Guest Post: When Best Friends Are Also Writing Partners: Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke of Chick Lit Is Not Dead

Could you write with someone? What if that someone was your BFF? That’s not the premise of a new novel (although it could be) but it’s the real life story of Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. They’ve been at it a long time. It’s not easy to write and polish and query and then to get on the path to publication with a NY publisher. But they did it—together!

Could you? Let us know in the comments!!

Amy xo

The road to publication: A bumpy ride, even with your BFF

We know we’ve been best friends since peg legged jeans were all the rage but couldn’t tell you when we officially became writing partners (we blame the early dementia motherhood brings). We do recall that it took five years, three manuscripts and all kinds of patience to finally get a publishing deal (cue happy dance). It was our third novel, THE TOAST that teamed us up with our dream agent, Elisabeth Weed, and got us a publishing deal with Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. It also solidified for us that there must, in fact, be a publishing God (otherwise known as Greer Hendricks).

Journeying down the very rocky road to publication with your best friend is a lot like taking a road trip with her. It starts out great—the music’s blasting, the wind’s flowing through your hair (think: Thelma and Louise, but without the driving off the cliff part) and the road ahead is full of limitless options. But after being cooped up together in a small space for too long and eating way too many Slim Jims (true story!) you definitely need to take a break!

But despite getting on each other’s nerves from, ahem, time-to-time, there’s no one like your oldest pal to navigate those bumps with you. She can be the ultimate therapist when you cannot read one more rejection letter especially when it’s written to Mr. Fenton and Mr. Steinke (another true story!) and she’s the best cheerleader when you write something that doesn’t suck.

We’ll never forget the first time an agent requested the full manuscript of our first novel. We jumped up and down, drank champagne and started mentally spending the money we’d get for our advance.  So when the prospective agent rejected it a week later, asking why the hell our characters were always SCREAMING at each other, it was a major letdown. (In his defense, he was right—we did have a rather upsetting exclamation point problem back in the day.)

Undeterred, we soldiered on, querying our faces off for more than a year.  We got painstakingly close to getting an agent—but the tide was starting to turn on chick lit and we had written a campy and somewhat inappropriate novel. (Liz cringed a few times when she reread it recently.) Write something more serious! The agents challenged.  So we picked each other up off the floor and wrote a manuscript about a woman who regrets leaving her husband.  See, agents?  We can be serious!  We can tackle topics like divorce, custody, regret and sadness!  But we came up short—again.

The good news? After writing two manuscripts we learned a lot of valuable lessons about ourselves and about our writing (don’t overwrite, don’t create secondary male characters that are more cardboard cut out than human and don’t overuse the F word). The bad news?  We weren’t sure we wanted to go through the process of writing another one that might not get published.  But Lisa wouldn’t be deterred—she forced, ahem, persuaded Liz to give it one more try. This time, we decided to write from the heart instead of trying to predict what agents and publishers would want.  And we think that decision made all the difference.

Despite the bumps—make that potholes—in the road to publication, it’s been a journey we’d take all over again because it’s made us closer than ever before. (There’s something sweet about sharing this experience with someone who knew you when you had a unibrow…).

Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke have been best friends for over 25 years.  They co-created Chick Lit is not Dead in 2009 to celebrate books women love and to have a place to talk shit about reality TV stars.  Their novel, The Toast, about two childhood best friends who switch bodies at their twenty-year high school reunion, will be published by Atria/Simon & Schuster in early 2014.

Guest Post by Author Nancy DiMauro: What Is Women’s Fiction? I Know It When I See It!

Dear Friends,

After three days of watching CNN, I decided it was time to shut off the TV and move forward with things that are normal, while not forgetting about the things that aren’t.  It would have been easy to abandon the blog for a week, but then, when is the right time to keep going? The right time is now. I don’t stand on any soap boxes because that’s not what I’m here for, nor what I’m about, but when I saw authors tweeting and FBing blatant self-promotion over the weekend, I all but went bonkers.  

I’m done with bonkers. 

To each his or her own. 

And my own is now to move forward with a normal post on our normal blog in a normal way.  So please welcome Nancy DiMauro to Women’s Fiction Writers as she discusses, once again, the meaning of women’s fiction—as she sees it.

Amy xo

I Know It When I See It—or—What Is Women’s Fiction?

by Nancy DiMauro

More women buy books than men. Publishers look for “Women’s Fiction.” So, what the heck is women’s fiction?

The phrase “I know it when I see it” is a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. (Here’s the link.)

Yes, I know I’m not supposed to quote Wikipedia, but the definition’s perfect for my purposes. Justice Potter Stewart’s famous quote from Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) was his response to the question: “what is hard-core pornography?”  Because the phrase “hard-core pornography” is difficult to define in a manner to include all possibilities, Justice Stewart refused to provide an objective test  but instead articulated a subjective one.

Women’s Fiction is an umbrella term that encompasses any fiction whose audience is primarily females over the age of 25. So, how do you know it when you see it?

To me, stories in almost any genre comprise women’s fiction. I think J.D. Robb’s In Death series as well as Patricia Cromwell’s Scarpetta series are “women’s fiction” even though they are thrillers.  I also see Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells and The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks as women’s fiction.  Chick lit was women’s fiction  although we’re supposed to forget about that label now. And don’t get me started on “Hen Lit” which was Chick Lit aimed at the over 50 crowd. Women and men write Women’s Fiction.

No wonder there’s no set definition in the publishing marketplace.

It’s the combination of strong female characters and stories that focus on the issues we wrestle with every day that makes Women’s Fiction. I want to identify with the protagonist’s character development arc; the story of who she was when the adventure started and who she becomes as a result. It may be, and often is, that the character development is the B or secondary plot, but it’s there.  Eve Dallas from the In Death series has changed dramatically. She’s become more as she has accepted the joys and hardships that come with being a woman, and having gal pals.

Think about it: Conan the Barbarian and James Bond don’t change.

I started writing fantasy because most fantasy protagonists are alpha males like Conan. Women were fought over, and protected. Sure there were a few exceptions.  And I wanted a main character I could identify with. Women role models in fantasy were few and far between.

So, I write stories about strange universes and kick-butt main characters. My fantasy protagonists find the idea of a metal bikini instead of plate armor ridiculous. After all, what warrior would go to battle so ill protected?  They are guardians, spies and psychic detectives.  They are women.  And to me, I write women’s fiction.

Nancy’s novel, Paths Less Traveled: Strange universes. Kick-butt heroines. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Musa Publishing.

You can find Nancy at her blog, web site, Facebook and Twitter.

Guest Post: Author Rita Plush Shares Her Twelve-Year Journey To Publication

Rita Plush is here with us on Women’s Fiction Writers today to share her story of writing, querying, and publication. You’re sure to be inspired by Rita and her determination to see LILY STEPS OUT in print. I know I am!

Please welcome Rita to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

Lily Steps Out…Finally: My Journey To Publication

By Rita Plush

Back in the 70’s and early 80’s, with college-aged children of my own, I was a student, plugging away over an eleven-year period to earn degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing. But it was only when I tried to get my first novel published, that I came to understand the true meaning of commitment and patience.

Originating as a short story, “Lily Steps Out,” is a middle-age coming-of-age novel about a married woman who ‘steps out’ of her domestic life into the business world after her husband retires. This is an interesting couple, I thought, and continued writing about them.

I brought my efforts to my writers’ group and listened to their input and critiques. I worked on the characters, dialogue and plot line. After a time, the pages became chapters. Eventually, I had the first draft of a book which I painstakingly edited and brought back to my group. More recommendations, more character development, till the moment came—five years from that first chapter—when I decided this is a book, and tried to find an agent.

The dozens query letters I sent out brought in almost as many rejections—some agents didn’t respond at all—and I began to realize that finding an agent might take almost as much time and effort as writing the book itself. I labored on, and then months later, voila!  An agent who liked what she saw—characters alive and vivid with real lives and real problems. Bidding wars and movie deals danced in my head, but alas, though publishers thought the writing “energetic and entertaining” and “were drawn to the characters,” they didn’t take my book.

My book. My book was about a woman with spirit and drive, a homemaker who’d spent her life caring for her family and then wanted more out of life than making beds and cooking dinners. Did Lily sit back because things didn’t go her way, or did she risk everything she had to get the life she wanted? And so I took a lesson from Lily. If my agent couldn’t find me a publisher, I’d find one on my own, and offered Lily to the handful of publishers who accepted non-agented fiction.

To my disappointment, my efforts fared no better than those of my agent, and something began to nag at me. Was I objective about the book? Or had I developed such a crush on Lily and my other characters that I couldn’t see what was right about them and what was not? Maybe I needed some of that proverbial space between me and them, and so I set the book aside and began another novel.

Years passed. Self-publishing had become the route for many authors who couldn’t otherwise get their books into print. Lily called to me.

But first, I dug deep, looking for the gold in Lily Gold. I tightened the prose, eliminated every non-essential scene and bit of dialogue that didn’t reveal a character’s personality or move the story forward, updating the social references along the way. I hired a professional editor to proof-read and fine-tune the whole business, and signed up a graphic artist to design the cover.

I was so close to self-publishing, I’d already chosen the company and sent them the cover on approval. Then one day I slipped my hand into a coat pocket and out came a scrap of paper with Penumbra Publishing written in my own handwriting. What’s this? I said to myself.

This, it turned out, was my prayed-for-dreamed-of-I-don’t-pay-to-get-published-publisher, who found my novel, “…engaging, with unique characters that gave the tale a certain refreshing charm.”

The rest, as they say is history, Lily’s history, and the twelve years from start to finish, when I began the book to the day it was accepted. Was it worth all the time and effort? Yes indeed! Keep at it, don’t give up.

Rita Plush is an author, teacher, interior designer, and Coordinator of the Interior Design & Decorating Certificate at Queensborough Community College; there she teaches several courses in the program. Rita has also lectured on the decorative arts at libraries throughout Long Island, and at Hofstra University and CW Post-Hutton House.

Her writing practice includes fiction and non-fiction and her stories and essays have appeared in many literary journals including The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iconoclast, The MacGuffin, Passager, and most recently http://www.persimmontree.org.  “Lily Steps Out” is her first novel (Penumbra Publishing, May 2012), and she is at work on a second novel that follows some of the characters in “Lily.” She is also putting the finishing touches on a collection of short stories called “Step into My Heart, the Door is Round and Wide.” Rita is a member of LIAG, Long Island Authors’ Group.

Newsday’s Act II, July 19, 2012, featured Rita as “published and proud,” and Times Ledger—August 23-29—headed their feature, “Rita Steps Out.”

  “Lily Steps Out” is available through www.amazon.comin both ebook and trade paperback, and from www.barnesandnoble.com in ebook format.

Visit her website www.ritaplush.com for more information about Rita and Lily.

Guest Post: Writing, Rejections, and Going for that Overhead Smash by Author Holly Robinson

My friend Holly Robinson’s novel, THE WISHING HILL (and its stunning cover) will be published by Penguin in Summer 2013. Oh, and she’ll have another novel published in 2014!  So I’m going to make sure she comes back to talk more about all that crazy awesomeness! But today, Holly shares with us why it’s important to just keep on writing, and trying no matter what.  Why? Because you just don’t know the moment that something is just going to go flying over the net. (The tennis pun is weak, I agree, but my intentions were good.) 

Please welcome Holly to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

Writing, Rejections, and Going for that Overhead Smash

By Holly Robinson

By the time my agent was sending out my fifth novel, I figured I’d paid my dues as a writer.  Yes, it’s true that I majored in biology and had never even read James Joyce, but I atoned for that mistake by flinging myself into graduate school to earn an MFA in creative writing.  I even published short stories in literary journals where the payment was two copies.  I collected enough rejection slips that, one Halloween, I dressed as a Rejection Slip, donning a lacy slip with my rejections stapled all over it.

“Are you still writing?” friends and relatives asked, year after year.

“Of course.  And this one is it,” I always answered.

And then came novel #5.  This will be the one, I told myself, just like Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory:  This will be my golden ticket!

When the rejections amassed that fifth time, though, I lost faith.  That tiny negative voice in my head, the one that was usually like some bee you can wave off, began to sound like a trumpet in my ear.  The voice blared:  You are not smart enough to be a writer. 

“Let’s try one more editor,” my blessed agent said.

I knew the editor he was sending my fifth novel to, and she is one of the smartest in the business.  As a book doctor and ghost writer for many years, typically on nonfiction health books and celebrity memoirs, I’d had the opportunity to work with her on several books.  I desperately wanted her to love my novel.

I waited three agonizing weeks.  Then the editor’s reply came:  “I’m sorry, but the novel just doesn’t work for us,” she said, adding various detailed observations about where the plot flagged and why the characters didn’t ring true.

“Should I get you some wine?” my husband asked when he found me prone on the sofa, the rejection letter crumpled in one hand and a bouquet of Kleenexes in the other.

“Go get me chocolates.  Good chocolates,” I hissed.  “I’m never writing fiction again.”

I was devastated enough by that one rejection to eat my way through an entire box of dark chocolate truffles, drink half a bottle of Grand Marnier, and watch Nicole Kidman attempt to sing in Moulin Rouge.  By now, that trumpeting voice in my head had turned cocky and mean:  Your sentences are dull and stupid.  Your plot lines are insipid.  Your descriptions are trite.  Your characters are flat and uninteresting.  Who would want to read your writing? 

That was it.  I was done with fiction.

With so much extra time on my hands, I decided to do something entirely unlike me:  I took tennis lessons.

I had never played a sport in my life, and I rapidly discovered that practicing a sport means getting yelled at a lot.  My tennis coach’s nonstop badgering nearly made me quit:  “Get up to net!  Come on, don’t stand around the baseline!  Go for it!  You want that overhead smash!”

My problem was that I was too timid and polite.  I got hit on the head with tennis balls more than once, nearly pummeled to the ground by aggressive women on the other side of the net going for their overhead smashes.

I spent hours and hours on the tennis court.  I joined a travel team and moved up the ranks.  Still, I hung back, always playing it safe, until one day my coach lost her temper.

“You know,” she said, “the only person who really cares about whether you screw up out here is you!  Just get up to net and take the balls in the air!  You might miss.  But you might surprise yourself if you try.”

The metaphor here is obvious, and so were the flaws in my tennis playing.  I had to force myself to net again and again.  Until one day, to my shock, I found myself looking for those overheads and smashing them down at my opponent’s feet.  I missed a lot of balls, but I made some great shots, too.

I became more confident at tennis, and that made me start writing again.  What did I have to lose by trying another novel?  Nobody was going to publish it, probably, but so what?  I love writing fiction.  So I started another book.

This is one of those happy-ending stories, but with a twist.  While I was writing my sixth novel, The Wishing Hill, I also revised and self-published that fifth novel, Sleeping Tigers.  Self publishing wasn’t the way I wanted to go, but going to net in tennis had taught me to gamble.  I revised Sleeping Tigers and published it myself.

Meanwhile, I finished my newest novel, The Wishing Hill.  The same editor at Penguin, the one I had always dreamed about working with on a novel, bought it.  She recently bought the new novel I’m working on, too.  It will be published a year after The Wishing Hill.

What’s the takeaway here?

1. If you are a writer, you will surely get rejected.  Nobody cares but you.
2. Writing, like anything else, is all about keeping the ball in play, watching for new opportunities, and not being afraid to go to net.

Want to make it as a writer?  You have to fail first—and sometimes many times.  Get to the net and write another book.  Keep going for that overhead smash, and you might surprise yourself.

Holly Robinson is an award-winning journalist whose work appears regularly in national venues such as Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Huffington Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, More, Open Salon, and Parents. She also works as a ghost writer on celebrity memoirs, education texts, and health books. Her first book, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter: A Memoir, was named a Target Breakout Book. Her first novel, Sleeping Tigers, was named a 2011 Book of the Year Finalist by ForeWord Reviews and was more recently listed as a Semifinalist 2012 Best Indie Book by Kindle Book Review. She holds a B.A. in biology from Clark University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She lives north of Boston with her husband and their five children.

Submission Guidelines For Writer Rejections: A Guest Post By Author Janet Josselyn

We’ve all gotten them. Rejection letters. They run the gamut from leftover napkins scrawled with obscenities to carefully worded and helpful emails that enable us to shelter a bit of self-esteem. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could dictate how those letters were written? After all, if we’re going to get them, shouldn’t they meet OUR guidelines?

Author Janet Josselyn thinks so! And I agree!

Please welcome Janet to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

Despite Its Evident Merit—Submission Guidelines for Rejections

by Janet Josselyn

Rejection is a staple of a writer’s diet and it comes in many forms and guises.  My personal favorite, however, is the rejection that describes how talented my writing is while simultaneously rejecting what I have written.  I have a stack of those backhanded compliments.  I culled the most flattering and they appear at the beginning of Thin Rich Bitches.

Some editors, on the other hand, don’t even attempt to say something flattering in their form rejections.  “We’re sorry to say that your piece ‘The Comely Behavior Manual for U.S. Army Generals’ wasn’t right for us, despite its evident merit.  Thank you for allowing us to consider your work.”  Apparently the “evident merit” wasn’t sufficiently evident.  In response, I have this to say:

Dear Editors:

Thank you for submitting your recent rejection of our latest submission.  Unfortunately, the rejection isn’t right for us at this time, despite its evident merit.

Before submitting a rejection in the future, you might want to familiarize yourself with our Submission Guidelines for rejections:

1. Ditch the happy face after the part where you assure us that there is a publication “somewhere” that will appreciate our work.
2. There are only so many chuckles you can get out of making fun of conservative white men who work and have female wives.  Open the humor up a little, please.  Sometimes it’s actually funny to make sport of people who look or act odd.  People who go all crazy-ass on people who eat meat can be really funny.
3. Are all of the published authors of your journal related?  We are not suggesting incest-style “related,” but we are suggesting “old boys club, wink-wink, nod-nod, not-if-you-are-a-girl-writer related.”  Okay, just had to play the gender card.  You guys are liberals, right?
4. Evident merit comes in many sizes.  Despite its evident merit, a rejection should evidence sufficient merit or it will not be right for us at this time.

Thank you for allowing us to consider your rejection.

Best regards,

Rejected Writers Everywhere

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Janet Eve Josselyn graduated from Colby College, Harvard Graduate School of Design and Boston College Law School.  She is an attorney and an architect.  She has published one novel, Thin Rich Bitches, and has written numerous articles for publications in the US and the UK.

Author Terri Bruce Counted Her Rejections But Didn’t Count Herself Out

I have, at times, been guilty of putting my head in the sand — but not when it comes to publishing! When I queried my novel I counted every rejection, every helpful hint, and every nibble. I did not want to miss a thing.  Author Terri Bruce also was keenly aware of her rejections – but she put them to work for her, making her more determined to find a home for her novel.  And she did.

Please welcome Terri Bruce to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

My story is pretty usual—I’ve always been a writer; I wrote long, rambling stories as a child, wrote stories I posted on the internet during college, and then set writing aside after I graduated, as the demands of a budding career took over. After a four-year lag of doing no writing, I came home from work one day in 2001 with a story hammering in my brain. I sat down at the computer and started typing furiously. After a couple of hours, my husband leaned over my shoulder to see what I was doing. “Hey!” he said. “That’s pretty good!”

Nine years later, I finished that story.

In between, I battled Lupus, bought a house, changed jobs twice, and joined a local writers’ group with the intention of getting serious about writing. It was hard, during those years, to find the time to write—there was too much “life” getting in the way. The writers’ group was definitely the saving grace for me; while there were times I submitted less than a page for critique, the accountability of being in a group ensured that I kept writing and moving forward, even if it was an inch at a time.

When I finally finished that manuscript, I cried with joy. It was the first full-length novel that I had really poured myself into, and I had proven (to myself) that I could take the time to craft a comprehensive plot, build realistic characters, and polish a raw first draft into something ready to submit for publication.

I pitched that story live to an editor at a writing conference and I queried it to about twenty agents and publishers, but alas, I very quickly realized the story fell into the “experimental fiction” realm, for which there is a very small market. I decided to “trunk” that manuscript, as I was already nearly finished with another story, one that I was sure was much more “commercial” in nature—it was the story of a directionless thirty-something woman who has to struggle with the fallout from her life choices when she dies and finds herself stuck on earth as a ghost. This story, eventually called Hereafter, “only” took two years to write, so I was feeling pretty good when I began sending query letters.

Then, the rejections started rolling in—10, 20, 30, 40…

At first I was stunned, then hurt and bewildered. Finally, I became numb. I began to play a game on Facebook—every time a new rejection came in, I posted the tally: 45, 50, 55, 56, 57, 58…

So I revised the query letter. I revised the opening chapter. I revised my list of prospective agents—widening the search. I began querying small presses as well as agents.

Amy’s definition of Women’s Fiction is a story in which the main point of the book is for the woman to improve herself, her situation, her life, her relationships and the focus is on internal growth of self, [and] the most important part of the book is not about moving toward romance. THIS is the story I had written; THIS is the story I wanted to tell. Interestingly enough, though, I didn’t consider Hereafter Women’s Fiction at first—Women’s Fiction was serious stuff, written by literary greats! Plus, my story was clearly paranormal—it had a ghost!—or maybe Fantasy Lit—it had humor!

However, two things quickly became apparent: 1) without a romance element, Hereafter wasn’t Fantasy Lit, and 2) those that read the manuscript felt that the story, in terms of emotional weight, was much more on the Women’s Fiction end of the spectrum than the Chick Lit. Looking once more at Amy’s definition, I realized that, yes, I had actually written Women’s Fiction.

However, people kept urging me to change the story—add more action, make it more light-hearted, and definitely add some romance—in ways that would have moved it away from Women’s Fiction. Interestingly enough, no one suggested dumping the paranormal element so it would fit more squarely in the Women’s Fiction category. [To be clear, none of these suggestions were “revise and resubmit” requests from agents, which I might have more seriously considered; these were more off-the cuff suggestions from people who read the story and couldn’t find anything wrong with it/didn’t know why agents weren’t taking to it.]

I had 62 rejections on Hereafter before I received a single request (a partial) from an agent—which ended in rejection. The tally continued to go up—70, 71, 72, 73, 74…

My family didn’t understand why I didn’t stop sending queries. My husband encouraged me to “try again”—to write a different story, one that more easily fit into one genre. However, I believed in Hereafter. It was a good story, I was sure of it.

I managed to rack up 84 rejections before I got my first request for the full manuscript—which also ended in rejection. I began to feel like I was playing that Cliffhangers game on the Price is Right—I “only” had 120 prospects on my list. Would Hereafter get picked up by an agent or publisher before I ran out of places to submit it to?

My friends and family, though horrified in that “watching a train wreck” kind of way by my tally posts, kept my spirits up with “their loss” kinds of comments (though in much saltier language). Other writers going through the same trial by fire were astounded by my tenacity. Most gave up long before I did, opting to return to the drawing board and write another novel, with the hopes that the next one would be “the one.” I, too, was working on another novel; unfortunately, it was a sequel to Hereafter. If Hereafter didn’t get picked up, then I had just put more eggs in a losing basket. I wish I could say I kept going because I believed in myself so strongly. However, the truth is, at this point, there didn’t seem to be any reason why I wouldn’t just keep submitting to the rest of the names on my list—there really weren’t that many left.

My lucky number turned out to be 92—the 92^nd response (after 8 solid months of querying) was an acceptance by a small press. Responses 93 and 94 also happened to be acceptances, by two other small presses, putting me in the happy situation of getting to choose between three offers. After I signed the contract with Eternal Press, I received several belated rejections, bringing my final tally to 112 rejections.

112 rejections

I look at that number now and part of me thinks, “Holy cow! How did I keep going?” and the other part thinks, “Pffttt! That’s not really a lot in the grand scheme of things—many people get even more rejections than that.” The take-aways from all of this, for me, are that tenacity is key to getting published, and agent/publisher rejection often has very little to do with a writer’s talent and more about personal taste and ease with which they can slot your book into a particular market. The more I hear about other authors’ long paths to publication, though, the more I think that, perhaps, perseverance alone is the dividing line between success and failure in this industry. As the saying goes: never give up! Never give up! Never give up!

Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats.

Author Karen Stivali Tells Us Why Women’s Fiction With A Love Story Is Not A Romance Novel

As a rule, I don’t like rules. But, when I read Karen Stivali’s post that explained her perception of the rules of romance novels, and why her books did not fit that mold — I was smitten. I don’t write romance — and I know that. What I wasn’t sure of was what constitutes that line between some women’s fiction and some romance novels.  Let us know what you think in the comments.

And please welcome Karen Stivali to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

When my debut full-length novel, Meant To Be, released a few weeks ago I got a lot of questions from curious friends. There’s one conversation that I’ve been having over and over. It goes something like this…

Friend: What kind of book is it?

Me: It’s a love story.

Friend: Oh, it’s a romance novel?

Me: No, it’s women’s fiction with strong romantic elements.

Friend: So, it’s a romance novel.

Me: No, it breaks too many romance rules.

Friend: But you said it’s a love story.

Me: It is. And it’s romantic as hell, but it’s not a romance novel in the traditional sense.

Most readers, and even many writers, are not aware of how strict the rules are where romance novels are concerned. I’ll admit, as a reader and a writer I always thought the rules were a bad thing, but now that I’ve written both romances and women’s fiction I can see why the rules are in place. And why I sometimes break them or cross genres.

Back when I first started writing I remember reading an interview with Nicholas Sparks where he vehemently denied writing romances. That floored me. Has he ever written a story that wasn’t romantic? Not to my knowledge. But technically the vast majority of his books can’t be considered romances. Why not? The most common reason is the lack of a happily ever after ending. He writes love stories. His fiction focuses on love and romance but is classified as either mainstream fiction or, as women make up the vast majority of his readers, women’s fiction.

Romance novels are popular. There’s no denying that.  For decades they’ve had a huge, always-growing audience of devoted readers. Part of the reason for that is those readers want to know what they can expect from the stories. That doesn’t mean they want the same story churned out over and over again, but it does mean they want certain elements to be guaranteed. Romances guarantee the reader that they’ll find a story where the hero and heroine only have eyes for each other and where, no matter what obstacles they face in the course of the book, they’ll wind up with a happily ever after ( or at least happy for now) ending. They’re also guaranteed that the romance will drive the plot. Sure, there may be sub plots or side characters that aren’t romantic, but the focus of the story will be on the path the hero and heroine take to becoming a couple.

Women’s fiction is far harder to define. Some define it simply as books that will appeal to a primarily female audience. Others say it’s fiction written by women, for women, with a female main character (which would mean Nicholas Sparks doesn’t actually write women’s fiction either, as he’s clearly not a woman). Women’s fiction can have a romantic plot, but it certainly doesn’t have to. It can be a story of sisters, of friends, of mothers and children, husbands and wives, careers, losses, achievements, or any combination of those. Sometimes, however, women’s fiction does focus on a man and woman falling in love, or on the trials of male/female relationships. That’s the kind of women’s fiction I write.

Wait, you ask, then why don’t you write romances instead? The answer is sometimes I do. I have published several erotic romances that are all sweet, sexy love stories involving a man and woman falling in love and having great sex as they work toward their happily ever after ending. I just signed a contract with a new publisher on a (non-erotic) contemporary romance that’s a friends-to-lovers/second-chance-with-an-old-crush story in which the heroine has to decide if she can juggle having a career and the man of her dreams. I loved writing those stories. I love those characters. But sometimes the stories I have in mind don’t fit the romance mold. That’s the case with my women’s fiction, like Meant To Be (and its sequel, Holding On).

As a writer I stay very true to my characters and insist on telling their story. I don’t worry about rules or genres while I write, I write the story I have in my head. Period. Meant To Be is a friends to lovers tale with a an unusual twist. My main characters, Daniel and Marienne, are both married to other people when they become neighbors in a small New Jersey town. (Romance rule breaker number one—hero and heroine MUST be single at the beginning of the story.) The two couples become friends, sharing meals at each other’s houses, commuting to work together—normal things neighbors do. (Romance rule breaker number two—story must focus on the romance between the hero and heroine, not on other relationships.) Daniel and Marienne discover they have a lot in common. Similar likes. Similar histories. As their marriages begin to unravel they rely on their friendship.

Although it becomes clear to the reader that they’re beginning to fall for each other, there is never even a hint of cheating. In fact, they both stay loyal to their spouses, trying to make their respective marriages work way past the point where they’re truly viable relationships. Even when they both wind up single and available they struggle with the decision to risk their friendship to see if the romantic feelings are returned.

Since I write books that focus on relationships and since, in my opinion, sex is an important facet of most adult relationships, I write open door sex scenes. Sex is not just a physical act, it’s an emotional one. The interaction between characters during a sexual encounter can be far more telling about the relationship than a conversation or even an argument. For that reason, both main characters are shown having sex with their spouses. It’s very telling about the state of their marriages. It’s also romance rule breaker number three—the hero and heroine cannot be shown having sexual relations with anyone other than the hero/heroine (except in the case of consensual ménages, which I don’t write in any genre).

Romance rules aren’t the only ones I break with this story. By some definitions of women’s fiction I break a major rule of women’s fiction writing. Meant To Be is a story about Daniel and Marienne. As individuals, as friends, as two people falling in love. It’s about the journey they both take. They are each point of view characters and are equally important to the story. Although they both grow, mature and change throughout the course of the book, in many ways this is more Daniel’s story. In other word’s it’s by a woman, for women, but not just about a woman.

I often say this story is one long prelude to a kiss. Readers have told me they waited, breathlessly turning pages, dying to see if Daniel and Marienne would eventually find their way to each other at the end of this story. As I said, it’s a love story. It’s romantic as hell. But it’s not a traditional romance novel. It’s women’s fiction, with strong romantic elements. And a happily ever after ending. An ending that told me I wasn’t done with these characters and their journey yet, which is why there’s a sequel releasing at the end of November.

The sequel, Holding On, explores how even when you marry the person of your dreams, and have everything you ever wanted, relationships still aren’t easy. When you have everything you ever wanted the hard part is holding on. Is it a romantic story? You bet. Is it a romance? Nope. (Romance rule breaker—the hero and heroine cannot already be married to one another as the plot must focus on them falling in love and a married couple is, in theory, already in love.) It’s women’s fiction with strong romantic elements, because I like my women’s fiction with a lot of love and a lot of heat…and a happy ending…but not the traditional romance novel path.

So, it’s your turn to tell me. Do you like your women’s fiction with hearty doses of romance? Do you enjoy having dual point of view from the hero and heroine in your women’s fiction? Or do you prefer if romantic plot lines are left in romance novels and women’s fiction focuses on the woman’s journey?

Karen Stivali is a prolific writer, compulsive baker and chocoholic with a penchant for books, movies and fictional British men. When she’s not writing, she can be found cooking extravagant meals and serving them to family and friends. Prior to deciding to write full time Karen worked as a hand drawn animator, a clinical therapist, and held various food-related jobs ranging from waitress to specialty cake maker. Planning elaborate parties and fundraisers takes up what’s left of her time and sanity.

Karen has always been fascinated by the way people relate to one another so she favors books and movies that feature richly detailed characters and their relationships. In her own writing she likes to explore the dynamics between characters and has a tendency to craft romantic love stories filled with sarcasm and sexy details.

You can find MEANT TO BE on Amazon, AllRomanceEbooks,Barnes & Noble,and Turquoise Morning Press.

You can find Karen on her website, on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Amazon.

In case you’re curious about Meant To Be, here’s the blurb:

Sometimes you’re already committed to the wrong person when fate finally brings you the right one.

When NYU professor Daniel Gardner’s career-obsessed wife convinces him to move to the suburbs, he hopes it’s a first step toward starting the family he longs to have. Instead of domestic bliss he finds his neighbor, Marienne Valeti. She loves her freelance design job, but must contend with a growing sense of isolation created by her husband’s indifference. A penchant for good books, bad movies, and Marienne’s to-die-for brownies sparks a powerful bond between them. Passion simmers, but they resist its lure, surrendering only in the seclusion of their minds. Their friendship helps them weather every hardship, from divorce to widowhood, leaving them both secretly wondering if it can survive a first kiss.

She Reads Co-Founder, Ariel Lawhon, Brings Us: The Impatient Character

I feel a special kinship with anyone who has started a website or blog or community for the benefit of writers and readers. I’m honored to have Ariel Lawhon here today, the co-founder of She Reads, a national on-line book club.  

Please welcome Ariel to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

My biggest reading surprise of 2011 came in the form of Diane Setterfield’s gothic masterpiece, The Thirteenth Tale. Though published in 2008, I somehow managed to miss this novel until last summer when my family took a 1500 mile road trip. I packed five novels in the hopes that one of them would be good. I never made it past the first. And I’m not entirely sure if I spoke to my husband at all during that trip. I was consumed.

In her novel Diane Setterfield introduces us to Vida Winter, a prolific, reclusive author who chooses to tell her life story to a young biographer by the name of Margaret Lea. Vida Winter is one of the most memorable literary characters, and certainly the strongest female character I’ve ever read. She says something in the novel that felt so familiar to me that I’ve never forgotten it:

“My study throngs with characters waiting to be written. Imaginary people anxious for life, who tug at my sleeve, crying, ‘Me next! Go on! My turn!’ I have to select. And once I have chosen, the others lie quiet for ten months or a year, until I come to the end of the story, and the clamor starts up again.”

I have experienced that demanding character, but never so intensely as while finishing my recent novel, The Rule of Three.

For months a new story had been nagging at me, creeping in during those moments when my mind was quiet. A long shower. That stretch of thought before drifting off to sleep. The dream that comes in the stillness before waking.

I recall writing a scene from my newly finished novel. It was a particularly tense argument between my Hero (her name is Stella) and Opponent that took place in an old, Jazz-era bar. There they were, leaning across the table in a dark, corner booth, both of them reaching for a tattered envelope containing a long-kept secret. I paused for a moment, fingers lightly touching the keyboard as I mulled a piece of dialogue. And then…

In the far corner of the bar was a woman delivering a baby! Of all the strange and bizarre things, the character in my next novel had walked into my current novel and set up shop. I could see it in my mind, like a fuzzy TV station that’s been caught between two channels, superimposing one face, one story, over another.

Vida describes that sensation best:

“And every so often, through all these writing years, I have lifted my head from the page—at the end of a chapter, or in the quiet pause for thought after a death scene, or sometimes just searching for the right word—and have seen a face at the back of the crowd.”

I knew who this character was, of course. Her name is Martha. She’s a midwife. A mother. A diarist. A strong and capable woman if ever there was one. But in that moment she was an intruder. So I gave Martha her own notebook. I scratched down what she was frantically trying to tell me, and I politely escorted her from the premises. Then I shook off her specter and went back to the bar, and my characters bent in heated conversation.

The scene turned out well in case you’re wondering. As did the rest of the novel. But now it’s done. My mind, so battered after wrestling that story to the page, is finally rested. And Martha has renewed her protests, filling all that recently vacated space. It’s time to open her notebook.

There are other faces in the shadows behind Martha of course. A carpenter. A hoarder. A tattoo artist. They are waiting patiently. For now.

Ariel Lawhon is a novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She is also the co-founder of She Reads, a national online book club. Her latest novel, The Rule of Three, is based on the still-unsolved disappearance of a New York State Supreme Court Justice 1930 and is the story of three women who know what happened to him but choose not to tell. Ariel lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). She believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

Author Erika Robuck’s Journey To Publication Takes Her Back In Time As She Heads For The Future

My path crosses with Erika Robuck’s in so many places that I truly don’t remember where or how we first met! What I do remember very well is how I felt when I read an early copy of Hemingway’s Girl. It’s an incredibly vivid fictional account of a young woman who works for Ernest Heminway in 1935 Key West.  I felt transported to a time and place I’d never been, and I felt like I was looking inside the life of a famous author through the eyes of someone else. While this is not a book about Hemingway, it does circle around him and the character plays a major role, while not being the main attraction. The main attraction is Mariella, the Cuban-American maid.  It’s a book you don’t want to miss. And Erika has three more books on the horizon — there is just no stopping her — and I couldn’t be more pleased for her, or more proud to know her. And lucky me — I will meet Erika next week at a reading near Chicago. So, photos to come! 

Please give Erika Robuck a warm welcome to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

My love of writing began when I was seven. I composed a terrible play about a king who falsely accused a jester of stealing his crown. It was just one page but very poignant, I thought. Then I moved onto poetry and song writing. After two awful novels—one in middle school and one in high school—college brought a lot of angst-filled short fiction and essays.

About ten years ago when my first son was born, the novel again surfaced, demanding my attention. My son’s naptimes allowed me regular blocks of time to devote to writing, and I completed my first novel about a haunted, Caribbean sugar plantation, called RECEIVE ME FALLING. After several years of revisions and rewrites, I started to query agents. My query letter had almost no relevant biography. I had no publishing experience or web presence of any kind. I received some requests for partial and full reads of the manuscript, but I kept getting rejections that had to do more with me and my lack of platform and experience than the novel itself. I also heard from more than one agent that novels set in two time periods by first time writers were very difficult to sell, but to please consider submitting in the future if I wrote another manuscript.

In the meantime, some friends of mine in book clubs asked to read the book. My husband encouraged me to self-publish. At first I dismissed the suggestion. There was, at the time, a heavy stigma against writers who self-published and I didn’t want to make any mistakes in my writing career. My goal was always to get a traditional publisher. I started to think more seriously about it, however, when I read an article about a woman who self-published with great success, and went on to get a contract with a traditional publisher. My book club friends continued to ask for the book. Finally I decided that I’d self-publish, see how many sales and reviews I could get, and hopefully, find my way to a traditional publisher.

I’m very happy with my decision. RECEIVE ME FALLING sold well and I got many good reviews. I also started blogging, guest blogging, reviewing books, and attending more conferences. I wrote a new novel set entirely in 1935, HEMINGWAY’S GIRL, and worked with both a writing partner and critique group throughout the process. I received a scholarship to the Breakout Novel Intensive based on the first fifty pages of the book, and at the conference, received the feedback of a panel of editors that helped propel my manuscript to a new place.

My beloved book clubs started asking for the new novel, but I felt strongly that a traditional publisher would take it. I decided to try to pitch agents. If the response was strong I’d try the traditional route. If the response was lukewarm I’d consider rewriting it and self-publishing again. With HEMINGWAY’S GIRL, 95% of the agents I queried requested a partial within a week of receiving the letter. 50% of them asked for a full read. One of them asked for an excusive read, which I very politely refused. Ultimately, I chose Kevan Lyon for her quick response time, our rapport on the phone, her vision for the book, her love of historical fiction, and her enthusiasm.

We spent a couple of weeks putting the final polish on the manuscript and then Kevan started querying. I again received a very positive response from the publishers, with many requests for full reads. In the end, we accepted NAL’s offer for a two-book deal, and HEMINGWAY’S GIRL just came out on September 4th, 2012.

There were many times along the journey when I wanted to quit, when my skin wasn’t thick enough, when it felt like I was spending too much time and money on a hobby that was making me frustrated and difficult to be around when it wasn’t going well. The odds often seemed impossible.

The support of my family and friends, tribe building through social media, and plain stubbornness finally helped me reach my goal. I am thankful every day for all of the support of the writers, bloggers, reviewers, book clubs, friends, and family who encouraged me.

And now, in the wise words of one of my Breakout Novel editors, the work begins.

* * *

HEMINGWAY’S GIRL is the story of a young woman in Key West who takes a job as a housekeeper for Ernest Hemingway to support her widowed mother and save for a charter boat business. She finds herself caught between an unexpected flirtation with the writer and a relationship with a WWI vet and boxer working on the overseas highway. Storms brewing in her relationships come to crisis as a hurricane threatens to destroy the Keys and all those she holds dear. From the bars and boxing rings of Key West to the Bahamian island of Bimini, Hemingway’s Girl explores the worth of the individual, the gulf between the classes, and the boundaries of human hunger.

Erika Robuck was born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland. Inspired by the cobblestones, old churches, Georgian homes, and mingling of past and present from the Eastern Shore, to the Annapolis City Dock, to the Baltimore Harbor, her passion for history is constantly nourished. Her first novel, RECEIVE ME FALLING, is a best books awards finalist in historical fiction from USA Book News, and her second novel, HEMINGWAY’S GIRL, was published by NAL/Penguin in September of 2012.

Erika is a contributor to popular fiction blog, Writer Unboxed, has guest blogged on Jane Friedman’s There Are No Rules, and maintains her own blog called Muse. She is a member of the Maryland Writer’s Association, The Hemingway Society, and The Historical Novel Society. She spends her time on the East Coast with her husband and three sons.

http://www.erikarobuck.com

NYT Best-Selling Author Susan Wiggs Shares Her Writing Journey With Women’s Fiction Writers

My Writing Journey

by Susan Wiggs

Although I’ve been a published writer for 25 years, I’ve been a WRITER for twice as long. Storytelling is somehow embedded in my DNA, and I’ve got the evidence to back it up. My very earliest writings were preserved by a doting grandmother, and survive to this day. I was just three years old when I learned to make recognizable marks on paper and call it writing. Something else I used to do, perhaps channeling writers who dictated their stories to secretaries, like Barbara Cartland and Sidney Shelton, was dictate stories to my long-suffering mother, who wrote them down while I illustrated them.

At the age of eight, I met my first writing mentor–Mrs. Marge Green at School 11, my third grade teacher. Like most writers, I was an advanced reader, so while she worked with other students, I was left to my own devices. She told me if I fancied myself a writer, then that’s what I should be doing–writing. I took her advice and self-published a book, which can be seen here.

Throughout my childhood, I read books all day every day. I told stories to my friends. I lied to my parents, invented stories for show-and-tell, and even fabricated outlandish “sins” to relate to Father Campbell in the confessional. For me, making things up was as natural as breathing.

In 7th grade, I rewrote the ending of OF MICE AND MEN because I was easily able to figure out a way to save Lenny in the end. (Side note: My chihuahua was rescued from a shelter in Salinas, and yes, his name is Lenny.) In high school and college, I was that annoying student who would request extra blue exam booklets for essay tests, because I had a knack for filling them at an alarming rate.

As a graduate student, I worked with a critique group for the first time, and I loved the process. A piece of bad writing could be transformed by this magical concept known as Rewriting. Who knew?

While in graduate school, I wrote my first full-length novel, a romantic historical saga about (I kid you not) the Dutch Revolt. Convinced I was on to something, I wrote its sequel. Eventually, I came to understand that storytelling is a lot more fun when READERS are involved, so I looked around at what readers were devouring at the time (1987). Big sexy western historical romances were the order of the day. And they just happened to be my favorites.

I wrote all 600 pages of TEXAS WILDFLOWER on a typewriter. In about three months. Shiloh Mulvane and Justin McCord consumed me every night. Why at night? Well, because in addition to writing, I was a full-time teacher, a full-time mom of a toddler, a wife, a homeowner, a dog owner. So if you want to write but are waiting until you can “find the time,” forget about it. You HAVE the time. You just have to decide what to do with it.

I sold the book to Wendy McCurdy, then an editor at Kensington, in 1987. Since then, I’ve published a book every year or so, honing my craft and learning the business along the way.

RETURN TO WILLOW LAKE, just published, was written by an older, wiser and much more skilled writer than the one who pouded out Texas Wildflower. My process is pretty much the same as the way I wrote at the age of 3. I make marks on paper, and call it writing.

How about you? What does your writer’s journey look like?

Susan Wiggs’s life is all about family, friends…and fiction. She’s been featured in the national media, including NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and is a popular speaker locally and nationally.

From the very start, her writings have illuminated the everyday dramas of ordinary people. At the age of eight, she self-published her first novel, entitled “A Book About Some Bad Kids.”

Today, she is an international best-selling, award-winning author, with millions of copies of her books in print in numerous countries. Her recent novel, Marrying Daisy Bellamy, took the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List, and The Lakeshore Chronicles have won readers’ hearts around the globe. Her books celebrate the power of love, the timeless bonds of family and the fascinating nuances of human nature.

She lives with her husband and family at the water’s edge on an island in the Pacific Northwest, where she divides her time between sleeping and waking.

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/susanwiggs

Twitter- https://twitter.com/susanwiggs

Website- http://www.susanwiggs.com

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