Novellas and the Romance Genre

I had the pleasure of getting to know romance author Ginny Frost at a writers retreat a couple of years ago. Since a lot of her work is novella length, I invited her to be a guest here and talk about her relationship with novellas and how they fit in the romance genre.

I’m Ginny Frost, and I write sexy books. Romance is my genre of choice because I love a love story. You know, the part where they fall in love? Whether it’s Elizabeth and Darcy or Han and Leia, the genre calls to me. The novella works wonderfully for love stories.

For me, the shorter format allows me to get to the point of the tale fast. And the point is falling in love. Novellas allow me as an author to focus on the romance (sexy stuff or not). I can write the details about their fears, wants, and needs without having to establish a lengthy backstory. My characters fall into bed quickly and then sort everything else out afterward. Keeping the story concise forces me to push the characters to deal with their issues. They can’t languish in ennui. They must move the plot forward!

Being able to write a short, fulfilling tale is an art form. As a writer, we need to convey everything to our readers in under 40,000 words. Novellas challenge us to tighten our writing and find new ways to express complex ideas. Not to mention, they are much easier to edit than a 100,000-word monster. But I digress…

Recently, there’s been a trend in romance to do MAPs—multi-author projects. Several writers will publish a series of novellas using the same setting, prop, or theme. I’ve taken part in two MAPs and love having my short pieces exposed to other readers. (Wow, that sounded dirty. Good thing I write spicy!) My most recent novella is part of a magical series with seven books. With the shorter format, all seven of us were able to produce and self-pub the novellas within a year. We had time to work on other projects because the stories were under 40,000 words.

Let’s talk about pricing. Unfortunately, the trend is for authors to sell books at a minimum profit. Readers want free or $0.99 titles. It’s hard to mark your work for only a dollar when it takes years to write it. Novellas are a terrific way to lure readers with a book in a low price range. Readers are willing to try out a new author for a dollar. Short works under $2 can entice readers to check you out and then grab that $20 “book of your heart” later.

As a reader, I love the novella. It’s short and sweet. It gives you a taste of the author’s work. With many book titles available, novellas help me weed through the masses to find hidden gems. Romance is not the only genre using this format. I’ve read sci-fi and cozy mystery novellas. These authors show off their skills by creating a satisfying story in such few words. (I’m looking at you, Martha Wells.)

My conclusion? In a world with millions of authors to choose from, mastering the novella format will get eyes on your books. Read widely to see how other authors squeeze a full story into 40k. Then go do it. You won’t regret a thing.

Thanks for letting me visit today. Check out my books here, including my $0.99 newest novella, Artist. I’m all over social media—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’ve got a fantastic blog for authors called Apps for Writers. And if you like a free book, check out my newsletter for a free prequel to Stonewater Stories.

 

Ginny Frost is a hybrid author with two traditionally published novels and seven indie titles. She writes contemporary romance with a sexy, funny kick. In her downtime, she plays clerk at the local library—the perfect job to feed her reading addiction. She lives in upstate NY with her very own kindhearted ogre, their two smart and sassy daughters, and an evil cat named Flash.

Guest Post: Bad Blood A Life Without Consequence

Today’s blog is a guest post by musician and author David B. Roundsley, who I interviewed as part of the Pride Month Interviews series.

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Anthony has kindly given me this space to talk about my book (and album) Bad Blood. This started out to document my 13-year search for my birth parents and DNA origins but became so much more. Parts of my life I had pushed to the side came into focus, forcing me to examine areas previously left untouched. Being a gay man and an adoptee, other outside stats came into play. The suicide rate for adoptees is 7.6% as compared to 3.1% of children living with their biological families. The suicide rate for LGBTQ youth is an added 1.5-3% higher than heterosexual youth. Being an adoptee, I realized I was hired for a job I never applied for.

Prior to this search, which really became an adventure, had anyone asked if I had any doubts or questions about my life, I’d probably have said, “No.” Stumbling into this through good timing and chance, I realize now how many questions I actually had.

Dealing with issues of anxiety and depression, along with questions of identity and self-worth, started this search, but very quickly I was pulled down a rabbit hole to make Alice’s adventures seem tame. I had expected I’d find a father and mother who more likely than not were no longer together, but otherwise had relatively normal and unremarkable lives. Instead I discovered ties to the Mob, criminal behavior, drug use, promiscuity, swinging, and several generations of broken homes and families left in the dust.

Another aspect of the story, journey, and book I’ve been reluctant to talk about prior to publication is my older half-sister “Danni”. We were several years into the search when a twist of fate provided the singular breadcrumb that allowed us to find her. To say she’s had a Dickensian life would be a massive understatement. Despite the many trials she has been through, she is remarkably upbeat and one of the nicest and kindest people you could ever meet.

I worked with “Danni” (all the names in the book have been changed, with the exception of mine and my husband Dave’s) for several months last year so she could provide her first-person narrative, not only of her life, but also of my birth father’s family and origins. Her narrative gives an added dimension and opened the door for discoveries that would have otherwise been lost to time.

Finding the answers to a myriad of mysteries, the journey was healing both to myself and many other people. While the story seems unique, I believe with data aggregation, social media, DNA tests and so much of our lives now documented online, uncovering secrets and truth will become more commonplace.

 

Please check out my Kickstarter Campaign at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bad-blood/bad-blood-a-life-without-consequence

The Campaign ends at midnight September 11.

 

David B. Roundsley has been involved in a wide array of artistic disciplines ranging from fine art (painting, pen & ink, watercolor), to graphic design, multi-media, writing, video, and music (composing and studio production) over the past 50 years. He has run an independent design company since 1994 as well as having held the Creative Director positions at GetSmart and Fast Find, and has released 11 albums under the moniker Munich Syndrome.

Guest Post: ZOOM OTHELLO by H. Kevin Opela

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It has become hackneyed to say that coronageddon has changed everyone’s lives, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Our lives have been forever disrupted by a seemingly random act of nature, and each of us is trying to figure out how to make sense of it in our own way. How do we continue to find meaning without our jobs, without our friends and family by our side, without human interaction? And while every one of us will define their answer differently, in the aggregate I believe our collective answer is that we are all trying to discover a new path in this new reality. 

For me, that meant coming back to the thing that gives my life the most meaning – theatre - and figuring out a way to make it work on a digital stage. And so I started by asking myself, “How can theatre continue (even thrive) in a time of social distancing?” The only way to answer that was to experiment, and so Zoom Othello was born.

After each performance, the audience is invited to remain online and share their thoughts and questions with the cast and me. The questions I hear most during these conversations are “Why Zoom?”, “Why Shakespeare?”, and “Why Othello?”

The answer for “Why Zoom?” is mostly mercenary. I wanted to take advantage of the incredible popularity of the platform. It’s simple to use, good quality and, most important, almost everybody is familiar with it. Theatre doesn’t have to be populist, but it does require a willing audience. So if I was going to do something new, I had to do it where the most people would have access to it.

The answer to “Why Shakespeare?” might seem to contradict that, but art lives in contradictions. That made it an almost obvious choice – that and my affinity for the Bard! I wanted to see if the immediacy of an online platform made Elizabethan language more - or less - accessible to the general public. What could we do with the extreme limitations of movement, staging, costuming, props and scenery? How can we effectively stage a fight scene when the actors are on different screens, thousands of miles away? How about love scenes? Can we create an emotional connection with the audience through an imperfect medium?

Which is probably what prompted most people to ask the last question, “Why Othello?” But to me, Othello is the best choice. It is one of Shakespeare’s most tightly wound plays. The characters’ choices are easy to understand, and they don’t suffer from too much psychological complexity. Heavily focused on plot, it drives forward relentlessly to an explosive climax.

More important, though, is that it’s all about contagion. One character, Iago – our ‘index patient’ – spreads the plague of jealousy to every other character. No one is immune. And in the end, there’s no justice. Iago is never punished, he never suffers for his crimes. But the world around him, the world he was a part of, is forever changed. To me, it is the perfect analogy for what’s going on right now.

Our collective story – the story of all humanity - is one of defiance in the face of chaos. When the chaotic forces of the universe threaten, we are compelled to strike out on a journey of discovery; we innovate; we create. That’s why we have art and industry. That’s why we tell stories and build narratives. It’s how we define who we are and stake a claim in the history of our species.

I undertook Zoom Othello to embark on my own, small journey of discovery. Like the characters in the play, I am raging against a contagion that I can’t see and against which I cannot win. But I refuse to allow the chaos to deny me the chance to plant my stake, and to say “I was here.”

Othello will continue it's performances this week:

Thursday, May 14 at 8:00 pm EST (Act IV)

Friday, May 15 at 7:00 pm EST (Act V)


Join Zoom Performance
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87391802207

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Guest Post: Connecting A Village by 'Nathan Burgoine

It’s no secret that I love fictional worlds, whether they’re as vast as a space sector or as intimate as an apartment building. Characters who cross over into each others’ stories, whether as main/supporting characters or winking in-passing references, really make my day. It’s fun teasing those “easter eggs” out when authors pay tribute to a favorite writer or character, but it’s even more fun when an author creates, across stories, an interconnected world. ‘Nathan Burgoine does that in his stories of The Village, the most recent of which, Faux Ho Ho, is available now from Bold Strokes Books. Today, ‘Nathan visits us to discuss how to connect a Village….

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Connecting a Village by ‘Nathan Burgoine

When it comes to stories centered around the holidays, I often find myself removed. Sometimes, I mean that literally: when was the last time you saw one of those Hallmark-esque movies including a queer person at all, let alone a queer person with a chosen family of queer people surrounding them? Sometimes, I mean it figuratively: even when you do find the occasional story with a queer main character, if there’s any strain from a familial sense, it’s often resolved with a bow, snowflakes, and tinsel before the credits roll or the epilogue concludes. It’s a yearly frustration, and it very much led to my first foray into queer holiday romance, Handmade Holidays.

Handmade Holidays is all about a chosen family, and how they gather, sometimes part, support each other, sometimes unknowingly fail each other, and grow. As it’s a romance, there’s also a core relationship developing throughout the novella, but my main goal was to show these queer people for what they were: as a real a family as any biological one might be, and no less the loving for it.

I honestly thought I was done with holiday stories after that. I tend to write stories with a dash of speculative fiction, but Handmade Holidays didn’t have a speculative element. I had knowingly set it in my fictional Village—a version of Ottawa’s own gay Village, only with that dash of magic and less gentrification—and the Village was definitely a place I wanted to revisit again and again. The Village is, after all, another metaphor for chosen family, and the magic thereof, and takes center stage in my first collection, Of Echoes Born, including what more-or-less sparks off the rebirth of the Village in the included novelette, “A Little Village Magic.”

But another holiday story? No. Unlikely.

Except…

One of the great things about writing romances is the grand love of various tropes. There are shorthand discussion points to the romance genre that grant whole skeletal frameworks to telling a story, and if there’s one I’ve always loved, it’s the fake relationship trope. There’s just something about people only realizing how they feel when they’re pretending to feel it that really makes my little queer heart go pitter-pat, and part of that, I think, is inherent to the queerness: so many of us spend so much time pretending we’re not what we are. A reversal of that, where pretending leads to a truth? It just feels good.

Also? Fake relationship stories are often funny, and I wanted to write something funny to get myself out of a year-long funk. It turned out to be a good idea on that front, and so Faux Ho Ho, contains some moments I hope will tickle the reader: super-awkward dates, some Dungeons & Dragons cartoon cosplay, and maybe a flung jock strap. A pink one, of course.

Faux Ho Ho grew from the notion of wanting to explore a fake relationship trope plot, coupled with wanting to explore chosen family again, but in a slightly different way. I’d seen a queer friend posting a tribute to “those of us who look at the holidays like a chore of endurance” or something similar, about spending time with families that weren’t outright hostile, but weren’t welcoming, either. Or a mixed bag, where there were family members who were great and loving worth withstanding other family members, who weren’t.

Those two thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone, and it occurred to me that having a fake partner to take home for the holidays would be like bringing a small piece of a chosen family home as backup to get through a difficult time. After that, Faux Ho Ho began to fall into place.

Chosen family meant connections, and so I found myself back in the Village, eyeing the characters who’d come before, looking for an entry point. I knew I wanted someone gregarious for the role of fake boyfriend, and the most outgoing character I’d written thus far was Fiona, an outspoken lesbian who—like Handmade Holidays main character Nick—had been disowned and disconnected from her own family when she came out. In Handmade Holidays, Fiona eventually opens up her own gym, Body Positive, where the mandate is to make sure everyone, no matter how they feel about their body, has a place to foster a more positive relationship with their body and their health.

Having a trainer who worked for Fiona be the fake boyfriend became the first piece of the puzzle, and Dino was born.

Connecting Dino to Handmade Holidays and the Village in general meant I could ground the hero of Faux Ho Ho in the close-knit community I’d already crafted, which as a writer felt akin to putting on a warm sweater I already knew would fit. Silas, a geeky computer programmer type, wasn’t going to be a person who was naturally outgoing, so I eyed my stable of characters and almost immediately decided he’d be connected to Ru, the love interest of Handmade Holidays, who is blunt, outgoing, and doesn’t stand for letting a friend stay on the sidelines when they deserve to be front and center.

During Handmade Holidays, Ru leaves Ottawa to look after his father for a few years, and then returns. When he returns, it’s a quick decision, and he has nowhere to stay immediately, though it’s intimated he couch-surfs with the rest of the characters for a while. At that point, it struck me I had a great way to introduce Silas, and to create the very reason for Silas and Dino to know each other: Silas would be Ru’s roommate, and given the concluding events of Handmade Holidays, Silas would at some point be looking for a new roommate, once Ru moved out.

That became my starting point. Silas and Dino, have been living together as roommates for nine months at the start of Faux Ho Ho, and when Silas is faced with going home for a Thanksgiving event he really, really doesn’t want to attend, Dino jumps in and pretends to be his boyfriend, citing a prior commitment to his own family, and Silas has a graceful out. Neither thinks much of it after that, except when an invitation shows up later for Silas’s sister’s Christmas wedding.

Which is when the whole “fake boyfriend” thing really takes off. Like, in a plane, all the way back to Alberta where Silas’s family lives.

In a similar way to how Handmade Holidays moves through time, a year or two between each chapter, Faux Ho Ho alternates between the present in Alberta and the past nine months that Silas and Dino have spent together as roommates. So much of their time together involves the chosen family of the Village, not just Fiona and Ru, but also Nick, and Phoebe (a trans woman first introduced in Handmade Holidays, who owns and operates a consignment fashion shop we’ve seen before in Saving the Date), Fiona’s wife Jenn and their two kids, Reed and Melody, as well as a few new faces, most importantly Felix and Owen, who make up a quartet alongside Ru and Silas of friends who hang out at Bittersweets (the Village coffee shop) on a weekly basis to catch each other up on their lives.

They also play D&D and board games, because if I’m going to write queer stories, I’m going to include queer nerds out of solidarity for my people. Silas also plays the cleric, which, for my fellow D&D nerds, was a conscious choice that says a lot about who he is.

The chapters where Silas is at home, surrounded by his Village friends and living the life he’s chosen for himself are full of connections. The chapters where Silas is back in Alberta, with his family (but with Dino for backup) are an opportunity to show what those connections have done for him, and how he’s changed in his time in the Village. That was the facet of Chosen Family I really wanted to focus on this time with Faux Ho Ho: how much we grow when we finally get to be the person we are, when we finally find back-up and support.

And although Faux Ho Ho can absolutely be read as a standalone, I don’t think it’s a story I could have written without all the other stories that came before. The short fictions in Of Echoes Born, and the novellas Handmade Holidays and Saving the Date, gave me the confidence to write a character completely bolstered by the support of a good, loving, accepting community because I could picture all of them so clearly. I had a Village, so to speak.

Like Handmade Holidays, I made the choice to stick to something completely contemporary, though the fellas do hang out in Bittersweets and they do mention going to Avery’s chocolate shop from “Vanilla” (another short story set in the Village, where the proprietor has a habit of adding a mystical oomph to anything he crafts by hand, including his chocolates). Faux Ho Ho doesn’t have a speculative element, but that’s not to say there’s no magic. It’s just this time the magic is the kind found in the strength of support and community, pride, and a really well-timed kickboxing lesson or two.


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’Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. Since then, he’s had dozens of shorter fictions published, including releasing his first collection Of Echoes Born. He does sometimes write longer things, including novellas (In Memoriam, Handmade Holidays, and Saving the Date) and has crossed the line into novel-writing, too. His debut novel, Light, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and since then he’s released two urban paranormal novels, Triad Blood and Triad Soul, and a contemporary speculative YA novel, Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. He lives in Ottawa, Canada with his husband and their rescued husky. You can find him online at NathanBurgoine.com.

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