Damn That Donald Maass!

I’ve been writing with the intent to publish for nearly three years. (In writerspeak this means that although I’ve been writing forever, only the stuff I’ve completed in the last three years is worth the cost of a postage stamp for the query letter).


Anyway, so I’m heading down the backstretch of my second novel, and it’s taken so long that I think was still producing eggs when I started it. Mostly this is due to the fact I’m a panster, not a plotter. Whatever. The other night, I sketched out how to get from page 350 to 400 (at which point, I’ll be typing THE END!!!!) and started feeling pretty cocky about it.


Then Donald Maass reared his ugly head (actually, it's an attractive head—I took his workshop last year).


Raise the stakes, he hissed.


Make it worse, he commanded.


Okay. Plan B. I raised the stakes and I made it worse.


Still, he kept popping up in my brain to repeat his mantra.


Sigh. Back to the drawing board. I raised the stakes again, and I made things even worse. At this point, my poor hero and heroine are miserable failures (which, of course, is a good thing).


Naturally...you guessed it. The Donald (as my friend Brooke and I fondly refer to him) is an adherent to the rule of three, so (grumble, grumble) I went through the process again.


So, now I’m feeling extremely happy with the way the plot unfolds. It’s not hackneyed or clichéd, it’s not predictable...it’s—dare I say it?—Donald Maas-worthy.


Only one problem. A minor detail, really.


This is supposed to be a romance and, um, I forgot to make the heroine fall in love with the hero.


The way I discovered this was by doing a search of the word ‘love’ in the 350 pages I’ve written. Yep, sure enough, there it is: Nick having an epiphany on how he feels about Amy. Unfortunately, Amy is epiphany-less.


Which got me to thinking. Out of the bazillion craft books I’ve read, I don’t remember much about how to handle the actual falling-in-love-part of a romance. Oh, the process is addressed, sure. I’ve read articles on the “stages of falling in love,” how the love has to be tested, and so on. But, what about that exact moment the character realizes someone has rocked her world? I hate when the heroine suddenly slaps her head and says aloud: “Why, could it be? I’ve fallen in love with Herman!” And, I’m much more in favor of the reader recognizing the state of affairs before the character. But, still...there has to be a moment, doesn’t there?


I decided not to worry about my own character’s inability to figure it out because, in truth, that’s who she is--a cynic who doesn’t believe in love. So waiting until the last page for her epiphany may work out nicely.


And, if not—well, thank God for editing.