Category Archives: -Wendi Knape

Soft, Hard, Harder

When you think romance novel, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Sex, right?

Now don’t get distracted visualizing.

As the title suggests, sex scenes come in different levels. They can even lean toward a softer side, the more graphic content eliminated. Each has their place in the pages you write. So let’s look at intensity, and what you might bring to your manuscripts; which I’ve learned from reading romance, research and (brows bouncing) experience.

Most writers have a preference and style to their sex scenes, depending on their genre. When I first started reading romance novels my go to author was Nora Roberts. If you’re a fan, she has a way of making us care about characters quickly and deeply. When her stories progress and hero and heroine are intimate, Ms. Roberts blankets us in a warmth, a caress, or a look using words that elude to what’s happening as main characters wrap themselves in each other. She skips over minute details that would be too graphic. Obviously, you know there’s nudity at some point, but she presents it in a way your grandmother who gets offended by a Victoria’s Secret commercials wouldn’t have a heart attack if she read the scene. On the other hand, she sometimes ramps up the intensity depending on the characters nature.

In Lori Foster’s, Men Who Walk the Edge of Honor series, scenes are a little steamier. The alpha males are intense in physique, mannerisms, and sexuality. Foster’s novels add descriptive instances adding more depth in sex scenes, baring more skin and, more heat than a PG-13 movie. When writing a sex scene use adverbs with more grit and aggression to get up close and personal with the sexy action verbs. This allows readers imaginations to overtake them making a cold shower or a romp with a significant other sound like a good idea. Be careful though, you don’t want to overuse adverbs. If you read any of the romance novels or series I’ve mentioned, in this or previous blogs, you’ll notice that the authors I’ve referenced use adverbs as little as possible. You want to show not tell. Look at this sentence. “Jacob was wildly out of control, as he took Charlotte.” Instead, omit “wildly” and describe what’s happening. “Jake was out of control. With no thought of time or place, he ripped open Charlotte’s shirt and pressed fully against her, desperate to feel her heated skin. His fingers wove through her hair and held tight as he yanked her head back and devoured her lips like he would go mad if he didn’t have her.” I think you can see how using just the word, wildly limits your creativity.

The next stop on the sexy train is Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. Most romance readers know what I’m talking about, even the common lay person. Erotic romance novels like this have been taboo a long time and for good reason. Words on the page are stronger, harsher and can be offensive to readers who aren’t used to the subject matter. Some instances delve into BDSM and D/s (Dominance and submission). The details are so specific there’s nothing left to the readers imagination or in the least are so taboo they make readers uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the draw to the genre increases. Due to the stir that Fifty Shades caused, publishing houses are creating PG-13 covers drawing in broader spectrums of readers that won’t fear reading the hard core romance novel at their local Starbucks or in a doctor’s waiting room.

If we delve a little deeper into the examples above and look at the plethora of other romance novels out there, the sex scene is character driven; not solely on the page for sex’s sake. If you write an insipid man your female lead doesn’t enjoy being with, do you make the male character strong and commanding in the bedroom or a plain old missionary style man that she compares to a wet noodle? Pair violence with sex plus your main character, a scene becomes a catalyst vital to a protagonist’s character. The reader has to understand what kind of man is infringing on your heroines well being. The HEA (happily ever after) the reader expects has been turned upside down, creating conflict that tears at your heart and leaves readers wondering if the hero will scale the highest mountain to reach his soul mate, even if that mountain is an emotional jungle that resides in the heroines mind.

Your sex scenes are about the story you’re trying build. Use sex as an integral part moving the story forward. If you want to be soft, hard, or harder, if you need to express characters intensions, pick your words carefully. Ignore limits. Don’t be afraid to write what’s taboo either. If you’ve never written a sex scene, the first time is always the most nerve wracking.

On my website, Writers Canvas on May 10, I’ll introduce you to Jacob and Charlotte, so you can see how they meet. On May 17, 24^th, and 31^stI’ll show you the different levels of sexual content using Jake and Charlotte as their relationship grows. In the meantime, you can see why I feel, that just because something is classified erotica doesn’t mean it’s all about the sex, in my August 4^th, 2013 entry.

Happy Writing!

Paranormal Traits

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A trait is a distinguishing characteristic or quality, especially of one’s personal nature, defined by Dictionary.com. When using traits with a paranormal twist you can go with classic takes, such as mind to mind communication that Bram Stoker uses in Dracula and, one of the most common vampire traits, the elongated fangs. Stoker takes Dracula’s desire to speak to Mina enhancing it into a physical experience in mind and body transcending all logic, creating intimacy where there was none.

Taking things a step further, let’s look at the Argeneau Series by Lynsay Sands. The mind to mind communication in Sands vampires (Immortals as she calls them) becomes sexually charged as the heroes and heroines learn they are life mates. They share each other’s pleasure to a point their intimacy boils to such a peak they pass out, anywhere. She’s created a situation where she uses all the five senses, smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch. However, what happens goes beyond the physical and becomes a sharing between the two characters on a mental level. With humans, to the extent she explains, this would not be possible in real life. This adds something to her vampires that no one had ever seen yet in the genre.

Conflict develops when the no-fangers, vampires without fangs come on the scene. Let’s just say, they’re a tad bit crazy. To make it even more fun she adds a third type without fangs called edentates, another generation not touched by the crazies. She goes into detail about the three distinctions adding history to the series and to her characters. These are some of the steamiest, funniest, and scariest scenes I’ve ever read. Lynsay Sands uses the physical trait to drive the plot arc in several of her books, motivating good and evil in a race to meet their goals.

My favorite character trait is smell. With most predators, smell is a basic tool in their repertoire. J.R. Ward uses the trait brilliantly in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Introduced first in Dark Lover, Wrath and Beth meet, and at first, Wrath is lead to her by duty. However, when he gets near her, her scent is so intoxicating he has to have her. Eventually Beth can’t resist him either. His scent is headier than a spicy merlot laden with pheromones. He’s like a drug and she’s drawn to him in every way. As intimacy grows, the musky scent cloaks the chosen mate of the vampire, warning any other males or females to back off. With this one trait, J.R. Ward creates some sexy heart pounding moments in and out of the bedroom.

Werewolves, another classic paranormal creature, can also compel readers with the use of unique traits. For example, take a snap shot of the wolf in its normal habitat and find traits that translate into the human hero or heroine. Nalini Singh does this in her Psy/Changeling series. Ask yourself, how does a male wolf act/react to a female wolf? Outside forces threaten the female, how would the alpha wolf handle the threat? Immerse yourself in the five senses of a wolf. What would he do around a female to show his interest? Would he rub, lick, or bite the female to mark her with his scent? Even the words rub, lick, and bite spice up a scene, heating up the romance between human characters. How would it enhance a paranormal romance? Would he use sound, his howl to attract a female or scare away an enemy, let someone know he was hurt? How do these questions translate from wolf to human characters? Does the alpha male fight other males to stake his claim of the female? Is the human hearing extra sensitive alongside sight, smell, taste, and touch?

My examples above of vampires and werewolves are not the only human traits to translate into paranormal characters; the two are just more widely recognized. You decide what traits work best for your characters helping create intensity, intimacy, and excitement that ramp up your plot, compelling readers to turn pages. Use the five senses and physical traits to open doors in your mind. But be careful. The traits you decide on have to have purpose that drive the story forward, twisting the normal into paranormal.

Happy Writing!

Paranormal a Ghost Story

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As I was sitting at Starbucks writing one morning, a man sitting next to me asked what I was writing. I answered Paranormal Romance. He responded, “Oh! You’re writing a ghost story.” I smiled and told him that paranormal these days didn’t necessarily mean a ghost story. I explained I was writing a vampire romance. We went on to discuss a bit more about my manuscript and then I went back to writing.

When I think about that short conversation, it makes me ponder all the ways people might construe the word paranormal; how paranormal romance often is categorized in the fantasy section of the bookstore, so I looked up the definition of paranormal. Dictionary.com defines the word.

Paranormal: of or pertaining to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena.

Ghost stories are definitely under the paranormal heading but so are many others. When you look at the second to last word of the definition, supernatural, the manifestation of a paranormal romance can move your imagination in many directions. There are vampire stories, which have saturated the industry (J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, which was developed into HBO’s True Blood, just to name a couple), to zombies, gods, faeries, witches and werewolves. The list could go on and on.

In my blog, Normal Becomes Paranormal, on Feb. 10th, I chose things in everyday life like the tree and the knife and made them something more as I developed my paranormal idea. In Gina Lamm’s Geek Girls series, an antique bureau literally pulls the unsuspecting heroine–or suspecting, depending on which book you read—to another time. This is a prime example of ‘without scientific explanation’. The heroines in the series couldn’t possibly function in the past, losing all their creature comforts, right? They do though, with the help of very sexy alpha males. Voila! The paranormal aspect is a simple time machine but the complications that it causes for the heroes and heroines make for a more dynamic romance as conflicts surmount.

A fresh take on paranormal romance that I’ve enjoyed in recent years is the Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones. In First Grave on the Right, first in print in 2011, you learn her main character, Charley Davidson, is the grim reaper and her love interest isn’t your typical bad boy. Ooowee! Talk about a complicated relationship (I’m fanning myself just thinking about him). I can’t go into detail because it would spoil the story arc, so if you’re new to the author make sure you find a copy so you can devour all the excitement Darynda Jones packs onto each page. The story is rich with coffee obsession, laced with the not so typical t-shirt quote along with lots of steamy-hot-guy-going-on whenever Charley and her bad boy meet. There are also those pesky complications I mention, making a well rounded story, in a contemporary setting.

When you as the writer think about developing a new paranormal romance your ideas can go any direction you want. I know, I know, how can you possibly write an original vampire novel, you ask? Well the only way to answer that question is to see what’s already in print. What I would recommend is to read as many books as you can with similar characters; vampires, witches, and werewolves, etc. Find out what you like and dislike about the books and make your idea better. It’s not going to be an easy task but you can bring your own unique writing style to your story. Just keep jotting down ideas until you find the one that unfolds into something special.

Happy writing!

Normal Becomes Paranormal

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Paranormal romance ideas can spark from many places and ignite into something wondrous. You as the writer can light that flame of imagination and let it grow into a wildfire. From the simplest things like a key or even a pen, ideas can flourish from ordinary into something amazing.

An example of an everyday item turning into something extraordinary is the use of a book. In Jennifer Probst’s, Marriage to a Billionaire series she uses a book entitled The Book of Spells. Jennifer has her female heroines write the same list with the most important attributes of their ideal man on two pieces of paper. They’re directed to put one copy under their mattress while the other is burned. As the stories progress characters are astounded the magic book gives them their happily ever after. Isn’t that what all romances try to do? We’re just trying to add that one little twist of magic or something extraordinary that would make it paranormal.

Let’s do a little writing exercise. Look around you, on your desk or out your window. What do you see? I see a tree out my window and a knife on my desk.

Ask yourself, what would happen if the two things you chose somehow influenced or have a direct affect on the objects you’ve chosen or the people that encounter them? Once you pick the two items write what comes to your mind regarding the items. It could be a word, words, phrases, anything. It doesn’t matter what they are at this point but how they can become something else to the characters that would be developed around them. Use the old standby of who, what, why, where and when. After you do this, narrow your choices down to your favorites.

The below is a result of my choices and adding magical elements to the everyday.

A wide eyed little girl that only wants love etches a heart into a weathered maple tree in front of her house with her initials and the initials of the boy next door. What if the blade she uses isn’t an ordinary blade (one she’s found in a box buried in her attic) and the tree is no ordinary tree? What if the knife is really an Athame (a knife used in Wiccan ceremonies), and the tree turns out to be an ancient tree and the objects are imbibed with magic from generations of little girls finding their happily ever after because they carved their initials of the one they loved into the tree with the sacred knife? Now, the knife the little girl thought was ordinary when she found it and the ancient tree are something that drives the story of that little girl into adulthood.

Driven away by the bitterness of her mother’s hidden contempt for her family’s tradition of carving in the tree, the daughter only returns to her childhood home because an intruder has killed her mother. As she uncovers more of her family’s secrets in the attic, her life becomes threatened and the boy next door, now a man and cop, reenters her life.

What I’ve done is create a thread of content that causes the main character to delve into her families past, which leads to her Wiccan heritage and the threat that someone wants the Athame. This puts the hero in place to help the heroine, creates tension from the added protagonist (the intruder) and adds magic. Most importantly, it allows the love between the two to kindle that the heroine has been dreaming about since she was a little girl who carved their initials in the ancient tree.

Obviously, this is not the whole story but the spark I talked about earlier. If you can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary, you have what you need for a good start, making that bit of flame into a blazing fire as the story heats up, giving the reader the happily ever after.