Goal, Motivation… No Conflict?
A few weeks ago I blogged about deleting the beginning of my novel and starting over again. According to that indesputable source, me, “Nothing could live up to [the opening of my novel] in voice or humor.” But as the story goes, I deleted it anyway and came up with something new.
The truth is, the opening to my novel sucked. It did pretty well when it went to contest (coming this close to needing a discrepancy judging) but it couldn’t sustain a 400-page novel. Why? Because I almost did too good of a job setting up the main conflicts between the h/h. There was no mystery, no character to explore, no peeling back of the onion because I’d already given the secrets up in the first thirty pages.
I’m no expert, but I’ve been reading romance novels a pretty long time. I rarely read a published novel that puts forth a clear internal GMC in the first three chapters. I have to wonder if this idea (perpetuated by contest judges; yes, I’m wagging my finger at you) is wrong. I was having an email chat awhile back with one of my newly published friends and I commented that I’ve noticed there’s a huge number of people who don’t sell first-place winning manuscripts, yet final consistently in contests. And think of all those Golden Heart (gasp!) finalists who don’t sell their manuscripts. It seems to me that if one can consistently final in contests, it should follow that one is a good writer capable of reaching a wide audience. Why, then, are so many people who’ve never finaled in a contest published, and so many multi-finalists not major new authors?
Forget the old idea that they only have thirty good pages. I refuse to believe that’s true of *everyone*. There must be something to the idea of technically flawless but boring, and I humbly suggest maybe it’s the idea that we new authors MUST explain our characters’ every action long before the reader is ready to hear it.
What do you think?
Hi Lacey,
I agree with what you said above, and have had a hard time struggling through this myself.
Here’s a few things I’ve heard from editors/judges:
1. When asked (can’t remember her name) by an editor at Harlequin whether or not finaling in a contest or having a crit partner/group mattered, she said ultimately it does not. Her reasoning was, sometimes with the above, they recieve a ms that has been “edited to death.” Leaving nothing to the ms.
2. I’ve heard that judges look so much for the conflict and grab factor when judging that it is hard for writers not to put that all in the beginning.
3. I am currenlty judging a contest where I only recieved the 1st chapter, and the questions that I am looking for while judging, are if I know what the h/h conflicts are, what they are struggling through, can I sense the sexual tension, do I know their inner conflicts, etc… The answer is, how could I? It’s only the first chapter. I don’t expect to get the entire bit of conflict, sexual tension or completely know the h/h in the 1st chapter. Which makes it hard to judge bc 1/2 the time my answer is no, but I LOVE the story, I LOVE where it is going, and want them to win!
I took an excellent class recently by Terry Spear, called Happy Hookers. She talked about hooking the reader at the 1st sentence, the last sentence and almost every paragraph in between. Keep the reader reading, and it was excellent, because while you set up the premise for the things mentioned above, you don’t give it all away, you keep the reader reading until the last page to find out the answers to everything.
I personally stopped entering chapter contests (I know lots of people are glaring at me right now) because of the reasons above. I do however enter frequently into publishing houses contests, and there are several, Brava, Harelquin, Wild Rose Press, Amber Quill Press to name a few. This will get your foot first into the door rather than being subjected to judges who (being one myself I know this) must judge based on a limited amount of writing and criteria that doesn’t necessarily correlate with what you should find in a first chapter.
Okay enough ranting.
Excellent post!!
Eliza
Thanks to both of you for the great insight. It gives new writers a lot to think about.
I think you have a good point there. Eventually, if you keep editing and re-editing and making it perfect – maybe you eventually lose the “soul” of the MS and all that’s left are perfect – but soulless, ie. boring – pages?
I guess there’s a fine line between making a good MS and editing it too much.
Thanks for the blog Lacey!
I was just agonizing over some contest feedback about this very thing. Of course, my first chapter does need quite a lot of tweaking and the judges did give good feedback, but both of them were so on me about GMC that I was thinking…oh my gosh, do I just not get how to set up conflict at all in the first chapter?
Your post reminds me to take contest feedback with a grain of salt.
Thanks, Chi! And Eliza had really good thoughts to add to this. Especially this part: The answer is, how could I? It’s only the first chapter. I don’t expect to get the entire bit of conflict, sexual tension or completely know the h/h in the 1st chapter. Which makes it hard to judge bc 1/2 the time my answer is no, but I LOVE the story, I LOVE where it is going, and want them to win!
Eliza, I, too had my eyes opened by being a contest judge. While I *have* entered two other contests after my Experience (mostly due to my cps’ insatiable appetite for them), I can’t help but (as Chi said) take the comments with a grain of salt. Comments like “Your hero needs to be more heroic” when that’s so clearly the entire point of the ms… well, I digress!