Sceneflow: the difference between a suspense scene and a romance scene? If you read the last two weeks of posts and chapters about Limelight, you’ll notice that I took a bit more time in those chapters to develop the romance. (Read Chapter 5 & 6 Here Chapter 5 Luke Chapter 6 Kenzie) I could have split those chapters into shorter scenes/segments, but I wanted to really cement the romance between them before I launched more into the suspense. Note they were longer chapters– as the book starts to move faster, I’ll have shorter chapters, or perhaps two or three shorter scenes in a chapter. So, now that I’ve given them their first kiss, we’re about half-way through the story. (For the purposes of teaching, I’m keeping this novella at 12 chapters – […]
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Taking It One Day at a Time
Talking to the lovely and gracious Susie May the other day, we hit on the topic of survival. She’d been exhorting her college son on how to manage his time, get through the rigors of college. “Take it one day at a time,” she said. “Don’t get lost by looking too far into the future.” It hit a chord with me. I remembered reading an article about POWs during Viet Nam. The ones who were hopeful, looking forward to getting out, knowing release would come soon ended up being the ones who did NOT survive. The prisoners who lived just for today, whose only goal was to survive the day, were the ones who endured their years in prison. Some were POWs for seven years. Not a pretty or hopeful […]
Read the RestAct 2: Deepening the Romance Thread
Yesterday, we reviewed the Whys of falling in love, and how we might build that into our romance. Just to add a shameless plug here – if you want to know how to build a full-fledged romance, try Kiss and Tell, my brand new workbook on writing a romance! (Check it out here: http://stores.mybooktherapy.com) So, bringing this back to the story: How do the hero and heroine complete each other? For Kenzie, it’s that she remembers who she is. For Luke, it’s the sense that he doesn’t have to be alone. I’ll be building on that in the next scene. Once I figure out the romance element I’m building, I’ll also take a look at the kind of scene I’m building. In this case, it’s a combo scene […]
Read the RestAct 2: Let’s build the Romance!
In the last chapter I posted, I dipped into a developed, romantic scene with Luke. [Chapter 4 Makenzie scene.] I’m going to turn my attention to Kenzie. Although we’re focusing on suspense this year on the blog, this is a romantic suspense, so occasionally during the story I need to slow it down and allow the romance to take over ever so briefly. During these forays into the romance, I need to make sure I’m utilizing my opportunity, because I don’t have a lot of time – I’ll need to cut back to the suspense soon. Therefore, I’ll be looking toward building in some of those essential elements of a romance, building like values, physical attraction, and the sense that they either complete each other or make each other into better […]
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