Category Archives: Writing Wednesday

Writing Wednesday: Tips for Writing Love Scenes.

Guest Post, Writing Wednesday, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
As this Writing Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day, I have joined forces with my fellow Choc Lit (Joffe Books) romance writers to share top tips for writing love scenes …

Carol Thomas (that’s me). I write feel-good contemporary romance and romantic comedy novels that will make you smile.

  • Having a strong emotional connection between characters, built in earlier chapters, adds to the moment.
  • Building physical tension through anticipation, subtle gestures, longing glances, and dialogue hints adds to the satisfaction of the love scene when it happens.
  • Physical intimacy needs to be consensual and driven by shared enthusiasm.
  • The love scene itself should involve a balance of passion, emotion, and sensuality, some of which will be played out before the audience, while some won’t.
  • I like leaving readers space for their imagination to take over; the things that fulfil the desires of my characters might be a turn-off to the reader, and I wouldn’t want to jolt them out of the moment.
  • Love scenes should never appear for the sake of being there, they should enhance character development and add to the story.

Discover more about me and my novels here.

Lucy Keeling is the author of fun, sexy stories with all of the happily ever afters.

  • If you’re writing your first ever steamy scene and it reads a bit like flat pack assembly instructions (insert part A into part B ), go back and remember to use all the senses.
  • This is an opportunity to show off a deeper understanding of your characters.
  • Oh, and keep an eye on the logistics.

Discover more about Lucy Keeling and her work here.

Ella Cook writes emotional, heartwarming romance that will lift your spirits:

  • I’m going to be controversial and say that, much as the best moments of intimacy in life aren’t planned, neither were the ones that got the best feedback from readers for me. I guess what I’m saying is let the characters go with the flow. If they’re the type of people – or at least one of them is – minded to privacy, then don’t feel like you have to fling the door open and show the ins and outs of their love life.
  • But equally, if your lead character is the type who thinks nothing of keeping her (admittedly rather more subtly shaped than most) vibrator in her bathroom, then she’s probably not going to shy away from talking about sex, either. So, if you want to write about it – write in line with our characters: get into their head spaces and let the reader see what they’re thinking, how they’re reacting and feeling.
  • Oh, and avoid biological terms – it’s a romance novel, not a biology textbook!

Discover more about Ella Cook and her work here.

Kirsty Ferry is the writer of spellbinding timeslips, unforgettable romantic comedies and uplifting contemporary romance novels.

  • I always leave the reader at the bedroom door. I’d never try to write a scene like that!
  • It’s nice to do an ‘almost kiss’ scene and have them get interrupted by a phone or something. I was told they’d kissed too early in my first book, so I usually try to hold off a bit for them.

Discover more about Kirsty Ferry and her work here.

Liv Thomas is one half of the writing duo who writes the utterly enchanting love stories set in Ireland by Isabella Connor.

  • It depends on the context and the relationship between the couple. If it’s a solid relationship, I tend to make it emotional as much, or more, than physical and let the reader feel a slow tempo.

Discover more about the work of Isabella Connor here.

Sue McDonagh writes uplifting, unputdownable romance novels:

  • Hilariously, the sex in my first novels had to be toned down as they were a bit too explicit. The pivotal sex scene in my last book was so toned down (less is more) that my poor editor wasn’t entirely sure whether they’d actually had sex or not, and I had to re-write it several times. I’ve learned that balance is the key.

Discover more about Sue McDonagh and her work here.

I hope you enjoyed our tips and they prove useful next time you write a love scene. Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day, and happy writing!
Carol x

#WritingWednesday with Sally Jenkins: Emotional Baggage Drop.

Writing & Reading, Writing Wednesday, , , , , , , , ,
I am delighted to offer a warm publication week welcome to Sally Jenkins as she discusses emotional baggage and the benefits of letting it go. Over to you, Sally …

Emotional baggage – we all carry it, don’t we? I’m talking about the fall-out from the bad things that happen in everyone’s lives, things like relationship breakups, bereavement, redundancy and family problems. With that emotional baggage often comes physical baggage, too, such as the engagement ring that we didn’t throw back at him in the heat of the moment because why should he have it back when he’s hurt us so badly? Or maybe it’s our old workplace name badge and lanyard that used to make us feel confident and part of a team before we lost our job. Now, when we look at these objects our sense of loss and being cast aside is heightened. Our mental health suffers.

We know we should bin these objects and move on with our lives. But it’s not easy to discard something that still holds a trace of happy memories – even if those memories have mostly been soured. Emotional baggage causes stress, depression, and anger. It weighs us down and allows our past experiences to undermine our chances for a better future.

There is a solution:

The Museum of Broken Relationships.

The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb accepts and displays such emotionally-charged objects along with their stories. Donating to the museum is not as final as throwing something away but it puts the object out of reach, thus preparing the ground for a fresh, confident new start in life.

Ten years ago, I read an article about the Museum of Broken Relationships and it became the inspiration for a series of short stories, which in turn became the novel, Little Museum of Hope. In the story, Vanessa is knocked for six by divorce and redundancy and is looking for a way forward in life. She hears about the Zagreb museum and opens her own version of it in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter in England. She names it the Little Museum of Hope and within the museum she creates the Café of the Mended Heart, which provides comfort food for those feeling emotionally fragile. Vanessa offers donors the chance to offload their stories as well as their objects and, as they say, a problem shared is a problem halved.

But the museum has only ten months to start turning a profit and Vanessa is faced with another challenge when her ex-husband, who still owns half of the marital home, reappears. Plus, her terrible baking means that she is losing money buying-in cakes for the café.

Donors to both the real-life Museum of Broken Relationships and the fictional Little Museum of Hope make the decision to stop letting their emotional baggage rule their lives. They recognise the need to stop dwelling on what might have been and focus on positivity for the future. I hope all the readers of Little Museum of Hope will take inspiration from the stories of the museum donors, cast aside their own emotional (and physical) baggage and move towards a future full of hope, positivity and love.

About Little Museum of Hope

A jar of festival mud, a photo album of family memories, a child’s teddy bear, a book of bell ringing methods, an old cassette tape, a pair of slippers …

These are the items that fill the exhibit shelves in Vanessa Jones’ museum. At first glance, they appear to have nothing in common, but that’s before you find out the stories behind them …

Because Vanessa’s Little Museum of Hope is no ordinary museum – its aim is to help people heal by donating items associated with shattered lives and failed relationships and in doing so, find a way to move on, perhaps even start again.

The museum soon becomes a sanctuary for the broken hearts in Vanessa’s city, and she’s always on hand to offer a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a listening ear.

But could the bringer of Hope need a little help moving on herself?

Discover more and purchase here: Amazon

About the author:

Sally Jenkins lives in the West Midlands of England. When not writing, she feeds her addiction to words by working part-time in her local library, running two reading groups and giving talks about her writing. Sally can also be found walking, church bell ringing and enjoying shavasana in her yoga class.

Discover more about Sally Jenkins and her work here: Website and Blog  | Twitter| Instagram |  Facebook | Newsletter

Thank you for stopping by, Sally. Little Museum of Hope sounds wonderful and I look forward to reading it. Enjoy the rest of your publication celebrations. xx

#WritingWednesday with Chris Penhall: Writing Characters.

Guest Post, Writing Wednesday, , , , , , ,

My #WritingWednesday guest this week is fellow Ruby Fiction author Chris Penhall, talking about the benefit of writing characters as if they are in a film.

Over to you, Chris …

One of the best tips I ever had was to think about your characters and scenes as if they were in a film.  It may seem obvious, but it was a game-changer for me. I’d written my first novel, The House That Alice Built, and had some good feedback for it, but it wasn’t quite there, so I invested in a mentor who helped me get it to the finish line (i.e., it won the Choc-Lit Search for a Star Competition and was actually published).

And that was one of the things she told me to do.

I honestly think I thought that’s what I was doing. But once I really started closing my eyes and began to think about what my characters actually were doing when they were talking or where they were sitting when they were thinking, what they could hear, see and even smell,  I realised I’d been paying lip-service to it as I typed away.  (I do love the sound of a tap tap on the keyboard, especially if it’s fast, so can get carried away with volume rather than quality…)

I love watching films as much as I love reading books, so once I began to really picture each scene in my head, I enjoyed the process of writing even more.

What could Alice Matthews see when she was driven along The Avenida on the Lisbon coast in Ignacio’s yellow Rolls Royce for the very first time? As a heads up, the section of the film The Yellow Rolls Royce starring Shirley MacLaine and Alain Delon on the Italian Riviera is one of my favourite pieces of cinema – oh, the romance, the colours, the feel of it …. Alice had come from a rather grey London, and what she saw from the window of that car was full of colour and vibrancy. What was it like sitting in Ignacio’s yellow Rolls Royce at the beginning of the sequel New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun? Another spoiler alert – there were many balloons. Why were they there?  That was easy – but also, what did they look like, what did they do, what did the car look like as it drove away?

It’s very easy to slip into writing banter when characters are having a conversation, and I have to discipline myself to slow down and think about what people do when they are talking to each other – smile, take a sip of a drink, glance out of a window – and, although I may not use all of that on the actual page, the fact I’m thinking of it as a film or television scene allows me to see it in 3D and somehow helps bring the characters to life in my mind.

Now I’m working on my sixth novel, I have already closed my eyes and plonked my main characters in the area where most of the action is set. I can see them walking around, exploring their new surroundings, having conversations and gazing out to sea (my characters always gaze somewhere…) I am seeing them in 3D, and that is what helps me to write. Even though I haven’t put any words on paper yet – my hands are poised above the keyboard so I can start next week – I am ready to move them around and start them on their new adventure.

Also – I’d love my novels to be made into films. Any producers out there? Just thought I’d ask…

Definitely worth an ask 😉 Thank you for sharing another great writing tip, Chris. xx

Books by Chris Penhall:

The House That Alice Built

Home is where the heart is … Alice Dorothy Matthews is sensible. Whilst her best friend Kathy is living it up in Portugal and her insufferable ex Adam is travelling the world, Alice is working hard to pay for the beloved London house she has put her heart and soul into renovating. But then a postcard from Buenos Aires turns Alice’s life upside down. One very unsensible decision later and she is in Cascais, Portugal, and so begins her lesson in ‘going with the flow’; a lesson that sees her cat-sitting, paddle boarding, dancing on top of bars and rediscovering her artistic talents. But perhaps the most important part of the lesson for Alice is that you don’t always need a house to be at home.

Discover more or purchase here.

New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun

Follow your yellow brick road …. Alice Dorothy Matthews is on the road to paradise! She’s sold her house in London, got rid of her nasty ex and arranged her move to Portugal where friendship and romance awaits. All that’s left to do is find a place to call home. But Alice’s dreams are called into question when complications with friends, work and new relationships make her Portuguese paradise feel far too much like reality. Will Alice’s dream of a new home in the sun come true?

Discover more or purchase here.

Finding Summer Happiness

You won’t find happiness without breaking a few eggs …Miriam Ryan was the MD of a successful events and catering company, but these days even the thought of chopping an onion sends her stress levels sky rocketing. A retreat to the Welsh village of her childhood holidays seems to offer the escape she’s craving – just peace, quiet, no people, a generous supply of ready meals … did she mention no people? Enter a cheery pub landlord, a lovesick letting agent, a grumpy astronomer with a fridge raiding habit – not to mention a surprise supper club that requires the chopping of many onions – and Miriam realises her escape has turned into exactly what she was trying to get away from, but could that be just the thing she needs to allow a little bit of summer happiness into her life?

Discover more or purchase here.

The House on the Hill – A Summer in the Algarve

Layla is calm, in control and is definitely not about to lose her serenity for the man next door!
Surely it can’t be hard to stay peaceful at one of the oldest yoga and mindfulness retreats in the Algarve, surrounded by sea, sun and serenity? Mostly, owner Layla Garcia manages it – with the help of meditation and plenty of camomile tea, of coursekeeping her grandparents’ legacy alive is stressful, and Layla has become so shackled to the work that, for her, The House on the Hill is fast becoming ‘The Fortress on the Hill’.
Then writer Luke Mackie moves to the villa next door, bringing with him a healthy dose of chaos to disrupt Layla’s plans, plus a painful reminder of a time when she was less-than-serene. But could his influence be just what Layla needs to ‘dance like no-one’s watching’ and have the fun she’s been missing?

Discover more or purchase here.

About the author:

Chris Penhall won the 2019 Choc-Lit Search for a Star competition, sponsored by Your Cat Magazine, for her debut novel, The House That Alice Built. The sequel, New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun was published in August 2020. They are both part of her Portuguese Paradise series of novels.

Her third novel, Finding Summer Happiness, is set in Pembrokeshire in South-West Wales and her fourth – The House on the Hill – A Summer in the Algarve, is another in her Portuguese Paradise series.

All are available in e-book, audio and paperback.

Chris is a writer and freelance radio producer for BBC Local Radio. She also has her own occasional podcast – The Talking to My Friends About Book Podcast in which she chats to her friends about books. Good title!

A lover of books, music and cats, she is also an enthusiastic salsa dancer, a keen cook, and loves to travel. She is never happier than when she is gazing at the sea.

You can find out more about Chris and her work here: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 

#WritingWednesday with Chris Penhall: A Sense of Place.

Guest Post, Writing Wednesday, , , , , , , ,

This #WritingWednesday, fellow Ruby Fiction author, Chris Penhall, shares her brilliant tips for writing a sense of place.

I read all types of fiction, from romance to crime to historical and everything in between. When I write, however, what comes out of my imagination are contemporary romances set in beautiful places.

Once I started writing my first novel, The House That Alice Built, I knew the physical setting was very important because of the way it affected the main character. That’s why I decided to place her firmly in Cascais near Lisbon because I know that part of Portugal very well as I used to live there, and now I spend a lot of time in the Algarve in the south of the country. If I want to meditate and take myself off to a beach in my mind’s eye to help me do it, it’ll be a Portuguese beach. If I pop into town and smell a barbecue, I’ll be in the square in Cascais in an instant. It feels so real to me that once I started Alice’s quite literal journey, I found it surprisingly easy to take her there.

The sequel, New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun is located in the same place, but she visits Lisbon more often and also south of the river Tejo. I went on a long weekend break to the city just after I started writing the book and the colours and sounds (and food!) were all very vivid to me when I got home and got to work on it again.

My latest novel Finding Summer Happiness, is based in south west Wales. This time it’s not set in a specific place; I have created an imaginary village by the sea inspired by many visits to Pembrokeshire over the years – most recently when I spent some days walking parts of the glorious coastal path with friends. I was born in Neath in West Glamorgan, so the coast of that part of Wales is somewhere I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy since I was born. My memories of childhood days on the beach can be conjured up in an instant for me because I do the coast!

So, now I’ve written three novels with a real sense of place, I’ve finally worked out how and why I do it.

In all three stories the places my main characters find themselves in are part of the catalyst that makes them want to change, and so in a way the locations are characters in the novels. That is why I feel it’s important to describe them in the way I do.

I write about the locations when I feel it’s crucial to the story. In my first two novels my main character, Alice, is rediscovering her artistic talents and is inspired by what is around her. That’s why the colours and the landscape are so clear to her and help her to find a new way to express herself, which in turn, enables her to move on.

Miriam, the main character in Finding Summer Happiness is looking for her childhood past in a little village on the coast in south west Wales, and her walks along the beaches and the cliffs on the coastal path help her to do that. She is also trying to get some peace away from other people and her busy mind, and there are parts of the path that are very quiet and so provide a contrast to the hubbub she left behind in London.

So, the lessons I have learned whilst writing these three books and my two short stories are:

I love films, and when I’m working on scenes I picture them as if I am watching the characters physically move around in them. I put myself in their shoes in my mind and think about what they are seeing and hearing, whether anyone else is around, even what they can smell – food and flowers and the sea are ever present in my books!

I use things I’ve seen and heard which I have somehow filed away in my memory without realising it. For instance, in The House That Alice Built there is a section in which Alice and Luis watch a ship sail out to sea in the darkness, illuminated by its own lights and the stars above it, so it seemed to be floating in the air. I remember looking out of the aircraft window flying into Lanzarote many years ago, and seeing the lights of a liner down below, near to the island. Our hotel was very close to the airport and when we walked in, the reception opened up to the sea, and I saw the same huge ship almost floating past in the darkness. It was absolutely beautiful and felt incredibly magical and that’s what I describe in the novel as it reflected what the two main characters were feeling having got together for the first time.

When I’m writing the story, although I have it loosely planned ahead, sometimes where the characters physically travel through to affects the action and changes the flow of it. So, when it feels appropriate, that’s what I write.  However, I can also get stuck in a dead end too, so I’ll jump ahead to a particularly vivid scene – which I love writing and therefore motivates me to carry on – and go back and bridge the gap another time.

So, in conclusion, I feel that when writing descriptions of where a novel is located, it’s important to think about whether it’s crucial to the action and to move a story on, or if it’s to scene set. Is it a reflection of how the characters are feeling, and is it affecting them? And also how you do it depends on whether you are writing in the first or third person, and whether the novel is from one character’s viewpoint, or more.

And most of all, once you’ve decided how to write it, just enjoy it!

I loved those great tips, Chris, thank you for sharing. xx

About Chris Penhall’s latest release, Finding Summer Happiness:

You won’t find happiness without breaking a few eggs …

Miriam Ryan was the MD of a successful events and catering company, but these days even the thought of chopping an onion sends her stress levels sky rocketing. A retreat to the Welsh village of her childhood holidays seems to offer the escape she’s craving – just peace, quiet, no people, a generous supply of ready meals … did she mention no people?
Enter a cheery pub landlord, a lovesick letting agent, a grumpy astronomer with a fridge raiding habit – not to mention a surprise supper club that requires the chopping of many onions – and Miriam realises her escape has turned into exactly what she was trying to get away from, but could that be just the thing she needs to allow a little bit of summer happiness into her life?

Publisher: Ruby Fiction
Genre: Contemporary romance.
Purchase here.

About the author:

Chris Penhall won the 2019 Choc-Lit Search for a Star competition, sponsored by Your Cat Magazine, for her debut novel, The House That Alice Built. The sequel, New Beginnings at the Little House in the Sun is published on 25th August 2020.

Chris is an author and freelance radio producer for BBC Local Radio.

Born in Neath in South Wales, she has also lived in London and in Portugal, which is where her two novels are set. It was whilst living in Cascais near Lisbon that she began to dabble in writing fiction, but it was many years later that she was confident enough to start writing her first novel, and many years after that she finally finished it!

A lover of books, music and cats, she is also an enthusiastic salsa dancer, a keen cook, and loves to travel. She is never happier than when she is gazing at the sea.

You can find out more about Chris and her work here: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 

#WritingWednesday with Carol Thomas: Character Juxtaposition.

Writing & Reading, Writing Wednesday, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Character Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is a great way to highlight differences between characters. Used appropriately, it can also invite comparisons – these comparisons allow the author to explore their characters more fully. Similarly, the reader is lead to consider the opposing characters more deeply as they observe not only their actions within the novel but also their interactions.

While authors often like to bring juxtaposing leads together (opposites attract and all that), I like to explore female friendships within my novels and often have them as the opposing characters to see what they bring out in each other.

Crazy Over You

In my novel Crazy Over You, Abby Turner has been married for fifteen years when she discovers her husband has had an affair. In contrast to Abby, her best friend, Melissa, is engaged and soon to be married. The pair are at different stages of life and facing different points of change in their relationships. Writing the scene where Abby attends Melissa’s wedding enabled me to explore Abby’s feelings about love and marriage in light of all she has been through. It makes for an honest, thought-provoking and engaging read that challenges the reader to consider their own feelings on Abby’s situation.

The Lisa Blake Series

In the Lisa Blake series, The Purrfect Pet Sitter and Maybe Baby, Lisa has been in a difficult relationship. After suffering a loss, she returns to her hometown, reuniting with her once best friend, Felicity, who is married with four children. Her life is busy and hectic. Felicity and her husband have their own problems to solve while Lisa is embarking upon a new relationship while dealing with issues from the past. I loved exploring Lisa and Flicks’ developing relationship. The juxtaposition works, especially as their differences mean they complete each other in ways only true friends can.

A Summer of Second Chances

In my latest novel, A Summer of Second Chances, the heroine, Ava Flynn, is running a charity shop to support her mum’s beloved charity, All Critters Great and Small. In contrast, her best friend Mary is a wildlife officer who appears to have life sorted. In juxtaposing these characters, I explored their strengths and vulnerabilities. In the village of Dapplebury, despite popular belief, things aren’t always what they seem. I enjoyed exploring the motivations and emotions of these characters through their support for each other.

(A Summer of Second Chances is out on April 27th 2021 and is now available for preorder.)

In summary …

Exploring the interplay and interactions between juxtaposing characters helps the author and, importantly, the reader understand those characters on a deeper level. It allows the character to experience and comment on situations they might otherwise not encounter. Drafting out juxtaposing characters or situations is also a good writing exercise!

Join my newsletter before the 1st May 2021 to enter to win a signed paperback of The Purrfect Pet Sitter.