It's read an eBook week and to celebrate I've made number of my books free at Smashwords, including a rare opportunity to download my Little of Book of Writing Romance.with a click that will cost you nothing.

Here's the link so don't delay - grab them for your reader! 

Writing Romance: The Crucible

Crucible: A vessel, usually of earthenware, made to endure great heat, used for fusing metal; a melting pot; fig, used for any severe test or trial.

 

When writing series romance which is mostly around 50,000 words, there is very little spare wordage for sub-plots and secondary characters. The focus is totally on the hero and heroine. In real life, people who aren’t living together tend not to spend that much time together. Even when they are living together they will be apart all day, doing their own thing in the evening (even if it’s only the ironing) and at the weekend. Life is, let’s be honest, mostly just getting through the week. 

Life in the romance novel cannot be like that. It will start at a moment of crisis. A point at which the lives of your hero and heroine are about to change forever. It can be as simple as getting lost, delayed or doing a good deed that gets our heroine into hot water. If you’ve read The Billionaire Takes a Bride, you’ll know how easily that can get out of hand! Or, as in my latest Harlequin Romance, Her Pregnancy Bombshell, it will be the moment is when the stick turns blue.

Whatever happens next should throw the hero and heroine together, confined by a place, or a situation from which they cannot walk away. Their crucible; the place where their feelings are put to the test. 

They do not have to live in the same place or even be in the same country for the crucible to hold them together. In The Bachelor's Baby it took nine months of struggling against the whole idea of being a father for my hero to get it. They never lived together, were mostly miles apart, but the progressing pregnancy acted as the crucible. It was in the hero's head, he was thinking about it 24/7. Doing things for the heroine so that he wouldn't have to be there and all the while she was subverting his efforts, telling him go away, that she could handle it. (That one was nominated for a Rita!) For almost every minute of the book they were either together or thinking about one another. If they are apart for too long have one of them send an unexpected text, or phone all.

Look at those two covers. They tell you what the readers wants. The hero and heroine are together, close and that's the point. The total connection. I've read manuscripts where the hero and heroine barely talk to each other let alone spend time together or think about each other. There was one where the hero's golf clubs got more attention from the hero (and page time) than the heroine.

Your plot will dictate the crucible. 

For a “dating the boss” scenario, you have the office. A crisis, not necessarily for the company, the boss's domestic crisis can be just as useful, can throw the hero and heroine together, Enemies or partners in an effort to stave off disaster are equally good - just as long as the feelings are passionate. An overseas trip can throw the  hero and heroine together intimately in a situation where, with the desk is no longer between them, they will see one another in a whole new light.

The storm is a classic. Cut off, stranded, by the weather offers a great crucible but always remember that it’s the reason why your hero and heroine are confined in a mountain while a blizzard rages around them that is important. The storm is just the soundtrack to the drama being played out within the hut. Concentrate on why the heroine is desperate to get somewhere when a white out closes in and she has to take shelter. Why she ignored the weather warning. And why the hero is there. He has a story, too.

The jungle, desert, or stranded on an island works just as well. It’s the hardship, the need to work together (especially if they dislike one another) that brings them together.

A journey across country.  Shut up in a car with someone you hate, or like too much when he doesn't return your feelings. Does he know or is he oblivious?

A cause (keep it something local, something fictitious, not your cause) where they are on opposite sides rouses passion, keeps them on one another's mind. The relationship can be anything, the man/woman who dumped them, an embarrassing schoolgirl crush that he teases her about, posh girl/poor boy made good. Something personal to lend an edge to the fight over a development. 

The important thing to remember is that the crucible is what holds them together, it's the emotion, the passion, that makes a story.

Next time, the vital opening.

Don't forget that my Little Book of Writing Romance is available to download from all outlets and it's also available in paperback is you like to highlight stuff or make notes. (If you buy the paperback from Amazon you will also get a download.) There are links to all outlets in the sidebar..

 

Writing Romance: 5 Tropes That Readers Love

I'm starting an irregular column on writing romance. It helps if you know what the reader most enjoys. Obviously there's room for the new but if you're approaching an established publisher it's always a good idea to begin with something they know will sell so I'm beginning with a rundwon of  popular tropes.

The Marriage of Convenience

Yes, even in this day and age when single mothers are no longer stoned in the street, it’s still possible to write this fan favourite trope.

Money is a good reason. Tricky Wills give you a lot of scope.  Okay, you can challenge them, but in the mean time you might be left homeless. Or you might discover that the inheritance you thought was safely in the bag is mortgaged up the hilt. The unexpected pregnancy after a night with someone you’ve only just met – or have known forever but as a friend, is still a useful one. Social pressures are still there, or guilt, or maybe the guy plans to do his duty, just being there, providing support and ends up falling in love. Of course you have to come up with a good reason why they ended up in bed together. That’s the fun bit!

The Sheikh Romance

Ever since E M Hull wrote the iconic “The Sheikh” they have sold like hotcakes. The first thing to realise about a sheikh romance, is that it is a total fantasy and has nothing to do with reality. The sheikh has everything. He is in total command of his environment, has unimaginable power and wealth. He also has the kind of respect for family, a sense of honour, that can leave him in some really tricky situations. Lots of scope for marriage of convenience here; if the woman is in danger, if he has some heartfelt reason for not marrying the woman his family has chosen for him. If you struggle seeing him as a hero, a former publishing director of Mills and Boon once described him to me as “a cowboy wearing a different hat”.  Same thousand yard gaze. Same deep seated honour.

 

Nine to Five

The workplace romance should be tricky in this PC/Human Resources dominated age but it’s is still a much-loved trope. Unlike the sheikh romance, this is something much closer to home, familiar. Most of us will have worked somewhere – office, store, factory – at some point in our lives.  These days, of course, it doesn’t have to be the powerful boss and the woman he doesn’t notice until some crisis occurs and he needs her to play his fiancée. There’s plenty of room to play out a scenario between equals, a boardroom battle that only one of them can win. So much more interesting.

Christmas 
 Oh now, this is always fun. You not only have two people trying very hard not to fall into bed with each other but you have it with baubles, fairy lights, Santa Claus and snow. You can dress your characters in embarrassingly silly costumes, dump two feet of snow on them and cut off the electricity, strand the Grinch and the Sugar Plum Fairy in a place from which there is no escape (it doesn’t have to be snow!) Mayhem or magic, they go down a treat.

The Mediterranean hero

Passionate, sexy, with his dark good-looks, the Mediterranean billionaire — Greek, Italian, Spanish or Italian — is the staple hero of romance.

He is very nearly as much a fantasy as the sheikh. You can throw in a palazzo overlooking the sea, helicopters, yachts, private jets, private islands and sex. Lots of sex.

That's it for now. I should probably have added babies to the list. There is nothing like a cute baby on the cover to set the cash tills ringing, but they have to be tiny (no toddlers or teenagers - they distract from the hero and heroine's story).

Look at the books being published, what tropes call you? Writing what you enjoy is always the best way to start.

Next time I'll talk about the "crucible".

Happy writing.

***

Liz Fielding's Little Book of Writing Romance is available to download from iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.

Release day!

It's here!

Melting Mr Frosty's Heart is about to go live and I couldn't be more excited.

I've been wanting to give Ria and Graeme a story ever since Anything But Vanilla was published (still available as an ebook) and finally it's here.

It is a short story but a longish one well worth the 99p/99c which is the minimum Amazon and iBooks allows me to charge. Less than I pay for my morning paper - and much less than a cup of coffee - so this is the moment for those of you who have enjoyed my ice cream girls to one-click.

And if you enjoy it, I would be so grateful if you'd leave a review if Amazon gives you a prompt. :)

Click now and it will be on your favoured device ready to read with your morning coffee/commute tomorrow morning. Here are the links -

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon Australia

iBooks US
iBooks Australia
iBooks UK

Barnes and Noble
 
Kobo

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When an immovable object meets a girl on a mission...

This is just such a lovely surprise!

I had no idea that A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge was going to be republished in Australia in April.

I was looking for a link to the  March ebook release of His Personal Agenda and saw this gorgeous cover. Wow... just wow. Thank you Mills and Boon Australia!

This is the follow up to the best-selling The Bride's Baby. Josie was Sylvie's assistant and had a very small part in that book but some characters just leap off the page and the minute she threw her feet over the arm of the office sofa I knew she would have a book of her own.

Now promoted to partner and running the business while Sylvie is on maternity leave she's struggling but when,  out of the blue ishe's given the chance of a lifetime, she is determined to repay Sylvie's faith in her. Unfortunately, in Gideon McGrath, she meets the immovable object. And he's in the bridal suite...

Here's the blurb -

Events planner Josie Fowler has scooped the wildest celebrity wedding of the year in a luxury lodge hotel in Botswana! She’s surrounded by prowling leopards and crocodile-filled rivers, but more dangerous to her sanity is the resort owner — enigmatic entrepreneur Gideon McGrath.

As Josie wrestles with taffeta and table plans, Gideon’s take-charge approach is getting in her way — and his sexy smile is getting under her skin...

You'll find all the buy links HERE

Harlequin Junkies

It's Monday, it's freezing and I'm going to the dentist this morning, but it's not all bad news.

I'm guesting over at Harlequin Junkies today and giving away a copy of OLD DESIRES. Pop by and leave a comment for the chance to win.

Time to focus...

That's it. The fun and festivities are all over for another year. My "vintage" books have been launched with a big fanfare of freebies (I hope you managed to grab them while they were going - A Stranger's Kiss is still at 99c)  and it's time to get back to work and focus on the job in hand.

The big news is the launch of the brand new KISS series in the US next month. My first book will be ANYTHING BUT VANILLA, the second of my "ice cream" books. More about that when I have a cover to show you.

Right now, I'm giving my all to Natasha, my sassy, sparky heroine of my new book. When an error at work leaves her out of a job (and unemployable) she has to prove herself all over again, and convince the reclusive Darius Hadley to give her a chance to put the damage right.

Meanwhile, it's time for resolutions and mine is to get more pages written, which may mean a little less time spend messing about on social media - lovely though that is. If I don't get the pages written, there will be nothing for me to chat about. :( What about you? What are your writing ambitions this year? Tell me about your project - I have an ebook download of Liz Fielding's Little Book of Writing Romance and I'll put all your names in a hat and draw a winner next Saturday (5th January).

Happy New Year...

Thank you for the fun and friendship during 2012 - 

With love

Liz

Christmas is coming...

WINNER! Janet has won Michelle Douglas's The Nanny Who Saved Christmas. Get in touch, Janet and we'll get the book to you! 

Christmas is getting out of hand. My grocery order is now going to need a supermarket truck of its own. There is a pile of pressies on the dining room table for the grandbabies waiting to wrapped. The sun has taken the week off so my solar lights are not doing very much at all and I forgot to order to wholegrain mustard. Again.

But the decs are up, the tree is twinkling festively, the carol singers are on their rounds tonight and tomorrow - I hope the rain lets up for them - and I've finally found my electric can opener. (Moving home takes longer than you would think!)

Now if I can think of some exciting little extra to pop under the tree for the s-i-l (one of the world's least acquisitive souls) my work here will be done.

Meanwhile, here are some announcements.

First, thank you all so much for making the launch of Old Desires such a success. Thanks to all your blogging, reviews, tweets and FB support, it went zinging into the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic and even made a bit of an impression in Europe, where eBooks are still rarer than hen's teeth.

I hope you all managed to download it free, but it's still a steal.

At the moment there's a daily Under the Christmas Tree feature on the Harlequin Romance Author's blog, which is worth a look, if only to wonder at Shirley Jump's 12 ft tree. Of course there are books to be won!

There's Lucky Love a new "Love" book from Nicola Marsh for those of you who fell in love with Crazy Love earlier this year.


Sadly, the Riva series hit a bump in the road  and The Last Woman He'd Ever Date never got it's scheduled paper release in the UK, but the New Year will bring the launch of KISS in the US, which is where you'll find Anything But Vanilla in May. Have you downloaded Mira Lyn Kelly's Waking Up Married? It's free, but only available in the US, sadly. PW raved about it.

I don't have any more guests before Christmas, but there will be one last not-to-be-missed gift for you all as the year ends and 2013 rings in. It'll be here for you to pick up on 28 December so make a note in your diary. You won't want to miss it.

Oh, and if writing romance is on your list of New Year resolutions, don't forget to put a copy of Liz Fielding Little Book of Writing Romance on your Christmas list.

100K

I've been watch my Blogger stats lately and they've been creeping up to the 100K visits and I thought that was something to celebrate. I imagined it would happen late this month and I'd planned to make a fuss and say what a great journey it's been and how many great people I've built up a cyber friendship over that time.

Then this morning I looked for the first time in a week (I'm still trying to figure out why there was a huge spike in visits on the 2nd November when I hadn't posted for several days) and bam - the number passed unnoticed plus 500 or so.

It's like missing your birthday or something. I didn't have fireworks, or cake, or champagne or even a bar of chocolate.

What I have had is a lot of fun. Dozens and dozens of fabulous guests. Connections across the globe with readers, writers, a lot of people who - like me - mistyped Chritmas and ended up on my blog by mistake. I do hope some of them stayed for a minute or two.

A blog is a bit like a diary. Here are 800+ posts about my life as a writer over - well, I can't actually remember when I actually started blogging but I was an early adopter so it must have been quite some time ago. The stats page doesn't tell me (unless I go back to the first post and really life is too short).  It was a slow build up and I haven't always been great at keeping the blog fresh. I think my very earliest version - set up for me by Sunday Times bestselling author Portia da Costa on a previous version of my website, was updated about once a month.

Things have changed. These days a writer without a blog is like...

You fill in the blank and I'll dish out copies of one of my new eBooks - Eloping With Emmy or A Stranger's Kiss or Liz Fielding's Little Book of Writing Romance or, if you can wait a week or two, Old Desires and Dangerous Flirtation.

Because that's another thing I couldn't have imagined when I started writing this blog - that I'd regain control of some of my earlier books and be able to republish them myself.

Thanks for all the fun, all the laughs, all the stories, all the support. Here's to the next 100K!

A Room of One's Own...

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. "
Virginia Woolf

I'm not sure that's true today. I'm not sure if it was ever true. Mrs Gaskell, I understand, wrote on the corner of the dining room table - something I've done myself on many occasions. My first "office" was a very moveable space that shifted in response to the needs of the family.

That all changed when we built a writing cottage the bottom of the garden in Wales. But I shared that, too, with the best beloved and his cameras and his computers.

In our new home in Wiltshire, the top floor has two lovely rooms. One for him and one for me. Mine is beginning to shape up into a proper writing space. I now have a big table for my computer, a small table for the dictionary I can't lift. The cupboard I brought with me, that holds my stationery. And now it has bookshelves.

The best beloved excelled himself yesterday, with drill and saw and screwdriver and I now have 48' of space on which to place all those copies of my books that had been living in boxes for weeks. All my research and reference books.

There's space for the iPod thingie that the BB gave me (and the iPod when we find it!) And my Ritas are no longer being used as doorstops but are sitting front and centre, looking very shiny after a polish.

The bottom shelf is for ringbinders. The boring ones, full of tax records, receipts, business stuff. And the exciting ones filled with possibilities. Photographs, newspaper and magazines articles, stories that are waiting for me to have time to give them their day. Files stuffed with ideas.  (I'd take pictures, but the camera is two flights down!)

A room of one's own may not be essential, but it is a delight.

NEW TALENT AWARD

NEW TALENT AWARD AIMS TO UNCOVER FUTURE STARS

The Festival of Romance is delighted to announce that the New Talent Award will run again this year. The industry judges are Georgina Hawtrey-Woore senior editor at Cornerstones, Random House and Diane Banks, literary agent at the Diane Banks Associates Literary Agency.

The Festival of Romance New Talent Award aims to cast a spotlight on the authors of tomorrow and is open to all writers who have not yet had a book commercially published. Writers may submit the opening chapter (up to 3,500 words) of a romantic novel of any type by 30^th September 2012. The winner and runners-up will be announced and presented with trophies at the gala Festival of Romance Awards on Friday 16^th November 2012. There is a small entry fee to cover the award administration. Entrants may also gain a critique of their entry written by a professional novelist.

“As part of the Festival of Romance we want to help new writers with talent get their break into the commercial fiction world,” says Kate Allan, chief romantic at the Festival of Romance. “At the Festival of Romance in November we are running writing workshops, an industry conference and chance to meet publishers face to face as well as the New Talent Award. I'm delighted that Georgina Hawtrey-Woore and Diane Banks have agreed to judge this year's entries.”

Winner of the 2011 New Talent Award Henriette Gyland subsequently garnered a book deal from publishers Choc Lit. Her debut novel Up Close will be published in December 2012.

For more details about how to enter the New Talent Award please see www.festivalofromance.co.uk

If you need help with your own writing, there are some tips on Elaine Pillay's blog today, along with a chance to win my Little Book of Writing Romance!  

Celebrating Kate Hardy's 50th book...

I'm over at Kate Hardy's blog today joining in the party to celebrate the release of her 50th book,  The Hidden Heart of Rico Rossi.

Do come and say hello to Kate and maybe win a copy of
Eloping With Emmy for your ereader.

In fact put her on your auto-visit blog because we're all lining up to cheer one of the most popular (and busy) authors in the Mills and Boon family. There will be books galore to win from authors all over the world.

Happy 50th Kate!

Sophie Rodger

As details of this years Mills and Boon New Voices competition begin to emerge, this is a great moment to introduce a writer who has used the competition as a stepping stone to publish her novella. Welcome, Sophie Rodger!

* * *

Firstly, thank you very much to Liz for hosting my novelette on her blog. I am very honoured as I have been a fan of her books for years! So, without further ado- onto my novelette.

‘Yesterday and Forever’ is my first novelette that I self-published just because I wanted to see if anyone would like my style. More an experiment than anything else.

I started with the characters first which is unusual for me as I am more a storyline starter. Originally, Cassandra, my heroine was a secondary character in a story I submitted for the 2011 Mills and Boon's New Voices competition. It didn’t get through but rather than get upset, I decided to give it another go. When revising the MS, for some reason I found I was more curious about Cass’s story than my main hero and heroine and felt it had to be told. Luckily for me, as she was already a character somewhere else, I already had her STATs and her line of work. From there it was pretty easy to let a story grow around her.

As it was my first, I used that old adage that you hear from most writers which is write about what you know. Despite currently being a teacher, I used to work in offices in London, hence the descriptions of London and I did go to University, hence the University setting. As I had already decided it was going to be quite a short story (full time job time limitations) I knew I couldn’t start their adult relationship from scratch so they had to have met at university.

It was a challenge trying to figure out how to show the development of their relationship without the day-to-day descriptions so I settled with showing the start and then 3 years later at graduation. It was fun for me to show the growth of the characters from when they were 18 and 21 to 10 years later when they are 31. How despite the 10 years and being professionals in their careers they still reverted back to their younger selves when they saw each other again.

Here is one of my favourite scenes, when Cass first discovers whose office she has walked into...

She approached the desk. No silly flowers here though as she eyed the tall, thin vase of yellow roses. The blooms seemed to be drawing her closer to them, their scent wrapping itself around her senses.


“They're lovely aren’t they.”


Stopping abruptly, Cass realised she had been walking straight towards the vase and past the receptionist behind the desk. “Yes they are”, she murmured, dragging her eyes away from the flowers back to the receptionist. “I’m Cassandra Regence, from CC’s Bakery. This is the retirement cake that was ordered.” She placed the cake carefully on the counter as she unclipped the small electronic signature machine.


“They are ‘Midas Touch’ Roses. Very exquisite”, the receptionist continued as she scribbled her signature on the small machine.


“Midas Touch?” Cassandra repeated breathlessly.


The receptionist looked at her closely. “Yes they are. Mr Drake insists on having them fresh every week. I say, are you feeling okay? You’ve gone a little pale dear.”


Cassandra smiled shakily as memories, too painful even now, threatened to surface. “No, I’m fine. You said Drake. I thought this was ‘Moringdon Asset Management?” she queried, her eyes jumping from the face of the receptionist to the bright yellow roses.


“It is. Mr. Drake’s company owns this. It was a very recent takeover,” she explained, still peering at Cass as though she expected her to faint any second.


Cass noded. The air around her seemed suddenly stifling. She pocketed the machine and turned quickly to leave.


“I’m sorry to ask this”, Cass heard the receptionist call after her, “Especially as you don’t look like you’re feeling well, but the person due to set up the cake has had to run an errand. Would it be a bother to do it? The stand is in there and everything.”

Counting to ten and plastering a helpful smile on her face, Cass turned around. “No, no bother. Where shall I put them?”

She was lead down a short, tan hallway. The plush, beige carpet was bouncy beneath her feet. Expensive paintings were liberally mixed with certificates and press cuttings. All reflecting the face of the one man she never thought she’d see again. 

“Here we are.”

The receptionist pushed open a wide mahogany door and Cass let out a low whistle. The room was covered head to toe in balloons, banners, presents and flowers of all shapes and sizes. In the middle was a large, glass oval table covered in food and in the middle sat a tall glass cake stand. 

“Will this even be enough?’ Cass mused aloud, looking down at the cake.

“Well, that was the order,” the receptionist replied, smiling pleasantly before closing the door.

Cass walked slowly over to the cake stand. The bill for cleaning any of these carpets should a cake fall would probably be a months wages! Unpacking the cake gently, she looked up, her gaze falling over a long, framed photograph in the middle of the wall. The face of the man in that photo still held traces of the boy that she knew. Except now the coffee brown eyes of Luca Drake were harder, the smile tighter, as the hands held a ‘Businessman of the Year’ award.

She couldn’t look away.

The memories from that September day came flooding back as if they had happened yesterday and not 10 years ago.

I hope you enjoy reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

JUBILEE!

Those of us of a certain age will always remember where we were on this day in 1953. Sitting around a newly purchased television (or someone else's) watching the Coronation in grainy black and white.

No adverts, only the calm voice of Richard Dimbleby quietly, reverently commentating on the event - explaining who all those people were, what was happening.

It was an unforgettable experience. And I still have my souvenir book of the day, filled with highly coloured pictures.

It was raining and one of the most memorable sights was Queen Salote of Tonga sitting in an open carriage, refusing to give in to the weather.

And after it was over it was out into the street for the party.

It might have  been raining in London, but we had sun.

Everything was decorated with red, white and blue bunting.  Trestle tables along the entire length of the street, everyone contributing food, bringing out their chairs. (This wasn't our, but it was just like that!)

We had a fancy dress competition (someone leaned in front of me just as this picture was taken, but that's my Dad in the background!)

It was hailed as the New Elizabethan Age, but this Queen Elizabeth hasn't had to don armour and rouse her troops. While she's had to weather some bumpy weather she's been a steady hand on the tiller, a quiet figurehead, rather than a warrior queen.

While politicians have come and gone, HM is in the remarkable postion of having met everyone, of carrying the secrets of an entire age that has ranged, in her lifetime from a world in which most people travelled on public transport and by ship if they went overseas, to moon landings. From a Cold War to Glasnost. From radio broadcasts - that memorable broadcast when, as a young woman, Princess Elizabeth dedicated herself to the nation - to twitter.

There have been ups and downs, moments when it could have all gone pear-shaped, and I know that this isn't a bright and shiny world for everyone. But today is a rare occasion - only the second Diamond Jubilee in our history - and it's a day for fun, for remembering who we were and who we are, but most of all for rejoicing.

HAPPY DIAMOND JUBILEE MA'AM!