Imagine with your imagination

I know, cheesy title, silly really. What on earth is she gonna ramble about today, eh? Bear with me for a little while, you'll see what I'm getting at.

Yesterday, my six year old son must've been really bored out of his senses to come to my bedroom and plop himself down on the bed while I was blow-drying my hair. Usually one to talk the hind leg off a donkey, after a few minutes, he got bored again that we both had to shout over the noise of the hair dryer. So he did what every self-respecting little boy would do - look for something to do. Now, my room ain't exactly girly (remember I share it with the hubby, who's best described as a caveman of sorts) but it ain't exactly a little boy's heaven either. So there my little one goes, making tons of noise like the sound of a gunning engine, and with all things, a bottle of body lotion in his hands. As I usually do if he isn't breaking anything, I humor him, and ask, is that a car (he's obsessed by racing)? Little one rolls his big eyes and shakes his head (yeah, his mom's a hopeless basket case according to him!) and goes, it's a speedboat, Ma! Can't you see that's the engine and the propeller? And true enough, it was one of those pump bottles, the pump bit was turned in such a way that it really looked like the engine of a boat.

What I'm getting at is this - who'd have thought a pump bottle of lotion would make a great speedboat?

The answer is, imagination!

As a writer, it got me thinking then - where has our imagination gone? When you see the amount of templated work out there (which Sandy touched upon yesterday in her post), you wonder what happened to originality and twists and turns. It's as if writing, especially in the romance category, has gotten as cliche and as predictable as soapies. You always know in a soapie that the guy who loves this one is gonna marry someone else and this first love may try to break them up or they both pine for each other and blah blah blah. Same for romance with its rehashed stories.

But what's even worse, and that T.J. touched upon on Tuesday, is that there is no emotional drive behind the stories you get. Even if you lay your hands on a romance that is not loaded chock-full of mindless sex, you hardly ever have a plot and even more rare is good characterization.

Let's come to the mindless sex bit (sorry, this kinda sticks in my throat, and I know it's the case for many other unfortunate readers and writers of my acquaintance). Let's use our imagination, and let's use our common sense too.

So imagine you're a girl who's out in the big bad dating world. One of the big rules you would follow, as a sane and sensible person, is no sex on the first date. Why? You risk coming across as a cheap shag who has no respect for herself. How then do you expect a guy to respect you?

Makes sense, right?

So why then does the heroine of your book jump a guy's bones, not even on the first date, but within minutes of meeting him?

Okay, lust-driven attraction can happen, but it doesn't just happen bam, bang, boom out of nowhere. There's a buildup to this lust-driven state. So where is that in your story?

Another dating rule: don't shag everyone and everything. Come across otherwise as a no better than a brainless idiot who thinks with her libido. Now think of that girl you may know who shagged everyone and everything. Did you like her, respect her, want to know what happened to her? I'd bet on a big fat no!

So why then should we as readers like, respect, and want to know what happens to your heroine if she is like this?

Dating rule to never forget: a man who thinks with his crotch may be a good shag but he ain't ever worth it. Yes, he may have money, looks, a penthouse in the hippest part of town, drives fast and expensive cars, wears hand-stitched suits and shoes. So what? He shags you, shags the girl at work, the woman who hit on him in the wine bar, the woman he met in the elevator, basically he shags everything that catches the attention of his groin!

That's supposed to be a hero? We're supposed to cheer for him?

Oh, I forgot - the heroine is the one who's gonna change him and make him monogamous, right? How will she do this? By sending him into andropause thirty years before he's due to hit it?

Think, and use some common sense first and then lead that on with your imagination.

I don't say sex cannot be integrated in a romance, or in any other story for that matter. Take a very good example and you'll see what I'm getting at. Basic Instinct. Michael Douglas as tough cop. Sharon Stone as wicked temptress. Everyone will agree that movie is chock-full of sex and sexual innuendo (the interrogation scene, holy cow!). But, but, but - is the movie a string of mindless sex scenes? No! Why? Because the characters are involved, they're building up the tension, taking you along with them along that feverish, rising pitch of lust, emotion, and denial. In some places, you can cut the tension with a knife, and nothing more than a long, steady look is taking place between the protagonists.

Basic Instinct is hot, sexy, sultry. No one can say that isn't an erotic-inclined movie. But was it cheap? No! Was it hare-brained? No! Did it make sense? A resounding Yes!!

Why? Because there was thought, emotion, involvement, imagination that were all used in equal measure in that story.

Where has the imagination of writers gone then today? Into the gutter?

I'd love to know what you think.

As always, any questions, just holler!

Aasiyah Qamar - Cultural Romantic Fiction, With a Twist
Coming out October 2 - Light My World - Eirelander Publishing
Nolwynn Ardennes - The Promise of Fulfilment
Coming out January 8, 2010 - Storms in a Shot Glass - Eirelander Publishing
Coming out July 2, 2010 - Walking on the Edge - Eirelander Publishing

Aasiyah Qamar/Nolwynn Ardennes - Romance the world over
http://www.aasiyah-nolwynn.webs.com/

What Gets Me Interested in a Story?

It’s so much easier to tell you what doesn’t interest me in a story. The characters can draw me into the story but to keep me there the pacing better be fast forward much of the time. I don’t like huge amounts of setting and description just enough that I can picture the scene and see the characters.

Another thing I don’t like is pages of introspection. Thoughts can be boring unless it pertains to what is going on in the story. Something else I detest is reading about gratuitous sex. It’s boring, and I’ll skim through the scene so fast your head would spin. If the scene requires a love scene, then I’m all for it and if it’s a good one I’ll read it.

Something else I don’t like is the same old plot. How many times do you want to read about runaway brides, women with babies their spouses, boyfriends, etc., don’t know about, navy seals and on and on. What is wrong with writers? They read a story they like about a hero/heroine and they decide to write the same story with the very same characters. After a while it gets boring. Please come up with something new.

For instance, why can’t the hero be a soldier, sailor, marine, or someone ordinary instead of a navy seal, special ops, CIA, FBI, or mercenary? I have to admit here that I’ve done the very same thing, but the ordinary men and women in our military are brave heroes, too. It is only right to portray them as such instead of ignore them for what we think are more high profile characters.

Okay, I am going to get to what I want in a story. I want to read something with meat and potatoes to it. First, I want a hook, and I want emotion. This requires real depth to the characters and to the plot. I want to live what those characters are living and I want the plot to be believable. I want to care about those characters.

A story is good if it gives me something to think about, makes me keep reading until it is finished, and then stays in my mind for weeks, months and years. I remember the premise of a story I read years ago, but I don’t remember the title of the book. It was about survival, the people lived below ground because the air above was tainted, but there were those who survived above ground. They wanted to go underground, but the ones who were already there wouldn’t allow them to come down because they were contaminated. This could have been a movie, too, but whatever it was it always stuck with me.

The story had a great beginning (hook) and it only grew from there as there was fighting between the two groups. The conflict started immediately, it intensified and with a plausible plot that could happen in real life the story held my attention to the end. There was even a love story.

Tell me what you want in a book.

Sandy
http://www.skaymarshall.com