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~ The Cheater's Guide to ~
WRITING
EROTIC
ROMANCE
~
For Publication & Profit ~
With step by step
How-To instructions on:
Building Characters
Building a Plot
Writing Action Scenes
Writing Sex Scenes
There are lots
of Creative Writing books out there...
This isn't one of them.
The
difference between Fiction and Reality?
Fiction has to make Sense.
Praise
for: "The Cheater's
Guide to Writing Erotic Romance"
"If you can only buy one book on
writing, make it this one."
-- Deborah Brent --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Morgan Hawke is magic. She takes the art of writing
an exciting, readable, sellable novella to the bare
bones and makes the process not only understandable
but easy. This book should be read by anyone who has
ever written a book or even thought about writing a
book. [Personally,] I've been going great guns - sold
four long novels, a memoir and am contracted for two
novellas. Also, have been contracted to do part of a
college textbook on archaeological illustration - my
part is the history of AI before 1798. Not bad for someone
whose only achievement is a DHW with an HSD. (Dallas
House Wife with a High School Diploma!)"
-- Janus Susan May --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Professional writers will appreciate this no-nonsense
start to finish guide that makes writing erotic romance
as easy as paint by numbers."
-- Lena Austin --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
3 ~
Quick Character Creation
The Cheat-Technique
Active verses Passive
Active characters live, and breathe as
they walk and talk on the page. They interact with the
other characters and their environment. They make the
story happen.
Passive characters occupy page-space with
a ton and a half of internal narration while occasionally
donating dialogue. And that's about it.
Guess which kind of character you need
for an adventure-filled Erotic Romance?
To build an Active character that doesn't
occupy page-space with inactivity, PICTURE your character
as they move through your stories. VISUALIZATION is
ESSENTIAL for Active characterization. Do they sneer?
Sigh? Roll their eyes? Pout? Curl their lip? When they
walk, HOW do they walk? Do they use gestures and talk
with their hands? Too many books leave out these visual
cues to a character's personality.
But where do you find ideas for these
visual cues?
-- You STEAL them.
The easiest way to build an active character
is by 'borrowing' a successful character from somewhere
else; preferably the movies. By modeling your character
on one from a familiar movie, it's easy to imagine the
body language and expressions that needs to go into
your fiction.
-
From your favorite movies and stories…
Take every heroine that kicked butt and took names,
and there's your girl!
Take any hero you ever wanted to spend 'quality time'
with, and there you go.
Take any villain you ever loved to hate…
- Voila! Instant Story!
Just for the
record: I am NOT saying that you should
steal Copyrighted Characters! I am saying you should
model your Original characters on the characteristics
that make these characters so popular.
The trick is to change their names and
appearance enough to disguise them while leaving their
base character - and dialogue - intact!
Popular character
types I like to use:
- Trinity from The Matrix
- Keiffer Sutherland as David from The Lost Boys
- Johnny Depp from Sleepy Hollow
- Wolverine from The X-Men
- Sandra Bullock from Miss Congeniality
Examples
of Common Characters:
Logan or Wolverine
from The X-Men is a typical alpha
male, and an easy character to write. He's short-tempered
and sarcastic so you know that whatever he's going to
say will be snide and aggressive. However, he's a pudding
when it comes to his emotions, because he's repressed
them so tightly. His emotional dialogue only comes out
under stress, and then he is understanding and self-effacing,
if gruff. In addition, he immediately covers all his
emotional outbursts with a thick coating of more sarcasm.
(Anita Blake,
in the Laurell K. Hamilton's vampire executioner books,
is this type of character but female.)
Bruce Willis
typically plays an action hero. He's way
easy write because he says very little while using lots
of facial expressions to show what's going on in his
head. All you need for this kind of character is plenty
of description and the occasional zinging one-liner.
(Trinity from
The Matrix
and Selene from
Underworld
are also this type of character.)
Sandra Bullock
typically plays the ever-popular spunky heroine.
She's witty and sarcastic, but means well, and is easily
surprised. She is also more than willing to fight for
what she wants. Think about some of the TV & movie
heroines you've seen that are popular with the young
adult audience - they are all this type of heroine:
Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Phoebe on Charmed, the girl in Dawson's
Creek, Hermione in the
Harry Potter books & films.
I used Ms. Bullock as an example rather than one of
the other actresses because her body language is very
visible and easy to put into words.
(Johnny Depp
often plays a male version of this kind of character.)
No one needs to know whom you modeled
your characters from; if you have enough differences
in description and background they never will. They
haven't guessed any of my characters yet and I have
a stock set! Most characters change as you write them
anyway, becoming their own entity. The trick is to go
with the flow and let your characters progress as they
like, becoming their own individual selves.
Dialogue
- for Cheaters
Imagine your favorite movie character
or actor. Think about what they would do or say in your
plot situations. Picture that character as you write
and the dialogue should come pretty easily.
Cheat tip: To refresh yourself on how people
actually talk, spend some time eavesdropping in the
food court of your local mall.
***
As I'm sure you've guessed; there is MUCH
more to Character Creation then picking a pretty face.
Once you've chosen a model for your character, it's
time to figure out what makes that character tick…
~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
The Cheater's Guide to ~
WRITING
EROTIC ROMANCE
~ For Publication
& Profit ~
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