Drama Karma with Anna Campbell

Firstly, thank you, Sandra, for asking me to run this workshop at your blog! Love talking to other writers so come on, don’t be shy! I’ll choose a random comment and that person will win a signed copy of my new release UNTOUCHED which comes out on Tuesday. Whoo-hoo!

Actually in a lot of ways, I’m hoping this turns into a discussion rather than a formal workshop. I’d like you all to share your thoughts on the subject and perhaps our discussion might lead to some conclusions about the problem I want to talk about.

Anyway, on with the workshop! Let the drama begin!

I regularly judge writing contests and I also do some mentoring which means I read a lot of AYU work. Do you know that term? It’s a fantastic one my friend Ruth Kaufmann coined at the Atlanta RWA conference – it means ‘as yet unpublished’ which I love. It’s so hopeful and for a lot of people, it’s not soft soaping, it’s true! When you start out, you’re in the chrysalis stage. Transformation into a butterfly is on the way!!!

A problem I consistently find with a lot of this AYU work isn’t the basic premise for the story. Often, the premise is fantastic, original, emotional, full of potential for conflict. AYU writers have wonderful imaginations and they come up with great characters and great situations.

But having come up with this fantastic premise, many of these AYUs then spend the next 50 pages or so running as far and as fast away from the dramatic implications of that premise as they can.

It’s like the great premise with all its dramatic possibilities scares them silly so they try as hard as they can to squash it down, make it bland, drain all the juice from it.

So I’m saying BE DARING!

When you come up with your premise, sit down and brainstorm. Doing this with another writer is a fun way to pass an afternoon. Start thinking about worst-case scenarios. Doesn’t matter if they’re silly. Anything you come up with will help you cross your ‘I’m scared of this’ barrier. Good books thrive on worst-case scenarios. Start thinking about how to make the stakes higher. Emotionally. Physically. Take everything to the limits! And don’t stop until you’ve got your heroine about to be eaten by a starving tiger as a train rushes down the tracks towards her. Well, whatever the equivalent of that is in your story.

I’ve often heard New York editors quoted as saying they don’t want a ‘quite’ scary book or a ‘quite’ sexy book or a ‘quite’ funny book or a ‘quite’ dramatic book. They want everything to be REALLY scary, sexy, funny or dramatic. They want writing that pushes the envelope. And so do readers. Readers want to care and they’re not going to care about something that just rolls along at a nice even pace and doesn’t give them anything to worry about.

There’s a few techniques you can use to lift the drama.

1. Keep the focus on your principal characters. If your heroine’s in danger, don’t have her sitting down and telling her best friend about it over a cup of coffee. In fact, any scenes in your book that involve the making or drinking of coffee need to GO! Have her running from the bad guys, preferably as the hero saves her skin! Or as she saves the hero’s skin. Think how you can you present your character’s dilemma as vividly as possible. Action and dialogue are always sure bets for this. Readers like to see your characters doing things. In a romance, they particularly like to see your hero and heroine doing things together (and not just THOSE sort of things either ).

2. Try to avoid scenes where the hero/heroine remembers something that happened in the recent past. To give you an example, if your characters have ridden all day to get away from the baddies, don’t have them sitting around the campfire reminiscing about escaping the stray arrow aimed in their direction around about lunchtime. Show me the scene of the arrow coming their way. Remember, characters in action = excitement. Characters remembering stuff = reader turning of the light and going to sleep and maybe not picking up your book again. The aim is for the reader not to be able to put your book down until she gets to that blissful ending on the last page!

3. Get your characters to make mistakes then face the consequences. This is really important. Don’t be afraid of hurting or upsetting your characters – although perhaps killing them outright might bring an early end to your story. If your hero tells a lie, make him suffer for it. If your heroine does something really stupid and puts the whole enterprise in danger, make her pay. Your reader has a very finely tuned ethical compass and if she feels you’re going easy on your characters when they don’t deserve it, she notices. I know you love your characters, that’s why you’re writing about them. But make them suffer! Happy people don’t make for a great story. Put your characters in jeopardy, emotional or physical or preferably both, and then take that scenario to its end. Don’t wimp out on the way because you hate to think of someone being nasty to your poor heroine. Wonderful Robyn Donald who writes for Harlequin Presents says the secret to a great romance is putting your heroine up a tree and throwing stones at her. Well, I’m saying make those stones great big boulders!

Remember, fortune favors the brave! And may all your fortunes hold big fat publishing contracts! Happy writing.

I’d love your thoughts on drama and how to build it in a romance novel. How do you build drama in your own work? Are there elements of the drama in your own work that you’d like help with? Can you think of writers who build drama so well that you’d sit in a burning house to find out what happens next? I can list a few examples! Let’s talk DRAMA!!! And don’t forget the copy of UNTOUCHED for some lucky commenter!