Regardless
how easy some authors make fiction-writing look, all of us struggle with something
in every story.
Take “Making
Peace,” my contribution to the Prairie Rose Publications anthology Cowboy Cravings, for example. The hero,
Bennett Collier, is the elder brother of Amon Collier, the hero from “The Big
Uneasy” in Lassoing a Mail-Order Bride.
The brothers’ relationship composed a significant subplot in “The Big Uneasy,”
and “Making Peace” puts a period on the end of that relationship’s sentence. My
challenge lay in ensuring both stories could a) stand alone as complete,
satisfying reads in their own right, and b) be read in any order without one
giving away too many of the other’s secrets. That second point was particularly
vexing, since “The Big Uneasy” provided backstory for “Making Peace.” In
situations like that, there’s a delicate balance between revealing too much and
leaving readers confused by revealing too little.
I understand
it’s common among authors to know their characters and stories so well that they think they’ve
made things clear when they haven’t. Readers will have to let me know whether I
accomplished my goal with “Making Peace.”
Turns out,
all four of the authors who contributed to Cowboy
Cravings faced at least one issue that proved challenging, but in the end
each of us became stronger for having faced her demon head-on.
Here are the
problems each author faced, along with her solution:
‘Hearts and Diamonds,’ by Cheryl Pierson
Revenge sets Nick Diamond after a bride, and nothing will
stand in his way. But when that bride happens to be outspoken firebrand Liberty
Blankenship, all bets are off. Anything can happen when Hearts and Diamonds
collide!
I think for “Hearts
and Diamonds,” the hardest thing was the love scene. In a short story, it’s
really tough to create a love scene that “moves along” rapidly with people who
don’t really know one another. So I gave Nick and Libby a “sort of” shared
background—they remember one another, but he’s several years older than she is,
and they’ve lost track of one another.
Something
else that helped the love scene was the fact that she was marrying someone she
wasn’t in love with—and Nick reminds her of that. She lets him know, even
though she might not have been in love with [villain] Carlton Ridgeway, at
least she could have hoped for respectability. That plants a seed in his
mind...this might just work. Because, Nick had planned to give her that, too,
all along—unless she wanted an annulment.
Because a short
story is so limited on word count, the love scene I wrote was one that got the
point across heatedly, without going into the details of how each part of the
sex they had was accomplished. And, because they share this wedding night, when
the next crisis happens, they’re already emotionally closer than they’ve been
when we left them the night before in their ...ahem...passion. So it was
finding the right way to move the relationship along without having it seem
unrealistic that was the most difficult thing for me with this story.
‘Starr Bright,’ by Celia Yeary
A stubborn rancher, a Spanish beauty...and the Texas summer
heats up.
Any time we take a character—or characters—from previous
stories, we try to keep them as true to their original personality and looks as
possible. This shouldn’t be too difficult, unless, in my case, I used two
characters who were not in the same story. In “Starr Bright,” I used
Starr Hidalgo in all her glory, but I paired her with Conrad Taylor who was a
character in another novel, another decade. In my mind, these two should
be paired, no matter what. Since dates aren’t generally added to novels, I
knew no one would ever figure that out...or care.
‘Lily and Mesquite Joe,’ by Kristy McCaffrey
Lily Kingston has long loved Mesquite Joe Riordan. Facing
the truth of his past will test her resolve, but only her stubbornness can win
his heart.
I wrote “Lily and Mesquite Joe” well over two years ago as a
submission for Harlequin Historicals Undone, the online short-story branch of
this popular series of books. It was rejected due to lack of
characterization. Besides being bummed about the reject, I was completely
stumped. I honestly couldn't figure out how to fix the story because I wasn’t really
sure where the problem lay. So, I set it aside and let it collect cyber-dust.
When the submission call for Cowboy Cravings came,
that story started waving its hand at me—pick me, pick me. Prairie Rose
Publications welcomed it into the family, and kind-hearted editor Cheryl
Pierson gave it a once-over, then a twice-over, and, I believe, a thrice-over.
My hero, Joe Riordan, needed work, and with Cheryl’s guidance I began to see the
issues that plagued the tale.
In the end, Cheryl helped me redeem Joe, and when that
finally happened I had that “aha” moment of why the story was denied so long
ago. So, while rejection naturally makes all of us writers run crying to
our beds with a box of doughnuts, it helps to remember that finding the right
home for a story is important for the health and well-being of that creation.
We want to find a place where our writing can flourish. Lily and Mesquite Joe
found their way into the world at last.
So… Here are my questions:
Authors, have you
ever encountered a challenge that dogged you all the way through a story? How
did you resolve the issue?
Readers, have you
ever encountered a story in which you recognized an author’s struggle? Maybe
something just didn’t seem quite “right.” How did that affect your relationship
with the story?
