Journey to Believable Scenes

Love scenes in novels aren't made believable within the confines of that single scene. Usually. Certainly writers can do plenty within the scene to kill the mood or break a reader's willing suspension of disbelief. In my opinion (and subsequently, in my craft practice) love scenes are made believable by virtue of the journey that led up to the sex scene. If a story goes straight for the sexy times right from the outset, then the journey has to be implied within the context of the scene.

It's no secret I like smart heroines. It may, therefore, be no surprise that in order for me to believe my heroines would hop in the sack with someone, I need to believe that decision would make sense from within that heroine's point of view. This is why I need a journey to a love scene. That journey is a series of small vignettes that put pins on a map taking my characters from strangers, even opponents, to trust. No. Not to lovers. To trust. Lovers comes after trust has been established in my books. No trust, no nooky. Of course there are heroines who would hop in bed with someone they don't trust. If that's going to happen, however, I, as a reader, need to understand her motivation for it. Is this a trauma response? People pleasing at enormous cost to herself? A rebellious move? A revenge screw? I can buy a lot but I need to comprehend why someone is willing to put themselves into the most vulnerable of positions with an unknown quantity. I suspect, in this post Me, Too era, when few of us are privileged enough to get to ignore just how dangerous simply existing can be for female presenting people, most of us need to get inside someone's head when they're going to engage in (perhaps fatally) risky behavior.

BUT. This isn't a murder mystery so we're not hiding corpses yet. We're still trying to get folks between the sheets.

The path from Hello to the bedroom (or wherever) is sign posted by the scenes where the first sparks of attraction fly, and in the scenes of discovery - these are the ones where characters are learning about one another and are finding the good and admirable - and in the scenes where the learning about one another starts paying off because they aren't just talking at one another anymore. They're communicating. Mostly. Coming to understanding. If I'm doing my job, somewhere in those scenes, my characters aren't just melting one another's hearts - they're melting the reader's as well. IF that happens, the love scene will likely be believable.

Barring my attempts to do something anatomically impossible, but that's another day's rant.

Believable Intimacy

 This Week's Topic: How Do I Make My Love Scenes Believable?

Man, it's tough being the one to follow Jeffe, who won Romancelandia's most prestigious award for best romance with Pages of the Mind. Her backlist includes holy-hot-stuff fantasy and contemporary erotica. I write "how to 'splode your enemy's head" kind of books; thus, I kinda wanna cheat and just post a "what she said" link. 

But, I'm pulling up my ruffled big-girl panties and giving you, dear readers, my $0.04 worth of opinion.

I could be a little shit and say, "I don't write explicit sex scenes," but that would be a lie. I've written 'em, I just haven't tortured the public with them. However, I do write (and have published) scenes of intimacy. They may not be ass-baring, but they are soul-baring. And, yeah, as Jeffe said, the key to believability is to ground the actions, emotions, and personal evolution in the character's character. 

In healthy relationships, vulnerabilities are exposed, acknowledged, and treated with care by the partner.  In healthy relationships, desires are shared both verbally and physically. In healthy relationships, there's give and take, both in dominance and submission--even during vanilla sex. There's a respect between (or among) partners that--in a medium of show vs tell--is absolutely shown.

By contrast, in unhealthy relationships, the opposite is shown. Deliberate disrepect. Intentional hiding  of or trampling over needs. Engagement as a tool of punishment (not kink). Humilation and degradation (again, not as kink). Whether or not anything is being penetrated, the cruel intention spurring the actions is plain. 

In the course of a story, the scene of intimacy is used to either advance character development or to demonstrate character self-sabotage. Sure, if you're aiming to write a believable sex scene involving humans, you'll want to avoid portraying the man as an endless fountain of jizz banging on his mate for hours. Chafe is real, and dudes do have to take a break to rest and reload, ya know. 😇

Writing Believable Scenes

 We had big fun at Beastly Books yesterday celebrating FaRoFeb! The delightful Vela Roth came up from El Paso, and A.K. Mulford and A.J. Lancaster joined us online from down under. The panel was also broadcast on Instagram Live and you can find a recording of it on the FaRoFeb Instagram account.

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "How do you make your love scenes believable?"

By "love," I assume the asker means sex - though how to make the confessional of heartfelt love feel earned and not pasted on or saccharine is an interesting question. But, in truth, the answer to both, or even really ALL scenes - love, sex, fight, daily conversation - believable is to ground them in character.

This is true whether you are a plot-driven or character-driven writer. Stories are about the emotions of the people in them - what they want, what they can't have, what drives them to chase what they want anyway. So, a fight scene is never just about the choreography and who wins or loses. It's about what that win or loss MEANS to the characters, what impact their injuries might have on them beyond the physical.

Likewise, a sex scene is never just about tabs and slots fitting together. It's about emotional intimacy, what the sexual interlude means to the characters. It has nothing to do with whether or not multiple orgasms are believable or making first-time encounters awkward or including realistic body noises and accidental passing of fluids and gases. Those things might factor in if they relate to the characters' emotional lives, but by themselves, they don't change anything, one way or the other.

Because believability comes from emotional truth, regardless of everything else.

FaRoFeb celebrates together!

 HR Moore founded FaRoFeb to celebrate fantasy romance and romantasy books every year. It has a robust author community that celebrates each others' successes and cheers each other on via the discord server and on social media.

February is FaRoFeb's month, which includes extra exciting promos and events. Check out the remaining schedule and put it on your calendar for next year: https://farofeb.com/. The community has grown and we now have events throughout the year, so it's never too late to see what they're up to.

We've been working on the TikTok feed for FaRo - the newest place we can be found! We love sharing our reading interests with the BookTok community.

Finding like-minded, supportive communities is one key to a successful book release. You can learn from your peers about their book release tips, for instance, and support each other by sharing book release social media posts. Nobody should go through this alone. 

A hot tip, though. Make sure you've done your homework before you ask for advice in author communities. 

• Has someone recently asked the same question in the facebook group? Read that post instead of asking the group to repeat their answers. 
• Have you already checked some of the big author blogs and sites for answers (like the great advice we have on SFF 7 Authors this week)? If someone has already written about the topic, it's better to read that and then ask a follow-up question rather than, again, making the group repeat answers. 
• Are you asking beginner questions in an advanced authors' group, or vice versa?  Remember you are not just taking from the community, but should be contributing too, so working at a similar level will be more helpful for everyone.

How do you prepare for your book releases? Let us know in the comments. And happy writing!

Book Launch Talk with Mike Chen

Alexia: This week we’re talking about book launch tips. And who better to ask about the subject than someone who celebrated a book birthday last week—welcome back, Mike Chen! 

Two years ago you joined the blog to answer some questions and talk about WE COULD BE HEROES, a story about friendship. And this January 30th A QUANTUM LOVE STORY released, a book about love on a time loop. Did you go into writing this one knowing the theme would center on your character’s love story?

Mike: This story went through several iterations as different places requested proposals, but through that the heart of it was always these two people, Carter and Mariana. When I had the chance to have more direct control over the tone and age range, I decided to make their slow-burn love story more of a focus in the book – this was mostly a personal challenge to myself, as I feel like I’d written about many other types of interpersonal relationships but always felt intimidated by having a romance be the driver for the story. It’s as close to romance (the genre) as I will ever get.

Alexia: I love recommending your books to people, especially those who aren’t science fiction fans because you make sci-fi accessible via personal relationships. Your publisher must share the same sentiment because MIRA Books is proud to display you as one of their authors. How have their publicists been involved with A QUANTUM LOVE STORY’s release?

Mike: They’re always helpful and supportive; Justine Sha has been my publicist since my second book and she’s probably the fastest email responder in all of publishing. I think everyone at the imprint understood that from a marketing perspective, there was an opportunity to reach a broader audience with this title and they got to work very early on to make sure the foundation of outreach hit that. It’s really fantastic to get interest reflective of this book’s broader identity.

Alexia: Romance is the top grossing fiction genre, and now you’ve got a release with that tag. How do you view romance as a genre? Do you ever read romance, or do you read genre fiction with romantic elements? 

Mike: I don’t read romance in terms of the genre, but I am very aware of its standard story beats and sub-genres. In terms of romantic elements that appear in genre fiction, I that that’s more of using a character focus, because a romantic arc is always as much about self-discovery and acceptance as it is bringing two people together. I am also a huge fan of romantic choices in video games and I will talk endlessly about Liara T’soni AKA my “blue space wife” from the Mass Effect games.

Alexia: You’ve picked powerful themes for your stories. The effect of time on relationships, trauma, friendships, family relationships. When you pitched A QUANTUM LOVE STORY, had you thought ahead to how you’d utilize the romance theme to reach new readers? 

Mike: I knew right away that I wanted it to be a combination of slow burn and the understanding of opportunity. That’s different from standard romance beats, which is why we picked “love story” for the title – it’s not a romance novel per se. It was always about two people fighting just to have a chance for happiness, and I think that struggle is universal. I wanted to have characters that readers could root for individually and as a couple, so when they get that moment of “maybe they’ve got a chance,” it would really connect with readers in a different way than with friendships or family.

Alexia: You’ve covered the gamut of relationship themes in your work. Are there any that have been burning a hole in your brain, begging to for you to explore? Or is there a theme that you loved writing so much you want to hit it from a new angle? 

Mike: The fun thing about playing in science fiction is you can mix and match sub-genre tropes and types of interpersonal relationships to come up with all sorts of unique stuff. I have a few things simmering, but I need publishing to hurry up and do its thing before I can say anything.

Alexia: There are hundreds of angles one can take on promoting a book release. What is your go to marketing tool, the one thing you’ll do with every book release either because you love it or you can’t ignore its ROI?

Mike: Funny enough, I feel like I’ve released enough books that I realized that authors can’t move the needle too much on their own – it’s really a team effort. So I just try to be open, honest, and accessible in every avenue possible, whether that’s in-person events, Zoom book club meetings, or answering questions on social media.

Alexia: We’re all stronger together. And speaking of ROI, one of Jeffe Kennedy’s topic suggestions for the year is ‘worst ROI ever’. I’d love to pick your brain on that topic, and, well, every other topic we have. You should just join us! 

Mike: Like I said, there doesn’t seem to be a formula that always works! So the best thing you can do in the long run is be a nice person and be engaging rather than constantly hawking your wares.

Alexia: I couldn’t help myself, I had to throw that out there because I honestly admire your writing and find your thought processes fascinating. Thanks again for joining me on the blog, Mike. A huge congratulations on the release of A QUANTUM LOVE STORY! Many wishes for its success! 

Mike: Thank you for bringing me back!

About Mike:

Mike Chen is a critically acclaimed science fiction author based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. His debut novel HERE AND NOW AND THEN was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice, CALIBA Golden Poppy, and Compton Crook awards. His other novels include A BEGINNING AT THE END, WE COULD BE HEROES, LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME, and STAR WARS: BROTHERHOOD. He has also contributed to the STAR WARS: FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW anthology and covers geek culture for sites like Nerdist, StarTrek.com, and The Mary Sue. In previous lives, Mike worked as a sports journalist covering the NHL, DJ, musician, and aerospace engineer. He lives with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals.

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A Quantum Love Story

The only thing harder than finding someone in a time loop is losing them.

Grieving her best friend's recent death, neuroscientist Mariana Pineda’s ready to give up everything to start anew. Even her career— after one last week consulting at a top secret particle accelerator.

Except the strangest thing a man stops her…and claims they've met before. Carter Cho knows who she is, why she's mourning, why she's there. And he needs Mariana to remember everything he’s saying.

Because time is about to loop.

In a flash of energy, it’s Monday morning. Again. Together, Mariana and Carter enter an inevitable life, four days at a time, over and over, without permanence except for what they share. With everything resetting—even bank accounts—joy comes in the little a delicious (and expensive) meal, a tennis match, giving a dog his favorite treat.

In some ways, those are all that matter.

But just as they figure out this new life, everything changes. Because Carter's memories of the time loop are slowly disappearing. And their only chance at happiness is breaking out of the loop—forever.

Book Launches: Three Tips

This Week's Topic: What Are My Book Launch Tips?

The most important one? Have fun. Celebrate.

    Really. I'm not being a smartass this time. Whether you're releasing your first book or your hundred-and-first book, release day should include a celebration. Doesn't have to be big, but do recognize your own accomplishment. The book you worked hard on is finally out there. You did it! Yay you! Snarf a cupcake, binge an extra episode, or have a round of drinks with friends. Whatever you consider a treat, go ahead, indulge!

The second most important one? Have reasonable expectations. 

    The only thing wrong with dreaming is mistaking it for reality. Imagining your book-baby will bring in thousands--no, hundreds of thousands--of sales on its first day? {grimace} First week? {cringe}First...year? {cough} Aiming for a best-seller list? NYT or one of Amazon's niche categories? The former is much harder to hit than the latter. Even if you have a deep-pocketed publisher's support, selling 500k+ copies on release day/week isn't reasonable unless you already have established an audience larger than that. Building an audience of that size takes a lot of work and is what most authors are constantly striving towards.

    Already picking out your IRL launch party outfit? Picturing a full house at your local bookstore? Envisioning the line of costumed fans winding through the conference hall waiting for your autograph? Go back and re-read the previous paragraph about having an already established audience. Then do a web search for anecdotes about book signings. Even the famous have sat alone and ignored. Not trying to be a killjoy, just pointing out reality.  If you are invited to sign somewhere, make sure readers can actually buy your books (I know, that should be a given, and yet...). Get a fine-point pen that doesn't bleed and remember to ask how to spell a name instead of assuming anything. 

Don't set yourself up for disappointment by believing the wish-fulfillment fantasies portrayed in movies and TV. Even Roberts and Childs had to build their audiences before making it big. Be aggressive with your goals, but reasonable with your expectations.

The most practical one? Have a plan with built-in flexibility

    Make up a list of To-Do's 100 days before release day. If you plan too far in advance, then you'll have to revise/revisit more than once due to the inevitable changes in technology, changes in the production schedule, changes in what's hot trend-wise, or changes in your life. Know what is within your control and what isn't. Allow wiggle room in your schedule for the sake of your own sanity and the unexpected happening. 

   Pre-Orders: If you're doing a pre-order, you'll have some deliverables around the 90-day mark. Whether pre-orders are worth it, depends on your goals. If you're trying to hit a top-sellers list, then you probably want pre-orders so you can amass sales that are counted on release day. Me? I don't do 'em because I'm not after a single-day or first-week number boost. My audience isn't big enough to come close to hitting the kinds of lists that would drive more sales. 

    Ads: Do invest a bit of time to set up advertising on the big distributors. (Ads really aren't that hard to set up. Refining your ads for maximum ROI is where it gets eye-twitchy.) For those distributors that allow it, make compelling (legible with a call to action) graphics. If your current release is not a stand-alone nor first-in-series, then push the point-of-entry book 60+ days before your release and the series 30 days before release to stir interest in your new book. 

    Social Media: Leading up to release day, don't bother torturing yourself by using social media sites that you don't enjoy using or that you don't use regularly. You probably don't have a large audience there anyway, so you're just pimping into the void. Engagement stats on most platforms are in the fractions of a single percent, and conversions to sales are fractions of those fractions. Promoting there is not worth your effort. If you feel compelled to do so anyway (probably due to a contract), do not barge into established conversations/groups and promote your book (unless explicitly invited to do so). That's how you get haters (and wind up banned from the group). 

    On the sites you do use, if you lead an active audience (group, discord, followers, etc.) with whom you engage frequently, then they're probably cheering for you and would be crushed if you didn't do some fun promotions from which they benefit. This is the time to do virtual launch parties and swag if you can afford it. If you can't afford tangible goods, then go with a free digital copy of your book or gift of your time (but be safe and smart, there are a lot of unpleasant people out there). However, expect less than 10% of those members to actually buy your book. Conversions are more in the 2% range. Yeeeah, it's true, social media isn't great for ROI. So only do it if you enjoy it. 

    Newsletters: Hands down, newsletters offer the best conversion of subscribers to sales at 15%-25%. Those are outstanding numbers in the world of marketing, so this is where to focus your pre- and post-launch efforts. After all, your subscribers asked you to contact them (not to spam them, not to pester them with pointless babble). The topic of newsletters demands multiple posts unto itself, so I'll keep this short by saying if you're doing pre-orders, then you should schedule 2-4 swaps and one broadcast of your own to announce the pre-order. If you're not doing pre-orders, then wait until release day to contact your own subscribers and spread out your swaps. Remember: swaps mean you're obligated to promote the other authors' work in your newsletter in exchange for them promoting your book, so schedule accordingly. Send follow-up newsletters and schedule additional swaps to coincide with discounts you're running.  

    Do NOT spend more than you can afford on advertising, be it CPC, swag, or promo companies.

    Uploads: If you're self-pubbing, my best-practice (though possibly unpopular) piece of advice is to not upload placeholders for the sake of pre-orders. Sure, it's allowed by some distributors, but you're asking for a tech-glitch on release day. Too many authors have experienced their placeholder content being delivered instead of their final product. Spare yourself the nightmare by adjusting your schedule to only put into public that which is ready for the public. Similarly, make sure your book is done-done and uploaded at least two weeks before the distributor's lock-out date. If there are tech-gremlins at the point of upload, you've got time to panic tweak.

There you have it, my tips for launching your book. Kinda easy, no?

In Our Romantasy Era

Join me next Saturday, Feb 10th, 4:00 - 5:30 PM ET/2:00 - 3:30 PM MT for a super fun panel: "In Our Romantasy Era" - how and why romantasy stories are resonating with readers and authors today. The event will take place in person at Beastly Books in Santa Fe, NM and online on Instagram live @farofeb and @beastlybooks418. Should be a great conversation!

 

Where's the Money - Alternative Author Income

Girl cat in a sunny spot for tax because this will be a short blog post. 

In order to diversify one's money-making schemes as an author, one must first be making money as an author. 

Making money as an author. Haha. Who told you I make money as an author? Perhaps I did at one time. Currently, the cash comes in the door because I picked up a gig as a technical writer. Boring af but it pays the bills. Other than that, all of my effort goes toward trying to get a book written, edited, and out the door in the fragments of time outside of the day job and the demands of family. 

Plenty of people in the writing world have made fantastic alternate income streams for themselves. I pay for some of the services offered via those streams. But honestly. I'd like to get back in the swing of being an author and maybe being paid a little bit before contemplating other business opportunities. Maybe I lack imagination, but I do feel like I might ought to nail the titular entrepreneurship effort first.