I Want You To Write

Another suggestion/question Rock Star Assistant Meg and I commonly receive are specific writing requests. Sometimes a reader might have an idea for an entire book that they want me to write, or a specific character or theme they want me to include.

This is a sticky topic for a couple of reasons.

1. Books are copyrighted material–which means if I take someone else’s idea and write it, that’s copyright infringement, and legally things get complicated really fast.

2. Between plans for Angelique, additional Timeless Fairy Tale stories and spin offs, the second Elves of Lessa arc, expanding my urban fantasy world, finishing off Second Age of Retha, and circling back around to old projects like Life Reader, I’ve got over a decade of books stacked up and waiting for me to write. (And I’ve been planning a lot of these projects for years already.)

Of course I always love to hear what kinds of books and stories you’re excited about and what interests you–as a fellow reader I love talking about that, and sometimes it makes me adjust my planned books a bit!

But if you have an idea you really love, or a genre/trope you wish there was more of, I’d like to take this opportunity to really encourage you to write your own story!

Encouraging others to write is a topic I’m really passionate about. And okay, yes, it’s somewhat selfish because I’m just a huge reader so I will always advocate more books in the world–you can never have too many! But I also really want to encourage others who have a specific thing they want to see in books, because that’s how I got started writing.

In junior high/high school, I wanted to see more series with strong female protagonists in fun and vivid worlds! Since ebooks weren’t a thing yet, I could only check out whatever books my local library had, and their young adult section was pretty small, so I ran out of options pretty fast. My parents very wisely put me on a book budget, which meant I had limited abilities to buy everything I wanted to read. Instead…I wrote. As a result, Robyn Hood, Princess Ahira, and Life Reader were born! (And my first book–a terrible sci fi that we only talk about when NaNoWriMo rolls around, so SHHHH!)

Now, the books I wrote then and the books you see offered today are pretty different. They’ve been re-vamped and gone through major edits since I published them on Amazon–admittedly some of them could use another edit again. (Yes, I’m looking at you Robyn Hood) But even today I focus on writing what I really want to see–whether that’s funny urban fantasy novels, or fairy tales in sweeping worlds. And I have a lot of ideas I really want to see–I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I have over a decade of books stacked up and waiting for me, so don’t worry, there won’t be a lack of new KM Shea books anytime soon!

So, please allow me to repeat myself: If you have an idea, theme, story, or character you’d love to see as a book, write it! You can do it–I believe in you! And while it won’t be easy–writing a book is a lot like learning to play an instrument; it will take time and practice–when you finish you’ll have your story, and you will have created something you can be proud of!

This concludes today’s frequently-asked-questions-blog-thingie (I am SO GOOD at naming stuff, I know.) but before I bring it to a full close, I did want to mention that we have lots of writer/author-Champions, and some of them belong to the Champion Discord and/or the Champion Facebook Group. So if you’re interested in writing or talking about writing, you might want to plug in to those communities. (Here’s a link to the page that gives you directions on how to do that!) Thanks for reading, and have a lovely week!

SheaCon Panel Audio

Surprise! Before I begin my new blog series, I wanted to slide this post in and announce that due to the extraordinary efforts of the SheaCon planning Committee, we have the audio from all the SheaCon panels!

Opening Ceremonies: Hosts Dino and Xoffy opened SheaCon with a bang…and perhaps an unexpected (rigged) pageant!?

Entwined Tales Author Panel: Brittany Fichter, Shari L Tapscott, Melanie Cellier, and Kenley Davidson joined me for a chat about our books, our friendship, and our writing processes! (Aya Ling, who is also in Entwined Tales, was sadly unable to join us due to the massive time difference.)

W. R. Gingell Panel: Author W. R. Gingell (who happens to be the author of the City Between series, one of my favorite Urban fantasy series!) talked about her books, writing, and her life as an author!

Kitty Q & A: Last month you all were given the chance to submit questions for this Q&A panel. The Planning Committee organized them, and then hosts Xoffy and Cindy pitched them to me. If there’s any secret info you wanted to know about my books, this is your panel!

K. M. Shea Writing Panel: I give a rather “um” filled talk (sorry!) about how my interests have impacted my writing voice, how I get inspiration, and I answer reader questions about my writing!

Champion Trivia: I embarrassed myself to the delight of all the Champions present as I tried to guess the abbreviations and codes the discord Champions have adopted while talking about my books.

Again, a huge thanks to the diligence and hard work of the SheaCon planning committee–you guys are amazing! I hope you enjoy this “taste” of the Con if you were unable to come, Champions, and thanks for reading!

Writing Weaknesses: Romance

So you’ve got a kick-butt plot with lots of action, humor, friendship…but romance? Ehh…

I consider romance one of the hardest aspects of writing. Give me a magic fight or a clash between armies any day, but a kiss scene? Noooo! (See, even us full time authors have stuff we need to work on!) The good news is that as I’ve worked to improve the romance in my books over the years, I’ve amassed some helpful resources, which hopefully can help You!

The Writing Gals: this youtube show is held by four sweet romance authors who discuss all aspects of writing and publishing, but they have some amazing videos about romance. (For real, this has been one of the biggest game changers for me when it comes to romance.)

How to Write Swoon Worthy Sweet Romance: This book takes you step by step through the plotting process of writing a romance book, but it’s really helpful even if you write fantasy or thriller because it helps you see the kind of relationship progression you need to have in your subplot romance.

Some of the best advice I’ve received in the realm of writing romance was from my author friend Lindsay Buroker. While speaking at a conference, Lindsay explained that romance can be used as a hook, and should progress with the unfolding of the plot. She specifically pointed out that TV shows are phenomenal at doing this. Shows like Castle, Firefly, Pride & Prejudice, Doctor Who–all of them spawned fans who were invested in the characters’ relationships, even though these relationships aren’t the main point of the show.

I’ve also found watching K-dramas to be a huge help! My choice of poison are the comedy-romance K-dramas–or Korean Dramas. (You can watch them on Netflix, Hulu, and a few are available on Amazon Prime.) K-dramas are masters of pacing. They know when to nudge the characters through the various levels of a relationship, how to intermingle it with humor or the main plot of the series, and they are masters at making chemistry for sweet romance. It’s worth it to watch a few shows to see the various ways they ignite the romantic ‘spark’ so to speak. I can personally recommend “What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim,” “Because You’re Beautiful,” and “Secret Garden.”

That spark is important, because if you can get your characters to have chemistry, that’s half of the romance battle. And chemistry doesn’t mean the romance is “hate to love,” though it can be!

You can start with reluctant partners–like Fyn and dear Benji in Royal Magic–or make them more of comrades–like Quinn and Emerys in Twelve Dancing Princesses. Each couple has a very different dynamic, but their characters in each pair balance each other and are able to play together in different ways. (ie: Quinn can joke with Emerys and doesn’t treat him with the suffocating reverence that his own people do. Benjimir treasures Fyn’s fighting abilities and is proud of them instead of being intimidated.)

My personal best tip is to really play with the thing that sparks chemistry and try to make it unusual or different. It was a heck of a lot easier to let Rakel and Farrin’s relationship unfold given that they were originally on opposite sides of a war in the Snow Queen books. Incorporating plot points into their relationship (ie: They start out enemies and have magic battles) makes it a lot easier to write because in order to advance their relationship you have to let the plot unfold. It’s kinda like cruise-control for writing in a way.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have Severin and Elle of Beauty and the Beast. They were wretchedly difficult for me to push together because they just weren’t interested! (My advice–don’t do this. Indifference is so, so, so hard to deal with unless you have a natural plot progression that will solve it.)

And that’s my advice on writing romance! To all you NaNoWriMo warriors out there, good luck! You’re nearly in the last stretch–you can do it!

And to all my other Champions, thanks for reading! 😀