Terescia's thoughts and such.

I spent some time with Kate Walker recently, asking her lots of writerly questions for this interview. She was kind enough to answer each thoroughly, so don’t pass up this opportunity to learn from such a gifted and productive author. :-)

TERESCIA: You’ve written a book for writers called Kate Walker’s 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance. I haven’t read it but I know you know what you’re talking about because you’ve written over 40 books for Harlequin.

What led you to write this book? Did you see a need for this kind of book, or did you just have a need to write down some of the knowledge and experience you’ve gained as you’ve written all those books?

KATE: Well, Terescia, that total of books for Harlequin Presents is now over 45 – so I hope I do know what I’m talking about by now. :) In the 20+ years I’ve been published, I’ve talked to a lot of writers – and a lot more people who want to be writers. I’ve also held many workshops, done talks, spoken at conferences etc. And what I’ve learned is that there are some questions about writing romance that just keep coming back and back. Questions that get asked each time I do a workshop.

And when I did workshops, or just answered questions on the internet, I found that I was able to answer in a way that people said really helped them to understand – and made things clear for them.

So what I did when I set out to write my first ‘How To’ book was to answer as many of those questions as I could. Then, after that first book was done, someone asked me what were the most important points about writing romance.

That was where the 12 Point Guide started. In a workshop.

And then I took the notes from the workshop and added to them to create the book. What I wanted to do was to write something that was practical as well as informative and from the feedback I’ve had on this book and the awards it’s won, I think I’ve succeeded.

TERESCIA: It’s amazing to me, as an unpublished writer, to think of all the time and effort it’s taken you to write over 40 books. What keeps you at the computer, or in front of your paper, writing stories day in and day out? Have you ever wanted to trade it in on a regular 9-to-5 job?

KATE: It’s exactly because it isn’t that regular 9-5 job that I love it! I love being my own boss, dictating my own hours, working all day or very little as it suits. I’m an all or nothing writer!

When I’m writing, I’ll work for hours and hours, because the plot absorbs me and I want to tell the characters’ story. I’ve always daydreamed stories inside my head, right from when I was a child and then I started to write them down.

Now I still can’t quite believe that I can tell these stories and actually get them published – that people will buy and enjoy my books and I’ll get paid enough to stay at home and keep writing. It’s a dream come true.

Sometimes, I wonder if a regular job and regular wages – when you’d know just how much money is coming in and didn’t have to wait for a royalty statement – might be easier. But the truth is that then I’d still have these stories, these characters inside my and head and I wouldn’t know what to do with them.

The truth is that it’s the characters that keep me at the computer – I want to tell their stories. And then when I’ve told this hero and heroine’s story, the next couple come along to fascinate me.

TERESCIA: What do you recommend writers who want to sell to Harlequin do to get the attention of an editor (other than write a great book)? Go to conferences? Network? Pay the Harlequin Editorial Service to edit their book?

KATE: Well, the real thing that attracts an editor is that great book – but there are plenty of things you can do to give your work a better chance to grab that editor’s attention.

The first one is to read. Read romances – as many as you can – or whatever sort of book it is you want to write. Read all the lines that Harlequin or your chosen publisher puts out. Choose the one that speaks to you best – the one you feel you most want to write – and really study that.

I’m stunned (and pretty horrified) by the number of people who come to my workshops or just talk to me and say ‘Well, have the books changed over the years?’ If they have to ask that question, then they shouldn’t even be trying to write until they’ve checked out just what the current crop of romances/novels are like. Publishers want novels that they can sell now not books that might have appealed 20 years ago.

Conferences and networking and visiting the message boards on eHarlequin.com and other sites (like WWR) are all useful ways of learning about the craft of writing. Learning from other authors by asking questions – or reading books they’ve written like the 12 Point Guide :) – are all ways of adding more knowledge to support your writing skills.

Meeting editors at Conferences and pitching to them will bring your name to their attention – but it will only really benefit you if you have a great book to back up a great pitch.

The best and most valuable advice is to write and keep writing. I know so many people who say they’ll write a book and then never finish it. No editor is going to buy any book unless it’s finished!

I live in the UK and one of the most valuable things that the UK’s Romantic Novelists’ Association offers is the New Writer’s Scheme. Unpublished members pay a reading fee and submit a manuscript and then this is critiqued by a professional – usually an author who is published in the line that the writer is aiming for. Professional critiques can be extremely valuable but you do need to be sure that the person doing the critique knows what they’re talking about. Some of these services can be very expensive and you don’t always get your money’s worth.

TERESCIA: That asked, I have to say, my own opinion on the topic of paid editors is such that anyone who wants to write romance novels for a living had better learn to edit their own work–not pay someone else to do it. There’s not enough money in writing and publishing your books when you’re starting out to afford it, and when (if ever) you can afford it, your deadlines don’t usually allow you enough time!

Do you think my view is accurate or am I fooling myself?

KATE: Oh, I agree – which is why I gave the answer above. In the end, the only person who can truly tell you that your work is worth being published is the editor who buys it from you! Even though I have 20 years’ experience in writing romance, when I read for the RNA scheme, I can only suggest what I think would make a manuscript better and point out the ways that I think the writer has gone wrong – or what she has done right. Then it’s up to the editor who reads that submitted manuscript to decide.

I’m pleased to find that when a ms has been sent to an editor at the same time as I was reading it, then I said just about the same things as the professional editor – but it was still the editor’s decision and not mine. I’ve helped some writers to publication, but I would never ever guarantee that I could do that.

You need to try and stand back from your own writing and look at it as objectively as possible. And that’s not easy. We all love our own work, We love the characters, think we’ve told a wonderful story. But often we can be way too close to it to read it properly. One of the things you can do is to put your manuscript away for a few weeks and then read it from more of a distance – but even then we can still fool ourselves. So in the end it’s got to be that editor’s decision.

But I’ll re-emphasize what I said in answer to the last question – if you do feel you want to pay for an assessment of your manuscript then make sure you’re going to a reputable critiquer. You’re right that there just isn’t a lot of money in writing when you start out to waste it on someone who isn’t qualified to comment and who might give you completely the wrong advice.

TERESCIA: You’ve been writing for many years now, so you’ve got loads of experience to draw from when you get ready to start a new book. Will you tell me what kinds of things you do different these days when you’re starting something new?

KATE: You’re asking this at just the right time – I’m just starting a new story. And the really important thing I have to do is to get to know my characters. When I first started out, I would write down character studies of my hero and heroine, using a set of questions that I’d built up – I’ve put this into my 12 Point Guide so that others can use it too.

But these days, I’m more likely to do that in my head – I suppose I’ve developed the skill of building characters more easily now. I’ll also scribble down notes on the setting – and do any research I need – and plan out the skeleton of the plot. I’m not a great planner. I usually set off and then find that, as long as I know my characters , they will ‘tell’ me their story.

Beginnings are tricky. You need to start a book at exactly the right point so that it’s firing on all cylinders from the start – too early, and you have to ‘write yourself in’ – too late and you’ll find you’re having to go back and tell things in flashback. So I spend a lot of time thinking about just where and when to start – and planning an opening that I hope has real punch.

TERESCIA: New writers are always wanting to compare their level of productivity to that of established writers’. I can tell them until I’m blue-faced that you should never compare yourself to someone else, but, well, I still like to do it myself to see where I’m at on a scale of most prolific to least prolific. ;-)

So, what’s your productivity like? Do you write best in short bursts, a little at a time, or in longer sessions? Do you write every day? Give me an idea of your writing process, if you don’t mind.

KATE: Well, one of the things about being a contracted author is that I’m – obviously – contracted to write a certain number of books for Harlequin each year. At the moment, I’m on a three book contract so I must produce three 50-55,000 word books each year. That’s at least 150,000 words a year!

Harlequin would take more if I wrote it – they’ve asked if I would write more – but I stick to those three books a year, most of the time. I want to make sure that I keep the quality of my work at it’s best – and I want to make sure that I have a life as well!

Sometimes I’ll take on an extra project – the 12 Point Guide was one of those. I had to fit it in with my 3 Presents titles. I’ve also done internet stories on eHarlequin and moderated and run the Writing Round Robin on there.

I’m an all or nothing writer – if I’m writing a novel, I write in concentrated spells and sometimes I can write all day, all the hours of the day. I’ve been known to get up at 6 am with ideas buzzing in my head and still be working at 10 pm – if it’s going well, I don’t leave it. Writing Presents demands such a concentrated and intense emotional focus on the hero and heroine and their relationship that it needs that same concentration on what I’m doing.

In between books it may look as if there are days and days when I’m not doing anything but in fact that’s when some of the hardest work is going on inside my head. So I may write my blog or update my web site – or do workshops etc, but all the time in the back of my mind I’m thinking, planning, developing the next book and doing that vital getting to know the characters bit. Then, when I finally sit down and write ‘Chapter One’ on the top of a page I know that I’m really ready to start – and from then I write every day.

My daily routine then is to get up, grab a coffee and switch on the computer. Sometimes I’ll read back over what I write the day before but most of the time I try to pick up from where I left off and get on with telling the story.

It’s too easy to start editing and fiddling about with the previous day’s work and change a bit here, tweak a bit there. The problem with computers is that it’s always too easy to edit, and editing doesn’t really get you any further. Again, because of the type of story I write and the line I write for, I find that the heat and intensity comes best if I follow the advice of my friend the wonderful writer Michelle Reid and ‘just tell the story’, I can always tweak and edit when I’ve done that.

TERESCIA: Do you go for an average word count per day (a quota) or do you have some other method of making sure you stay on track to reach your deadlines?

KATE: Well, as you can see – this all or nothing approach means that some days are long and hugely productive in words and on others I do very little in word count terms.

One of the most important things to make sure I get my words down are those 3 books and the deadlines they bring with them. When I start I know when I must have the book finished by and so I know how many words a day I must do as a minimum to get there by the right date.

Some days are slow and tricky and the words don’t come easily. That’s usually at the beginning of a book as I’m working into it – as I get the know the characters and the story builds in my mind, then my word production gets faster and faster. Toward the end of a book I have often found I’ve done 6 – 10,000 words a day compared to 1000 – 1500 at the beginning.

The important thing is to keep the words mounting up. And to keep telling the story.

Usually, by the time I’m into the book, that’s the most important thing and telling the story keeps me going. That and the fact that I know my editor is waiting impatiently for the next novel.

Fast Facts:

Do you revise as you go or write it all down and then go back for your punishment? ;-)

Most of the time, I follow that ‘just tell the story’ advice. I know where I’m going and I keep on . But I make notes on a pad by the side of my keyboard to remind me of something I must put in in the future or perhaps something I know I’ve underwritten and I need to go back and layer in better or emphasize more. I usually keep going to the end and then read it back. But one of the very best things about being a contracted author is that I have an assigned editor waiting to read the book – someone who will read it objectively and tell me if it needs revising. Luckily I haven’t had any revisions at all for the last few books – keeping my fingers crossed that that’s a trend that’s going to continue.

Do you use pictures to remind you of what your characters look like?

Sometimes. I used to do that more when I was first starting out. Now I do it less of the time. But I have a very clear picture of my characters in my head. And I see the scenes visually so it’s easy to describe them.

Do you work more often on a computer or on paper?

I write straight onto the computer most of the time. But as I said before I always have a notepad beside me and I scribble notes to myself, scenes coming up of a snatch of dialogue so that I don’t use it. Sometimes I’ turn to the notepad for a while for two reasons – one is when I need to sort things out in my head, to work out in what order I need to write a set of events or to plan what’s coming up so that I can work towards it and then I’ll get those ideas down on paper. Or at other times if several scenes, or san important lot of dialogue is rushing into my head too fast for me to type, then I’ll scribble that too – I’ll use abbreviations or half words and initials for the characters, anything to speed it up. I usually use a soft pencil to make these notes – one that just flows over the paper and is easy to write with.

Do you read while you write? Some authors claim they take a reading hiatus when they’re working on a book.

Reading can be tricky – I try to avoid reading other romances when I’m writing so that I can keep my own style and ‘voice’. And so that I don’t unconsciously put in a scene or a bit of dialogue that’s actually come from the other book and I haven’t realized it. And then because of the concentrated way in which I work, I don’t often have much time to spare to read when I’m working intensively on a book. Really relaxing reading is something I do most of in those breaks between books when I can enjoy the books and use the stories to feed my own imagination for the next novel I write.

Do you start a book with nothing on your mind or with your entire book outlined in advance of the writing, or somewhere in between?

A bit of both. It really depends on the book. Some books have been planned out right from the start and others I have a basic idea and I ‘set out hopefully into the mist’. Some books demand more careful planning- Saturday’s Bride for example had a twist at the end that was in my mind right from the start. So I had to plan out the book just to make sure that that twist fitted with everything I’d written before. Other books I’ll start with an idea of the conflict and an opening scene in my head. But the thing I will always do is get to know my characters really well then it’s like introducing two people to each other and standing back to see how they react together. Sometimes they really surprise me and the story takes a turn I hadn’t expected. But if I know my characters I can always work out how to handle that and make sure they come finally to their happy ever after ending.

If you want to check out some of Kate’s books, you can find her latest on Amazon.

About The Married Mistress by Kate Walker (May 2006, Harlequin Presents):

Gorgeous Greek tycoon Damon Nicolaides is always in the news…so when the paparazzi get a tip-off about his new mistress, they come banging on her door!

Actually, Sarah and Damon were married a year ago! Sarah left him, thinking their marriage was a lie. Now Damon’s come back to claim the wife he truly loves. But first he must protect her from the press by pretending that Sarah is merely his mistress…and to do that, he tells her, they’ll have to make their love affair real!