Everything I Know About Storytelling. . .

I learned from soap operas.

Now you may snicker, perhaps even sneer, but hear me out. For starters, understand that my work is mass market fiction, as in “mass appeal”—that’s the hope, anyway, of both my publisher and me. Good commercial fiction has to have mass appeal. And appealing to the masses is something that the soaps understand.

My acquaintance with soap operas began at the knee of my late, lamented Mema, who had an unfortunate addiction to the well-loved and now defunct Another World. Apparently, her addiction was contagious, because she passed it on to me. I watched AW nearly faithfully from the time of its inception until it went off the air in 1999. No matter how twisted the characters or outrageous the storylines, I remained a fan, through more decades than I care to share with you, gentle readers. And I still nurse a crush on the dark-eyed, curly-haired Cass Winthrop, dashing-rogue-turned-family man, who in the 1980s was da bomb. But I digress.

I’m not suggesting you turn your WIP into soap. (Unless you’re writing paranormals, you don’t want to be bringing people back from the dead, for example.) However, what soaps do extraordinarily well is to keep people tuned in, day after day, week after week. In the same way, we want our readers to keep turning pages and to keep buying our books. Over the years, Another World had some impressive writers, and here is what I learned from them:

Let your characters drive your story.

Good soap characters have developed back stories, clear motivation, well-articulated personality traits, and distinct voices. They’re characters who are so believable that viewers come to think of them as friends (and frenemies). And isn’t that how we want our readers to feel about our own characters?

Create tension and conflict at every turn.

Have a budding romance between two charismatic characters? Be sure to bring back a long-lost wife or husband. Or give one of them an incurable disease, a dark secret, or an evil twin who wreaks havoc. But keep throwing those obstacles in the way of happiness. And while I don’t recommend the Evil Twin Plot Contrivance, I do encourage the skillful use of conflict in your storyline to propel it forward and raise the stakes for your protagonist. 

Make ‘em wait. Then make ‘em wait longer.

Story arcs in soaps run anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks (though it seemed like years that Vicky was locked in that basement). Long story arcs prolong suspense, and soap writers ascribe to the notion that the longer the wait, the more satisfying the resolution. Romance writers, take note.

  

The cliffhanger is your friend. That faithful staple of soaps can be effectively applied in your own stories. In mysteries, for example, it’s crucial that each chapter end on a mini-cliffhanger. If your story is layered with sub-plots, using cliffhangers within chapters can help keep your readers focused on more than just the main plotline--and keep them coming back for more.

So  if soaps are your guilty pleasure, you now have permission to consider your habit research. Here at QT, we try to keep the days of your writing lives bold and beautiful. For more of our guiding light, be sure to tune in tomorrow. . .

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara  released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband and two of her three sons.

The Book of Your Heart vs. The Book of Your Head

Write the book of your heart. We’ve all heard it, right? What it usually means is this: ignore the market and tell that story that’s inside of you. Write the book that won’t let you go, the one that drives you and inspires you, the one whose characters have come to be old friends. (Actually, make that family members, as they’ve been living with you for years.) We’ve heard it from agents, from editors, and from each other. Write the book of your heart. And far be it from me to tell you otherwise.

However, it is worth reiterating the following:

1-The BOYH is often your first book, with all the amateur trappings that come with first attempts.

2-Your love for the BOYH can blind you to its weaknesses and render you deaf to constructive criticism.

3-The BOYH isn’t always a fit for the market.  

The book of my heart got me an agent. It even got the attention of an editor at Berkley. What it didn’t get me was a publishing contract. It had charm. It was funny. But it wasn’t ready, plain and simple. So I went back to the drawing board, and basically wrote a more sophisticated version of the BOYH. And that didn’t sell, either.

It was then my agent put a question to me—what kind of writer do you want to be? The words appeared in my brain like a message from a Magic 8 Ball: a published one. She offered me the opportunity to write a cozy, so I did a genre hop from women’s fiction and landed squarely into to mystery territory.

Writing that first mystery began as an academic exercise; I approached it pragmatically. This is the book that will get me published, I told myself. This would be the book of my head, not my heart. (If the book of my heart was a love match, the book of my head was a marriage of convenience.) But as I got deeper into the story and more involved with the characters, a wondrous thing happened—I fell in love. I started that project by using my head, but ended up putting all my heart into it.                            

Don’t get me wrong; I still love my first book. It will always be the book of my heart. And I’ll get back to that book someday. Because eight years and four books later, I know exactly what it will take to make it better, maybe even publishable: a cold eye, a sure hand, a warm heart—and a cool head. 

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, will be released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey with her husband and two of her three sons.

"Don't Kill the Dog"

At a writing conference two years ago, I attended the editors' panel in hopes of finding out what they were (and weren't) looking for. I had a women's fiction project out on submission at the time, and I suppose I was hoping to hear one of them say, "You know what I'd really like? A contemporary update of The Taming of the Shrew set at the Jersey shore." Alas, no such words were uttered. In fact, what I did hear from them dashed any hopes I might have had of selling that book. (Full disclosure--the manuscript remains unsold.)

About halfway through the panel, an audience member asked a pretty standard question: What causes you to immediately reject a book? One editor said she refuses to read any story that involves child abuse, another mentioned that she was tired of the spurned-woman-starts-over trope. Each one of them had specific pet peeves. Finally, the last editor said that she can't bear to read a story in which a pet dies. "Don't kill the dog!" she warned. Other editors on the panel agreed, and heads in the audience nodded approvingly.

Except mine, which was hung in shame. Because in my book, I did exactly what that editor had warned against--I killed the dog. My main character, Kate, is a modern day shrew who has affection for only two beings in her life, her elderly grandpa and her dog, Buddy. I believed that in order for Kate to grow and change, she had to come to terms with some kind of loss in her life. I wrote what I believed was a moving scene in which Kate grieves for her lost pet, a moment that emerges as a turning point for her. Despite the fact that more than one of my beta readers questioned whether the dog had to die, as did my agent. But I held firm, because I believed that the dog's death served the story.

The late, great Baci--the "ill-behaved fox terrier" in my author bio (which I don't have the heart to edit).

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I had to put down my own beloved canine, the charmer you see pictured above. And suddenly I was seeing my story in a whole new way. I was unprepared for the grief I felt at her loss; it cut deep and hard, and I began to wonder whether I had done those feelings justice in my story. Had I reduced such a painful experience to a mere plot contrivance? Was the death of Kate's dog gratuitous? And on a more pragmatic note, might such a contrivance be a deal-breaker with an editor down the line?

I still don't have answers to these questions. The loss of our Baci is still too new for me to be able to go back to my manuscript and look at those scenes again. But when I am ready, I know I'll be reading it with a different set of eyes.

And now I'd like to ask you: how do you feel about the death of pets in the books you read? Are there animals in your own stories, and if so, what role to they play in your plots?

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, will be released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband, two of her three sons, and an ill-behaved fox terrier.

Ten Things I Need to Tell You. . .About Dreams Coming True

On October 1st, I celebrated the release of my debut novel, a mystery called Murder and Marinara. I have typed those last nine words dozens of times, yet I never tire of them. And that's part of what today's post is about. In the land of publication dreams, there lie some hidden realities--some wondrous, some worrying. And I've gathered a few of them for you in this handy list:

1.The time between signing the contract and your book appearing in print is anywhere between forever and eternity, give or take a month. Seriously, it's a long process. So hang on and enjoy the ride. In the meantime, you'll do things like approve cover sketches and edit jacket copy. That's the fun part. (Revising your entire manuscript with "track changes" on, not so much.)


2. Saying "my editor" is almost as much fun as saying "my agent." But don't overdo it.

3. Most people will be happy for you. I have an inbox full of treasured messages of congratulations from family and friends who were giddy with excitement and happiness for me. My best friend from kindergarten showed up at my signing with a bouquet of roses, a bottle of bubbly, and a gift card to an Italian restaurant. Then she bought seven books. That's some love right there.

5. A few will not. Here and there you'll come across those who are envious or unhappy about your success. It's a sad truth, but part of the cost of this momentous achievement. Maybe they're frustrated writers themselves. Or maybe you've said "my editor" one too many times.

6.  You will be a raging diva the week before launch. While it is all wonderful and exciting, the time right before release has an effect similar to that steamy, frothing stuff that Dr. Jekyll drank. About a week out, you'll start twitching; be prepared for bulging eyeballs, bouts of tears, and flashes of temper. Thank goodness your family loves you.

7. Prepare to be obsessed with numbers. Sales numbers. Amazon numbers. Numbers of stars on reviews. Numbers of bloggers on your tour. Numbers of review copies that go out. Numbers of ratings on Goodreads. Numbers of friends on Facebook. You get the idea. I'd like to provide more examples, but I have some flow charts I'm working on at the moment.

8. Have ready answers to the following questions: How long did it take you to write the book? and How did you get published? Hands down, these are the two questions I get asked the most.

9. The party is the best part. Have one. It can be four friends and a pizza, but celebrate. There's only one first time. And finally. . .

10. Having a pen name may pay off in unexpected ways:

The beauty of alphabetical order.

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband, two of her three sons, and an ill-behaved fox terrier. You can visit Rosie on Facebook, Goodreads, or at www.rosiegenova.com.

Project Writer

If you're like me, you've spent several hundred hours in front of Project Runway, admiring the sartorial hits, dissing the fashion misses, and fantasizing about having lunch with Tim Gunn. In fact, it was Runway that rekindled my childhood passion for sewing. Not long ago, I treated myself to a new sewing machine, and set out to refresh my skills with the easiest pattern Vogue had to offer (an unfashionable A-line skirt that would give Tim a case of the horrors). And as I struggled with pattern adjustments and bias cuts, I had an epiphany: sewing is an awful lot like writing.

A new piece of fabric laid out flat is a lot like the story in my head, and the pattern is the outline. A cleanly executed seam is akin to a polished, fluent sentence. The garment takes shape in much the way a plot does, piece by piece. Even the language is similar. You start a project. You cut. You edit. You adapt and revise for fit.

Back in the day, I learned most of what I know about sewing from my Italian grandmother. A fine seamstress and frustrated designer, she spent most of her professional life working in a garment factory in Newark. And she was a tough taskmaster. She had no compunction about handing a piece back to me, saying, “That's a bum job. Take it apart and start again.” Sometimes she would just silently hand me the seam ripper. Nothing seemed as daunting as starting over.Nothing seemed as painful as taking apart all my hard work.

During my search for an agent, many of whom passed on my first project "with regret," I could practically feel Nonna Mary at my elbow, looking over my shoulder and shaking her head. While my book was not exactly “a bum job,” it wasn’t a good fit. It needed to be picked apart, redesigned, and reworked. So I got to work. And got an agent as a result.

Since then, I've completed a second and third novel, and I'm currently at work on my fourth. It's in the first draft stages, so I'm beginning to piece the story together. So far, it's taking shape nicely. It feels like a fit. But I won't know for sure until it's tried on by my editor, who is very likely to send it back for alterations.

Let's just say I'll be keeping that seam ripper handy.



An earlier version of this post appeared on rosemarydibattista.com.

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, will be released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband, two of her three sons, and an ill-behaved fox terrier. Visit her at www.rosiegenova.com.

Writers' Etiquette: Lesson One

Dear Miss Rosie:
As an author of still unpublished literary works, I am appalled by the number of inferior books that are published and consumed by mass audiences. I would love to publish a long, angry blog post decrying the taste of contemporary readers and wondering aloud how a talent such as mine is unappreciated. May I?


Dear Not So Gentle Reader:

Only if you have a publishing Death Wish, my friend. While you are neither alone in your feelings nor in your observations about the reading market, they do not become you. And you are sadly misguided if you think to bolster your own work by denigrating the work of others. Particularly in a Public Forum.

But let us look more closely at your complaint. You see yourself as a Serious Writer, a person of Literary Tastes whose work is sadly hidden from public view. You look at other writers, perhaps those who work in Genre Fiction. You watch their works climb the venerated lists of the New York Times and you sniff and harrumph about the silliness of glittery vampires and rakish dukes and magical cats. Yet those same vampires, dukes, and cats are making their creators pots and pots of money, and that sticks in your craw like a bone from last night’s halibut.

For an example, let us consider Miss E.L. James. Miss James had an idea for a story that resonated with millions of women (and more than a few men). Miss James has sold millions of books and earned millions of dollars. And while this story is not to everyone’s taste, Miss James found Her Audience. Now, while Miss Rosie has her own opinions about Miss James’ stories, she keeps them to herself. And when Unscrupulous Gossips attempt to draw her into an E. L. James snark fest, she merely smiles and says, "But I so admire what she's achieved." Which, by the way, is quite true.

For if Miss Rosie were to mock Miss James, or turn up her splendid Sicilian nose at her books, what would it gain her? Would she garner more readers for her own Modest Efforts? Would she be any closer to the Venerated List? Would she see even one copper penny of Miss James’ prodigious pile of money?

She would not. She would instead be perceived as a writer of Resentful Temperament, one with whom agents, editors, and publishers would be loath to work, and one for whom other writers would hesitate to provide those lovely words of advance praise that decorate her covers.  (Miss Rosie bears in mind the lesson of another writer named James—Mr. Henry, who grumbled publicly about the fact that Miss Edith Wharton’s “popular fiction” earned much more money than his Ponderous Tomes. Mr. James, a writer of Serious Fiction, failed to see that his work, while brilliant, was not nearly as readable as dear Miss Wharton’s.)

So instead of feeling yourself ill-used and shouting it to the rafters, Miss Rosie suggests more productive pursuits. Read widely. Accept praise modestly. Be gracious about others’ success. Write the best book you are able, and perhaps you, too, will one day find Your Audience.

In the meantime, Not So Gentle Reader, behave yourself. Or Miss Rosie will find you.

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, will be released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband, two of her three sons, and an ill-behaved fox terrier.

The Organized Writer: Using a Chapter Framework to Manage Plots and Subplots

I should start by saying, first, I am not an organized writer. And that's part of the reason I'm writing this post. Until I started writing mysteries, I was a proud pantser who sorta/kinda organized plot events as she went along. But no more.

For one thing, mysteries need to be tightly plotted. For another, I'm contracted to turn in an outline many months in advance of a manuscript. And though the outline was helpful, it wasn't enough for me in terms of structuring my story. I needed an extra layer of organization that would help me flesh out and manage the main mystery plot, as well as the subplots. So I tried each of the following, sometimes in isolation, sometimes all together:

• sticky notes
• colored sticky notes
• index cards
• colored index cards
• writers' software 
• highlighting text in Word
• changing the color of my text in Word
• using an Excel spread sheet
• using the table function in Word
• using a large whiteboard with different color dry erase markers
• using a blotter-size desk calendar for the timeline
• making a flow chart of plot events

As you can imagine, my office is a pretty messy place. The index cards kept getting lost and the sticky notes wouldn't stay stuck. Excel, it turns out, will screw with you even more than Word, and I would end up getting confused by my own flow charts. (And I know that one of the QT bloggers uses writing software with great success, but her name is not Rosie.)

 So now I'm down to three main tools: the white board, which is invaluable in terms of scribbling ideas, re-ordering them, or just writing little notes to myself. The blotter size desk calendar serves well for a timeline; the blocks are large enough to write in, and personally, I need big visuals. But the board and the calendar, like my editorial outline, aid me in macro-plotting: where the story is going and how it's getting there. I think of those things as a map. It's the micro-plotting--exploring motivation and showing cause and effect, planting clues and red herrings, both to the mystery and to the personal life of my protagonist, and delineating the interior life of my main character--that I tend to get lost. So my third tool is the table function in Word, which I use to create a compass to go with the map:  

The table function in Word helps me track my main plot and subplots.

While working with Word can be less than rewarding for a writer, I do like the nifty table function. It's easy to use and manipulate. I set up a fairly simple chart for myself; the one pictured here is the one I'm using for my WIP, The Wedding Soup Murder. It uses a chapter breakdown in which I indicate place, time, date, and characters. I use red text for the main mystery plot, and other colors for the subplots. As I draft each chapter, I go back and fill in the chart. The chart, or my story compass, helps me stay on course in a number of ways.

For example, cozy mysteries move at a fairly quick pace. If I look back over my chart and see that the green, purple, and blue text is taking up more space than the red, I go back to the ms and ensure that the subplots aren't bogging down the main story. I can read straight down the red text and isolate the main plot from the subplots, to make sure the mystery arc is swift, tight, and logical without the distraction of my main character's love life. On the other side of things, I can choose a color and follow that subplot, but I can also see how it is threaded into the main story, chapter by chapter. The chart also helps me identify a missing element. My main character has two love interests; I indicate one in green text and the other in blue. When I looked over my chart I realized that the blue ink didn't show up until Chapter Six. Her second guy had gotten short shrift in the story, so now I am working on ways to introduce him sooner. One last reason to love the chart: it makes a nice break from composing. Filling in another chapter is rewarding, and provides evidence of my progress.

Whether we use sticky notes or fancy software, we all need to find our own way through our stories. What about you? What serves as your map? Your compass?

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, will be released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband, two of her three sons, and an ill-behaved fox terrier.