Writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon

SlopingBird

It most certainly does. Say you have two characters, Gary and Sian. You might assign Man 1 voice to Gary and Woman 1 voice to Sian (there are Man/Woman 2 and Old Man/Woman options too). The computer will then 'act' out the dialogue using those voices. It's quite good fun though the characters do tend to sound like they've had throat surgery. I've just had a quick look to see if this function works with the novel template. It's available as a function but everything is read aloud (with the scriptwriting option only the action and the actual dialogue is read).

I think I paid about £165 for Final Draft but that was about two years ago. I didn't like it at first but now I really enjoy using it. There's a brilliant tool which enables the writer to set up a split screen, script one side, index cards summarising the scene on the other. You can then move complete scenes from one position in the script to another. For example, if I decided to move a scene back several pages, I just pick up the on-screen index card and slide it into its new position. The scene within the script will then automatically move to its new place.

I still use Word for all my other writing though (it's hard enough being creative without trying to master too many new programmes).

Wow, is that the time? Must get some sleep. Goodnight everyone.

LuckyLucy11

That's kind of annoying, they put 'celebrity guests' on instead of naming the actual guests, I couldn't find Liz's interview. Thanks for the link anyway.

I'm working on stories continually although I've yet to actually send one off. I'm looking at Shakespeare for poetic sentiments, Stephen King for clarity of description, researching practical things like 'a day in the life of a police officer' or about the background of great men to see what shapes their character.

Describing from my own experience about love and attraction, looking at how stories are formed in terms of light/dark character, the symbolism of a happy ending etc.

It's a bit abstract and I'd be better doing more writing than reading really. I began by writing 'Chapter One' and writing it all out, refusing to be put off by the enormity of writing a novel whereas now I write a plot outline like:

Young woman decides to enter a competition to an African safari for two after her divorce, wins, takes her friend and falls for a gruff yet charming masterful hunter figure

Cue adventure/love story but instead of trying to write about chapter one I instead look at the whole plot and how much research I need to do for things like Africa and cultural awareness, wild animals, tribes, his upbringing which will be very different to hers etc.

SlopingBird

LuckyLucy11, I know exactly what you mean. I've just started research for a new spec script and it's already starting to feel a bit overwhelming. One book on order from Amazon, two borrowed from the library today, lots of online articles, snippets of info that I picked up while in the area (Cornwall). While it's important to get the factual details correct, it's easy to get side-tracked altogether and start using research as a way to prevaricate indefinitely - enter ME!
It sounds as though you have loads of ideas though and that can be always a good thing.:D Keep up the good work. SB

Anglea

Hi all

I've found one of the worst problems with writing is getting hooked on the research or going off on tangents.

One of the best writing projects I really liked doing was an interactive book online.

LucyL - do you you have a fear of starting?

Jei-jei

Hi Everyone,

I just found this friendly forum on MSE (who'd a thunk it?) and am really impressed by the advice given. I've just completed my first novel which is aimed at M&B Modern Heat.

Since this is my first posting I'm keeping it short but before the brain cells short out I'm happy to share thoughts, ideas etc. on all aspects of the process.

I've completed the synopsis and query letter; I hope to email my three chapters in a couple of days. Has anyone else submitted? Or is still picking up the courage to do so? I still feel like I'm finding excuses not to make that leap of faith.

Sassers

Hi everyone - hope you're all looking forward to the weekend. :wave: I've enjoyed catching up with the posts on here and Slopingbird, your voice recognition made me chuckle out loud. I can just imagine the characters voices in the heat of passion sounding a bit like a dalek...lol. Or Stephen Hawking.
One of my tasks in the next couple of days is to write up my notes from the M&B workshop for you all (my rusty shorthand came in dead handy for once!). Also everyone who attended also got a couple of books, pens and a nice cup of tea afterwards. More importantly Liz Fielding also gave out handouts so I'm going to PDF them for you. They'll probably be ready later today - minus the update - but feel free to PM me with your email and I'll send them to you. I might not be able to reply straight away but you will get the handout at some point over the weekend.
Have a good day all.....Sassers x

Anglea

Hi Jei-jei welcome to the thread :j

A number of people on here have submitted their books so go ahead with yours, there is never the perfect time for anything.

Sassers it sounds as though you enjoyed yourself. What were the other particpants like?

Please PM the details whenever suits.

Jei-jei

Thanks Anglea and everyone else for their kind gestures.

As it happens I'm rewriting my synopsis to get it down to the two page requirement, while of course getting the chronological and salient points across. Phew!!

Because I'm going to email my submission, I checked by emailing it to myself first and promptly lost all the formatting. I got round this by saving it as a Word 97-2003 doc but it made me so nervous I had to go through it again.

All procrastination but I'm getting there. I'm fairly pragmatic about the rates of rejection, but start as you mean to go on . I've got two more on the back boiler and jotting notes everywhere.

Sassers I'd be very happy if you could PM or share here the details of the workshop. I tried to get on the London ones but they were not surprisingly all booked up.

LuckyLucy11

It's not starting that's holding me back it's that I may finish the whole chapter then pick up a classic book and see examples of much better, clearer writing (I've since realised that's what editing is for). Or that someone will read my book in years to come and think 'she's obviously never been there then' or 'she's describing a -, it's called a -' (I'll describe something instead of naming it).

Then there's all the historical facts to get right. I know what to do but like you said it quickly gets overwhelming when you second guess what you write or find it lacking. I have notebooks filled with notes on characters, books scattered everywhere that I haven't got around to reading. I think 'once I've read that I'll have the inspiration to write as good as they do'.

I know what they mean when they say 'write what you know' now, they mean write the parts you know. If you have a grand plot in mind like a girl proposes to her boyfriend on the Eiffel Tower on a Leap Year, he says no and she's devastated you might not know the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower but you DO know how it feels to be in love, to be heartbroken, to have planned something exciting, to be left picking up the pieces, to deal with a non-commital person, to suddenly want to go home. M&B want feelings rather than a travel guide anyway.

I just have to try capture the spirit of it a tale being told rather than bolting bits of facts on out of Wikipedia.

SlopingBird

LuckyLucy, you sound very self-aware as far as your writing is concerned and believe me, that's going to help you to get published.

My other half does new author reviews (he gets paid for it) and it's amazing how bad some of the submitted manuscripts are - no story structure, zero characterisation e.g. women are either w***** or madonnas, over-writing (that's really common - too often new authors don't trust the reader to grasp anything, they keep spelling everything out ENDLESSLY), terrible grammar . . . I could go on.

I think some of the authors put their completed manuscripts in the post the minute the last word is written, without so much as a final read through.

I suppose there is such a thing as glancing too much - and never getting the darned thing sent to the publisher.

I've been doing more research today in the hope of finding a brilliant storyline for my script - unfortunately, it's still eluding me though I think I'm slowly finding my theme. Interestingly, in my pursuit of info about the era, I've been reading a very popular author (someone who has written an awful lot of books) and she is guilty of many of the points above, specifically the over-writing!!

Off now to watch Casablanca for the first time. Night everyone.