Anders gestel, verkies lesers ‘n verhaal wat net handel oor die ontwikkelende verhouding tussen die held en heldin of kan daar maar so ietsie meer by wees?

Gereelde lesers van Romanzas, Satyn, Jasmyn en soortgelyke reekse weet wat hulle kry sodra hulle die boek van die rak af neem. ‘n Kort liefdesverhaal waar die held en heldin op die einde, na vele emosionele storms, wel geluk vind in mekaar se arms. Dit is die kenmerke van die reekse en dit werk – soos bewys deur die gewildheid van die tipe liefdesromanses. Die hele fokus van die verhaal gaan oor die emosionele groei van die heldin, wat dikwels afspeel in ‘n fiktiewe milieu ver verwyderd van die alledaagse bestaan van meeste lesers.

Wanneer lesers ‘n dikker boek van die rak afhaal, verwag hulle ‘n verhaal (roman) wat meer gegrond is in die werklikheid. Aktuele sake word dikwels ook in die boeke aangespreek en die agtergrond waarteen die verhaal afspeel, reflekteer die alledaagse bestaan van die meeste mens in Suid – Afrika. Hierdie is nie noodwendig ‘n ontsnapping van die werklikheid nie, maar meer ‘n ontdekkingstog oor hoe die hoofkarakters groei en funksioneer in dit wat ons as lesers elke dag ervaar. Die ontwikkelende liefdes-tema is dikwels dan ook nie die hooftema van die boek nie.

Wat gebeur dus wanneer hierdie grense tussen die twee “genre’s” verdof en ’n verhaal nie volmaak pas in een van die twee kassies nie? Die verhaal is kort en fokus op die ontwikkelende verhouding tussen twee mense, maar daar is nog ’n storie – miskien ’n speurverhaal of misterie – wat ook die storie aandryf.

Eerstens gaan die skrywer sukkel om ’n uitgewer te oortuig dat hierdie boek bemarkbaar sal wees en tweedens is daar werklik nog te min van hierdie korter verhale op die mark om enigsins gesaghebbend vas te stel hoe die publiek sodanige publikasies sal ontvang. Dit blyk dus dat tot meer van hierdie tipe verhale gepubliseer is, dat skrywers hulle sal moet beperk tot een van die twee kategorië om publikasie van die verhaal te verseker.

Wat dink julle? Is daar ’n toekoms vir verhale wat genre grense ignoreer? Sal julle sulke boeke koop?

With every trade, there are tools and tips to help you perform better at your job. One of the most important tools a novel writer has today, is to regularly visit worthwhile blogs that offer more than just the personal lives of other authors. Blogs that teach you something about the trade is invaluable in today’s world.

Now, with the internet flooded with writing blogs, blogs about writing and writing tips, where do you begin?

First you need to join a writing group. Whether it is an online group or a local group. The importance of this is that there are a number of people seeking the same thing . . . to better their writing and hone their writing skills. Usually if someone finds an interesting article, they share it with the group. For me, this is how I happened across Kristen Lamb’s blog.

After joining the SA Romance Writers Group earlier this year, one of the members hosted a Skype work session on the structure of a novel. Everyone who joined the workshop took away a myriad of new (and some not so new, but forgotten) insights into how a novel is built. Hyped after the session, I started to look out for more reading material on the subject and viola, one of the members of the group happened upon Kristen Lamb’s Blog.

What a treasure! She ran a series of posts dealing specifically with the structure of a novel, but that is not all she teaches on the blog. (Although that should keep you busy for quite some time.) She offers insights into social media usage by authors, editing your novel and much much more. A sure-fire way to keep readers engaged is the offer of a critique of the first 5 pages (1250 –words) per week and a monthly price of hearing the “unvarnished truth” about the first 15 pages of your novel.

Besides a wonderfully informative blog, Kristen Lamb had written 2 books aimed at authors to assist in using social media to promote their work.:We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . I just downloaded both from Amazon.com and will let you know what my thoughts are on them. The reviews are awesome and I can’t wait to dig into them.

So, bottom line – if you want to keep up to date with your writing and learn tons from the internet – for free – then you need to visit Kristen Lamb’s Blog regularly.

Oh, by the way – there is no advantage for me in writing this post about her blog – she doesn’t even know I exist, but I just had to share what I found.

The Mills & Boone New Voices competition entered its final stage today. The four finalists have been announced and I have to say I am pleased about the choices that were made.

The finalists are:

Secrets and Seduction by Katie Graham

Seven Day Target by Natalie Charles

Beguiling the Enemy by Lindsay J Pryor

Honeymoon with a Stranger by Charlotte Phillips

From today readers can vote for their favourite again, but this time with the pivotal moment to guide them even further. This is exciting for the top four, but also for the readers. It is interesting to see what the editors were looking for with regard to voice, pacing and structure. Not reaching the top twenty one or not having your work selected for critique by the editors doesn’t prevent you from submitting to Mills & Boone via the slush pile and take your chances there.

But what do you do when you realize you don’t have the voice Mills & Boone requires? Do you stop writing? Absolutely not. There are other publishers willing to listen to your voice and while everyone writing romance dreams of being published by M&B, many don’t have the voice they are looking for. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a voice – just that your voice is different.

Romance and erotic romance publishers actively seeking submissions at this point are:

Entangled Publishing

Samhain Publishing

The Wild Rose Press

Another excellent resource for writers looking to submit their romance manuscript is The Passionate Pen. This site lists a number of publishers a romance writer may consider for their submissions.

All – in –all, writers have numerous options available to them and shouldn’t only consider one publisher to validate their work.

At the present moment there are 653 entries into the Mills & Boon New Voices competition and some of them are really excellent. How the judges are going to pick only twenty to progress to the second round, I don’t know. Some of my favourite entries are in no particular order:

Once Upon a Time by Romy Sommer

Coming Home by Catherine Coles

Overboard for the Tycoon by Robin Lynne

And those are just a few of the ones I read. I have to confess, I haven’t read all the entries as there are just too many of them, but I try to catch up with the new arrivals of the day. Seeing that last year the competition had more than 800 entries, I suspect there would be a last minute rush to get the entries in. We might only see the best ones for a couple of days before the judges make their final selection.

People are allowed to vote for the entrants by awarding a percentage to the entries. This is meaningless in the first stage of the competition as only the judges pick the 20 entries they feel have merit to advance to the second round. Only in the second round does the public get a say in who they like best.

So why bother giving a rating? Authors like and need feedback – even if it is negative. For me the purpose of posting a first chapter there is to get your work in front of an audience and in the process learn something from the criticism received. Although it is exciting to see a comment that someone liked the writing, most writers will rather have a proper evaluation of their work like one of the users, Ellie Richards did on Once Upon a Time above and two other stories. This is what makes writers feel someone actually took the time to read the entry properly and offer advice.

Speaking of advice, Mills & Boon treated their aspirant writers to a e book filled with tips on how to successfully write for them. Even if you are not a romance writer, the Mills & Boon Secrets Uncovered book offers valuable tips you can apply to all types of writing. The biggest advantage of the book is that it is absolutely free to download from Amazon.com and iTunes. You will most probably find it for download on other sites as well.

Lastly, I submitted my entry to the competition titled His Vet’s Choice and you are most welcome to read it by clicking the heart below. Like I said, I am not confident that it will move to the next round, but it is truly exciting to get comments and see that people actually read it.

As usual I only found out about the New Voices competition when the entries already opened. Sitting in two minds, I wonder if I should attempt an entry. I started the first chapter of the romance novel feeling positive – I wouldn’t need to do a second chapter now and I can finish the book during Nanowrimo this year.

Each day more entries are added (at the moment there are 285) and I become more reluctant to enter. How do I stand a chance against the excellent stories posted there? My self confidence is low, despite making a few sales on Amazon.com of my Afrikaans novel, and I just don’t know if my work can compete with the amount of astounding writers who posted their entries.

The entries from South African entrants are brilliant and deserve some voting. It really is a great opportunity offered by Mills & Boon to aspiring authors of the romance genre. So few big publishing houses go to the trouble to give new authors a platform to showcase their work. Although this is a competition and the chances of your entry reaching the top 20 chosen ones is slim, this is a chance to get your name out there – to let people know – “Hey, I exist and I can write!” I can’t think of a better way to get noticed – especially if your writing manages to charm a couple of people. I just don’t want to get noticed for the wrong reasons (like bad writing – what if everyone HATES my story?)

While reading through the entries I managed to find a romance writers association in South Africa, which I didn’t even know existed. Upon reading through their blog posts, I came across this entry by Lacey Devlin which made me sit up and notice – I AM NOT ALONE IN FEELING LIKE THIS. It is normal to have doubts as a writer and feel like you are not good enough. Wow, I’m feeling better about his already. If I don’t enter and hopefully get some feedback through the comments, I will never know if anyone will be interested in my writing. Instead of procrastinating by complaining and broadcasting my doubts to the world, I should be finishing that chapter.

But, I’m still scared. Terrified in fact. Maybe I will try though.