Red River Romance Writers

Forget The Rules And Write The Book! ©
By Mary Beth Lee

I was hanging out at eHarlequin the other day and I happened upon the Letters to the Editor file. I highly suggest you all stop by. It's incredible. Leslie Wainger signs on at least once every day and answers any questions prospective H/S writers pose. You can find answers to every kind of question from query to synopsis to multiple submission. It's great. A plethora of information right at wanna be writers' fingertips, straight from the editor.

The single most important thing I learned: Forget the rules and just start writing.

Sometimes in our quest to write the perfect POV, 1-inch margined, courier size 12 novels, we often lose sight of our characters. Or we write a sterile story with decent sex scenes but no real passion.

We need to forget about the rules. Pick your jaws up off the floor. Yes, manuscript style is important. Once you figure it out, set a template and use it every time. I think you can spend an hour on that alone and once you're done, you're too exhausted to write!

Yes, following the guidelines given by publishers is important. But I don't recall reading anything about scene and sequence or hero and heroine point of view shifts or anything similar. I don't even remember reading no first person.

I've read many a perfect POV manuscript and put it down feeling like I'd wasted my time. Sometimes those manuscripts have been books. More often than not they've been contest entries that stand no chance of publication even though the premise is good and the writing decent.

The only way to truly develop your chosen craft, in our cases, writing, is to practice, practice, practice. That means writing. Real writing about men and women with bigger than life problems that seem impossible to fix who happen to fall in love along the way to happily ever after.

It means learning the definitions of GMC and character arcs and then letting yourself go and writing the best book you possibly can. And if you choose to have POV shifts in one scene, so be it. It never bothered me before I joined RWA® any way, and according to the editors, it doesn't matter.

Same thing holds true for synopsis. Past or present tense, it doesn't matter. Just write the short outline of the story that explains character's goals, motivations and conflicts at the same time it provides resolutions and shows the marketing hooks for your book.

The big ticket to publication is summed up in one word: write. There's no other answer. There's no easier way.

Yes, there will be rejection for most of us on the way. For those of you who are lucky and talented enough to sell your first book, well, we hate you. Okay, not really, but we're all terribly jealous. For the rest, just keep on writing. Keep on developing better GMC's and keep on moving to the ultimate journey: finding your writing voice. Above all, push the rules to the back of your mind.

Good luck and happy writing!