Pay attention to your choreography

We’ve all watched movies where the six hundred bad guys line up neatly and each fights the good guy one at a time, allowing himself to be defeated. Unfortunately some fight scenes in novels are written a bit like that too. There are three or four bad guys but we read about the good guy, punching/hitting/shooting Bad Guy #1, then Bad Guy #2 and so on.

Real fighting is not like that. The bad guys want to win so they get paid, and they’ll all attack at once, whenever the good guy is off guard, has his back turned, or is busy fighting already.

Choreography is important in romantic scenes too. Sometimes the hero has his hand around the heroine’s waist, gently lifts her chin up to kiss her mouth, and simultaneously undoes her hair from its ponytail. Unless he’s an octopus shapeshifter, he’ll find doing all that at once tricky.

It’s even harder with a ménage scene. Count the number of arms, legs, hands, mouths. Then check to see whether the bodies really can be positioned like that. I know of a popular erotic romance author who has broken the arms and legs off several Barbie dolls while choreographing her love scenes. In love and in war, it’s important to get the choreography right.


Helen Woodall
Helen.woodall@gmail.com

How to write an email

Everyone hates opening their email and finding a barrage of unwanted emails there.

Unfortunately many people inadvertently delete emails that are actually important, either from friends or something they ought to have paid attention to about their work.

So here are some hints to ensure the emails you send are read and that you don’t waste people’s time unnecessarily.

1. Personalize your subject line. Make sure it doesn’t look like spam or sound like a dozen similar emails. Ask a question if it’s short and clear.

2. Be polite. Don’t use a bunch of exclamation marks or write in all caps. Don’t be overfamiliar using kisses or calling people “Dear Fred” if you don’t know them well. Always thank people who’ve helped you.

And on the receiving end, don’t delete emails without checking the subject line and the sender. If it’s your boss, I suggest reading the email even if you’re sure it’s not relevant to you.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

But my character told me his name was X’qwertyuiopl’hgfdsazxz

Dear Editor,
I know you said character names should be chosen that the reader can relate to, but my hero woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me his name was X’qwertyuiopl’hgfdsazxz.

Dear Author,
I’m sorry, but X’qwertyuiopl’hgfdsazxz is going to make your reader give up, or question my sanity in not getting you to change his name. Or possibly both. Please ask him to tell you a nice short, easily pronounced nickname he’d like to be called in the story.

Dear Editor,
X’qwertyuiopl’hgfdsazxz hates nicknames and X’qwertyuiopl’hgfdsazxz isn’t all that hard to pronounce. My readers are intelligent people who’ll cope just fine with his name. By the way, I’ve decided to change the heroine’s name from Cherry Blossom, to PalePinkBudsofSummerCherryBlossom. Isn’t that a pretty name?

Dear Author,
Perhaps I haven’t explained myself clearly enough as yet. Readers want to dive into your story and read it. They want to share the adventures of the characters, fully immersed in their lives, lost in the fantasy and romance of your book. Really, dear author, you don’t want them stopping every few sentences to think, “What’s his name again? Why didn’t she just call him X?” or even worse, “What was the author drinking when she named these characters?” Your main aim is to draw the reader into your world and keep them there fully engrossed in the story until they hit the final line of your book.
How about we introduce your characters as X’qwertyuiopl’hgfdsazxz and PalePinkBudsofSummerCherryBlossom and just call them X and Cherry after that?

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com
Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Things I learned from reading romance books

A sheik/squillionaire/CEO of a multinational corporation will have had dozens of mistresses and girlfriends, but that sweet, innocent virgin daughter of a friend/secretary/nanny/nurse will cause him to have a one-night stand with her, with no condom in sight, and she will inevitably get pregnant and decide to raise the child alone, in dire poverty, rather than tell him about the baby.
Should he happen to find out about the child, he will refuse to believe it’s his and he never demands DNA testing to prove his case. He’d rather just trust his feelings. After all that’s how he got to be a squillionnaire.
The virgin never asks him to use a condom. Of course she knows of his dozens of mistresses, but she also “knows” he’d never give her a sexually transmitted disease. (He never does either. Just a baby).
No heroine ever has a headache and no hero ever rolls over in bed and goes straight to sleep. Neither of them snore or drool in their sleep either.
No one anywhere ever goes to the toilet. Ever.
Whenever the heroine is invited unexpectedly to a party/ball/wedding no matter how poor she is, or where she comes from, she always has the perfect dress to wear to the occasion.
When the hero and heroine are running away from the bad guy, no matter how far they travel or how long the pursuit lasts for, they never run out of clean underwear or need to do a load of laundry.

And do you know why this is so?

Because it’s a romance story. It’s fiction. Fantasy. If the virgin caught genital warts from the CEO, and the hero had erectile dysfunction it’d be real life! And no one wants to read about that!

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.