Category: Romantic Fiction

blog hop, Cara Cooper, Christina Hollis author, Creative Writing, historical romance, Jenny Haddon, Margaret Mayo, My writing process, Romantic Fiction, The Survivors' Club

My Writing Process…

Christina Hollis

I’m blogging today as part of the My Writing Process blog-hop. Thanks to the lovely (and very hardworking!) Erika, who juggles writing with life as a first-generation farmer, I’ve been introduced to #mywritingprocess via Twitter. This blog hop showcases as many different writing styles as it does ways of working. That’s why it’s so useful. It gives encouragement, ideas and inspiration to everybody, whether they’re new writers or old hands, as there’s always something more to learn. It’s also a great chance to  spread the word about the work of great writers who are taking up the blog-hop baton next– Jean Bull, Cara Cooper, Jenny Haddon and Margaret Mayo.

So, down to blog-hop business…

1. What am I working on?
Right now I’m juggling two jobs: publicising my latest historical romance,  Jewel Under Siege and polishing the final draft of the The Survivors’ Club, which is the first book in my new Brackenridge trilogy. The Survivors’ Club is contemporary fiction, combining romance and mystery. It’s set in and around a fictional town on the border between England and Wales. This is the countryside where I live and work. It’s such a beautiful place, I want to share it with other people!

2. How does my work differ from others in the genre?
Jewel Under Siege developed from some non-fiction research I did about what “luxury” meant in the Middle Ages. At a time when most people didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, travellers’ tales of the temptations and excesses of Constantinople must have been intoxicating. I couldn’t resist setting a romance in an exotic place like that.
The Survivors’ Club brings together a downtrodden heroine and a man who lost everything because he worked for a corrupt firm. I wanted them to make a success of their lives and their love affair, despite their backstories. I believe no one should give up, no matter how many rotten choices and bad mistakes they make in life. There’s always hope.

3. Why Do I Write What I do?
I live in the Wye Valley, on the border between England and Wales. It’s a stunningly beautiful place, and by writing about it in both my fiction and non-fiction work I can try and capture the essence of the place so others can enjoy it, too. Adding fictional characters and stories to this incredible landscape is the ultimate in escapism.

4. How does my writing process work?
Like many writers, I keep close to office hours. Experience has taught me I do my best creative work first thing each day. After a half-hour session of thinking while I jog (I have a serious cake-habit to control) I do the school run, then start work around 8:15am. When I sit down to begin a new book I’ve already developed detailed studies of my central characters, together with a rough time-line. My first draft is a waterfall of ideas, and consists mainly of dialogue. I love the internet but find it a terrible distraction, so I do a lot of this initial work offline. Writing on paper with a pencil is  my favourite way of working, but as I hate typing up my notes it’s a rare treat. I usually use an Alphasmart  Neo, which is a simple keyboard with a memory, but no internet connection. At the end of every writing session, I upload the work I’ve done straight onto my computer. Once my first draft is finished I then go back and add details, rewriting and editing as I go. When it’s complete I hand it to one of my Beta readers (often my OH or DD), who then gives it a good working over.  Constructive criticism is always helpful, and time spent in refining written work is never wasted.

I’ve really enjoyed “hopping to it” today, and hope you’ll bounce along with the authors who’ll each be telling you about their own writing process next week…

Margaret Mayo Margaret has been writing since 1974 and has produced scores of top-selling romances for Harlequin Mils and Boon.

Jenny Haddon  has published a wealth of category fiction and short stories under the names Sophie Weston and Sophie Page, which have been translated into twenty-six languages. With Elizabeth Hawksley, she has also produced an invaluable non-fiction guide to punctuation.

Jean Bull has loved books all her life.  She has worked in everything from teaching to the hotel industry and lived all over the UK, which has inspired her writing.

Cara Cooper writes short stories for women’s magazines, and novellas for People’s Friend, My Weekly and Ulverscroft.

Heroes, Lady Rascal, Romantic Fiction, Writing

Three Top Tips: Writing Heroes

Christina Hollis
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Jonas_Kaufmann_9_May_2008_London.jpgAttribution: By Voceditenore (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsHTML
Jonas Kaufman 
My previous writing tips have covered the general themes of getting started, and how to keep going. Now it’s time to focus on writing fiction, and more particularly romantic fiction. This is a brilliant form of escape for millions of people. It’s a non-fattening, affordable indulgence and it relies on sweeping your reader into a fantasy world. That means you’ll need a hero. Here are my three top tips for breathing life into your creation:
MAKE HIM ATTRACTIVE – This doesn’t mean only drop-dead gorgeous, physically perfect specimens need apply! Good looks go a long way to seducing your reader, but they’ll need more than that to keep them involved in your story.  Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted. Write a short biography of your hero to discover what makes him the man he is. Give him a past and a future, as well as a present.  Upbringing and ambitions forge character, and suggest motivations. Little details such as whether or not he has a pet, what car he drives and the type of music he likes all add colour to your work.
MAKE HIM SUFFER – give him a problem that is too big to be solved easily. In Lady Rascal, Philip Adamson starts out by being too decent for his own good. He’s a highly intelligent, hardworking man who has sacrificed his career as a doctor to return home and run the family estate. The strain has begun to tell, but he refuses to give up. Then Madeleine invades his life, and turns it upside down. Unless he can resist her, Philip faces following in the disastrous footsteps of his older brother. He was a man who tore the Adamson family apart.  The conflict between the way hero Philip works with cool efficiency to keep everything running smoothly, and the dangerous attraction he feels for Madeline keeps the action moving.  
MAKE IT WORSE – Once you’ve presented your hero with a problem, magnify it. In real life, men tend to work on instinct, rather than emotion.  Present your character with a dilemma. Make him choose between an easy decision, or a tough one – between his head and his heart. Will he do the right thing for the wrong reason, the wrong thing out of a sense of love or loyalty, or will he compromise? Whatever he does, make his action consistent with his character.  Imagine your heroine’s car has crashed on a level crossing, leaving her trapped. A train full of children on a day-trip is running out of control and heading straight toward her. Who would your hero save? As this is romance and we want the story to end happily ever after, he’d manage to board the train, fix the fault and save both his heroine and the children, of course. But not before your reader has turned lots of pages, desperate to find out what he’ll do, and how. 
Who is your hero? Is he fictional, or a real man of flesh and blood?
author, Christina Hollis, Romantic Fiction, Spirit, work in progress

Writing Fiction – Work In Progress

Christina Hollis

Today’s blog is a bit of a departure from the norm. It’s the opening of my current WIP, which is a full-length, contemporary novel.  Spirit is based around the idea that personal disaster brings out the best in people. My heroine, Ruth, loses everything she values. She only achieves her happy-ever-after when, like hero Mitch, she realises she was looking for it in the wrong place…

By kazuh

One minute Ruth Parrish had it all – complete with a thumping headache, a fresh set of scratches on the SUV and credit cards maxed out on new school uniform. Then her world evaporated in a whiff of Hugo Boss.  She was left with no future, two children to support, and a cake.

  Ruth’s disaster struck in the middle of a clear blue day. She and the children tumbled back into the house, hot and bothered after the trials of shopping and a grisly visit to grandma.  Gasping for tea and painkillers, she stopped the children bickering by sending Grace upstairs with the new laundry marker. Grace was old enough to mark her own school kit, although Ruth knew it would be faster and less stressful to do it herself, once the children had gone to bed. 
Jack was younger, but he could always be bribed with a comic to give Ruth a few minutes’ peace.  She ferreted his latest one out from the tide of carrier bags lapping around her feet and pushed him through the open living-room door. Then she dragged the shopping into the kitchen. It was always her sanctuary, but today it was chaos. Her partner Alan must have been up to something. He created havoc wherever he went, and could turn his back on disaster without a thought for her, or anybody else. 
Trying to ignore the mess, she shoved aside enough of it to make room for today’s star prize. One of her carrier bags contained a cake box, encrusted with gold decoupage and pink ribbons.  She put it down on the table like a holy relic, and smiled for the first time that day. The box cradled a gateau au chocolat. It was supposed to be for tea – a trophy to mark the end of the summer holidays.
Although surely it couldn’t hurt just to look at it… 
Ruth resisted temptation long enough to go and switch on the kettle. Then she went back to ease open the carnation-coloured lid of the cake box. Inside was a triumph of the patissier’s art. Glossy ganache had been set with tiny macaroons and curls of chocolate, then sprinkled with gold dust. She inspected the cake long and hard from every angle. It was decorated with so many little extras, nobody would miss one or two. 
Licking the tip of her finger, she reached out to the gateau with the stealth of a bomb disposal expert.
‘Mum, I want Monsters from Mars!’  Jack’s voice rang through from the other room. 
Caught in the act, Ruth jumped like a frog. 
‘Have it! Your Dad’s sure to have left the television on standby.’ 
She went back to gazing at the gateau.  Mentally dividing the cake into slices, she sighed.  The portions looked so meagre. She wished she still made her own cakes, but if there was one thing worse than Alan’s complaints it was seeing him moan with his mouth full. He blamed Ruth’s cooking for the fact his new clothes were a size larger each time she went shopping for him. That never stopped him eating everything she put in front of him, then looking round for more. Telling him that, and adding that his age might have something to do with his weight gain, only made things worse. 
Grace materialised at her elbow.
‘I thought you were sorting out your school stuff ready for next week, love?’
‘I’ve done it. Now I want to go on the computer.’  
Plump, pale Grace stared into the heart-stopping cake box. ‘Where is the computer, Mum?’ she murmured, distracted by their calorie-packed coming attraction.
‘What do you mean?’  As Ruth looked up from the gateau, Jack stamped in from the living room.
  ‘Where’s the telly?  I want Monsters from Mars!’  
A cranky eleven-year-old was the last thing Ruth needed.  ‘Your dad must have been moving stuff around while he tried to find the best position for his damned plasma screen.’ Sighing, she abandoned the cake like a lover.
 They had left Alan “working from home” that morning. His latest toy had still been in its box then, filling the lounge. Ruth could guess what happened next. Alan would have carried on checking e-mails until he was sure she and the children were well on their way. Then he would have abandoned his work computer for the new TV. Setting it up would have sent him back to bed exhausted. She called upstairs to him on her way through to the lounge.
‘Alan?  What have you been up to?’ She laughed – but not for long.

I’d love to know what you think of it: there’s a signed book from my backlist for a comment picked at random.