we? Romance hero/heroines are typically exact opposites. Maybe he’s a rugged cowboy, and she’s the slick lawyer whose company wants to buy out his ranch and develop it into a tacky tourist trap.
Or, she could be the tough country girl, while he is a smooth-talking geologist for an oil company that is drooling over the rich natural resources hidden beneath her family’s centuries-old hog farm. If you’re into paranormal romance, he could be a vampire, while she is a werewolf. Or, like the trashy romance novel I read most recently, she could be the boring county supervisor, while he’s a daring stunt pilot. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo pre-writing assignment #2: Get to know your characters”
Author Charlotte Rains Dixon recently ran a blog post in which she listed all of the tabs she had open on her internet browser. I thought it was interesting to see what all she has open for research and such, so I thought I would do a “my tabs” post of my own. So, these are the tabs I have open in my browser at this time:
I finished NaNoWriMo Tuesday, and guess what? I haven’t stopped writing since! Today, I am joining a writing challenge hosted by Chuck Wendig over at the TerribleMinds blog. It’s a five part challenge in which participants will collaborate to write several flash fiction pieces 200 words at a time.
To participate, this week you should write the first 200 words of a story and post it to your blog. Then head over to TerribleMinds (where you can also find full details of the challenge) and share a link to your post. The next week, you will choose another author’s first 200 words (maybe even mine!) and write the second 200 words of that author’s story. The following week, you will choose yet another story and add an additional 200 words of your own, and so forth, until you have written a total of 1000 words on 5 different stories.
Sounds like fun, right? Okay, so here’s the first 200 words of my story: Continue reading “Who’s up for a 200 word piggy back ride?”
Write on the World 