Plot critique

I do think you've got the start of a great idea However, I don't understand some of the motivations of the characters, so I have a couple of questions:

Why doesn't the heroine want to be with the guy - but is convinced to have a baby with him? Maybe she has some other reason for wanting a child, but not marriage?

Why does the guy decide to have a baby but not a wife?

Why does she flee the marriage proposal?

Why don't they just get together in the beginning of the book?

I don't think any of these problems are insurmountable - I think maybe you need to explore who your characters are and their motivations a bit better. You also might want to make sure you've got enough conflict to last for an entire novel.

JustRite said:

Hi,
I am thinking of attempting NaNoWriMo and am thinking of finally writing a story that has been in my head for some time now.
I would love a plot critique.

Hero/heroine have some previous history. Hero has made it big and has dated all the svelte, debutante types and is bored out of his wits with them. He decides that he should have a baby and eliminate the wife part. He runs into the heroine and proposes that they have a baby together. When she hesitates, he tries to convince her that having a baby is something she always wanted and since there isn't a guy in the picture he is her best bet. She agrees to it against her better judgement. She has some complications and he has her move into his house where he takes care of her. However, when he proposes marriage saying they already have a baby, she goes away. She goes into labor and the doctor sends for the father. Mom and daughter are well. Afterwards, she comes to know from one of the nurses that her "husband" asked her doctor to save her life over her unborn child's when they ran into complications. She realizes he loves her too and alls well that ends well.


Please don't hold back!

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LOL - Sounds very much like my first novel, The Baby Plan, complete with the original ending that I'd intended (that the black moment involved the hero choosing the life of his wife over the baby he'd wanted so badly - though, of course, this being a romance novel, and needing the HEA, the baby would also have survived.) However, my very 3-D heroine didn't like that plan at all, and she came up with a better plan, since my book turned out to be HER story instead of his. <G>

So, anyway, part of my point is that there are no new plots and it's your characters that are either going to let you pull this story off or not. Do you have a good sense of who they are before you go into NaNoWriMo? Why would she agree to do this?

Also, my biggest suggestion for you is CONFLICT. What is that's keeping these people apart? The baby is what brings them together, but what is keeping them apart? He wants a baby, but not a wife, but why would he want to have a baby with someone who is going to want that baby, too? Wouldn't he be looking for a woman who will willingly walk away from the baby?

Remember, in a romance novel, it's a given that your characters are going to end up together - so you must TORTURE them on the way to the HEA. <G> They aren't looking for love, but it happens. Conflict is all the stuff that gets in the way, and I'm not just talking about external stuff, but more importanly, the internal stuff.

To use an example I'm familiar with, in my book that's similar to the story you're outlining here, my hero was looking for a surrogate. He didn't want a wife, just a baby. Conflict came up in the form of my heroine - she was an illegitimate child herself, and she wouldn't carry a baby for him unless he married her. Of course, once he finally agreed to that, it only led to further complications for them, not the least of which was the messy fact that they were falling in love with each other. He didn't WANT to love a woman who could plan to walk out on her child - his mother had done that to him. (That was something the hero and heroine had in common.) So, he wants her to have his baby, but he sure as hell doesn't want to LOVE her.

Her internal conflict had to do with her self-eteem issues. The primary external manifestation of that was the hero's brother, who was a cop, and he didn't like the heroine at all. (She has a criminal record.)

Are you familiar with the book GMC: Goal, Motivation, & Conflict by Debra Dixon? (Available at www.gryphonbooksforwriters.com ) That book is AWESOME! It's one I always recommend. Honestly, without the GMC concept (and Deb does an incredible job of making the concepts easy to grasp) I don't think I'd have sold my first (or second, etc.) book.

One other thing I'd recommend before you start writing is know your market for this story. What romance market specifically are you planning this for? I ask because there are other considerations you'll want to plan for. For example, as you can see, a story like this might work for Superromance, the line I write for. (Obviously, since they bought mine.) But, if you want to do that, then you want to keep in mind the word count (80-85K) as you write the story. Also, Supers are big on secondary characters and community, so you'll want that in there. And they don't like very wealthy characters, so the "made it big" and dating debutantes wouldn't work for that line.

However, if you wanted to write it as say, a Desire, you'll have to keep in mind that those are on the sexier side, and also they're very short, 55K, so you have to limit/control the secondary characters & plotlines.

Also, be free to allowing the characters to take control of the story, for example, how my heroine changed the entire end of my book. <G>

Does any of that help at all?

Susan G.

I love the resolution to the story. This sime like a nice example of a modern 'forced marraige' plot -- these days with consent I say, go for it. Just plan so the word count comes out right, write like a crazed beast in NANO and deal with the rest in editing

JustRite said:

Question - what is a sim?

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From my POV, a SIM is a Silhouette Intimate Moment. It's another line for category romance. Does that work with the context? If not, do you want to post the context?

Susan G.

JustRite said:

The working title for this is predictable - "First comes baby".

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Great title!

JustRite said:

Ok, To Do - Give hero motivation for wanting only baby
Give heroine motivation for walking away from the baby

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As far as the hero's motivation for wanting only a baby, could you change his backstory a little? Possibly he and a ?wife ?girlfriend (don't know what's appropriate) were having a baby but he lost them both. He dates all these superficialities as a way of dealing with his grief, and when <something big> happens, he realises that he doesn't want to replace the woman, but would love a baby?

The heroine is harder. Why would you want to go through a pregnancy only to give your baby up? Money? Maybe the woman who died in childbirth (in the above paragraph) was related to the heroine, and this is her way of helping her out - like a last wish sort of thing?

That also might add to some of the tension between the hero and heroine - she wouldn't want to fall in love with him then.

Hehe, in fact, you could twist it a little, and have the woman approach the man with the pregnacy as an offer.

(Apologies if the above is cliched - I haven't read a lot of marriage of convenience stories to know)

JustRite said:

Are any of you doing Nano this year?!

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November is a really bad month for me, time-wise. But I'm taking 4 weeks of holidays this December so I'm hoping to get the first draft of my WIP done then.

JustRite said:

Katee, thanks for your kind comments. Are any of you doing Nano this year?

Susan, I discovered the Harlequin Romance series that focuses tightly on the H/h, not so much on other characters, has a 55,000 wordcount and does not need to be sexually explicit - just charged with sensual tension and anticipation.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Now for the hard part of writing!

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Uhhhhh...hold up a second. The Harlequin Romance line in its current incarnation is folding. There is going to be a new version of it, but that one is going to be UK based - no release on the North American bookshelves. Just so you know what you're getting yourself into.

Susan G.

JustRite said:

Oh,no - I did see a London address, but I naively assumed thats just where the editor is based. Oh no! Ok, let me try and think of something else or else its back to the SuperRomance.

Thanks a lot, Susan, for catching that!

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JR, one thing I'd strongly recommend is that if you want to write for a certain line, that you make sure you read some of those books. Because each line really does have its own "flavor" and tone.

Of course, you could go read mine. <VBG> But I also recommend buying some of our new authors. Super bought a bunch of new authors this year. Kay Stockham has her debut Super out this month. Suzanne Cox (hope I spelled her first name right) is another new author whose debut novel will come out in December. (And Harlequin now sells them a month in advance at their website, www.eHarlequin.com - and also has a nice Bill Me feature where you can pay the invoice when your books arrive. No need for a credit card over the internet.)

It's really hard to capture a line's tone unless you do some homework reading.

Susan G.

JustRite said:

Now I have another excuse for reading

Thanks, Susan!

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Oh, hey, I'm always happy to oblige another book-a-holic's need for an excuse. <G>

Hi, my name is Susan, and I'm a book-a-holic.

Susan G.

JustRite said:

Pass the peanuts! Susan, The address for Superromance is given as Toronto - what does that mean then?

I wrestled a lot with their motivations and decided to get them drunk in Vegas and have a quickie wedding. I think he will decide she seduced him because she is after his money and she will be suitably indignant. Divorce proceedigns can start immediately, but she is pregnant and the old story follows from there. What do you think?

Thanks in Advance,

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Toronto is actually where the primary HQ headquarters are located. The Toronto office deals with Supers, Blaze, American (yeah, I know. <G>), and I'm not sure what else is based there now. Mira, I think. Maybe HQN? I'd have to check the website. But the only implication for writers is that it costs more to send your ms to them. <G> The lines based in Toronto are North American based, and released in the US and Canada as the primary market. (I'm presuming that was your concern after I told you about the new Romance line based in the UK.)

The key thing with Super is REAL. They want stories that are as real-life as possible, people you and I might know. That's why the very wealthy angle doesn't go over as well with Super, and that could be a sticking point with your story for them. They're looking for "everyday folk." Us commoners. <G>

Let's look at conflict. <G> If they got married, then only ONE of them wants a divorce. <G> One of them wants the marriage to stay intact until after the baby is born. If one of them wants the baby, the other is at least ambivilent about it. Put your characters at odds. Just be careful, because arguing is not the same as conflict. Occasionally it can be a sign of conflict, but you don't want a story where all the characters do is argue. How can we believe the HEA then?

This is why it is so tricky to write a good romance. Because we know the characters are going to get together in the end, so you have to give us good reason to doubt that. <G>

In my second book, The Mommy Plan, the hero was a single father raising a little girl who'd had a heart transplant. The heroine was a woman whose only child had died and been an organ donor. (No, his kid didn't have her kid's heart. <G>) But I did that because I knew the internal conflict would be HUGE. She's already lost a child so the idea of loving a medically fragile kid is totally not something she's willing to commit to. (So, of course, I make it even harder on her by making the kid really hard to resist. And by making her hero a psychologist who knows how to deal with her grief and fears.) He hates the idea of loving a woman who can't deal with his daugher's medical issues - the kid's mother took off because she couldn't deal with it, and he's not going to put his kid, or himself, through that again.

Kids and babies make for great conflict in my fictional world because they SHOULD come first, and since my characters are heroic, they do put their kids first.

In my third book, Whose Child?, the conflict again centered around a child. The hero and heroine had known each other since childhood, and the heroine agreed to act as a surrogate for the hero and his wife when they couldn't have children. But the heroine learned something about his wife that made her fear for the child's safety, and she ran away while still pregnant.

So, in his mind, she's a kidnapper who stole his child. The child who meant everything to him. He didn't have a father in his life, and he'd always vowed that his kid(s) would never, EVER want for a father in their lives - and the heroine made him break that vow.

The heroine, on the other hand, has loved and raised this child as her own for the last four years, giving up everything, including her own close-knit family, to protect this child. She is NOT biologically the kid's mother, so when he finally finds her and wants his kid back...well, what rights does she have?

Conflict. Can you see how there would be tons of internal conflict there? And as they realize they're in love, the heroine has other internal issues to deal with. (Once the conflict is resolved, the story is over unless there is more conflict to deal with. That's why the story has a black moment, where it all blows up in their faces, and then a RESOLUTION. <G>)

Now again, the amount of conflict should related to the type of story you're trying to tell. I happen to like the deep, angsty, meaty stories. Romantic comedy novels do NOT need the huge conflicts that I like to use.

Only you can know your character's GMC's well enough to know if it's working. And even with that, you might tweak them along the way as you write.

Good luck! November is almost here!

Susan G.

JustRite said:

I understand - this is extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing your stories - they are great examples. Any particular reason for having a common baby theme?

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I have a variety of reasons I seem to write family dramas. <G> For one thing, like I've mentioned, I think kids provide both great conflict and great comic relief. You never quite know what a kid (be they real or a character) is going to do or say. <G> I like that about them. (I'm a former elementary teacher.)

The whole baby thing - I think there's a lot of emotion tied up in our procreation. Whether it happens as a surprise, or it happens with a lot of planning, or it DOESN'T happen, it's a highly emotional thing. I also love exploring the emotional ramifications of the scientific advances in creating families. We often hear news stories regarding things like surrogacy, etc. but we seldom get to see the emotional impact on the people involved. I like exploring that.

And finally, in truth, I've pitched a few stories that didn't have kids, and they got rejected. <G> So, hey, the family drama works for me. (I've had kids sneak into stories as secondary characters, too. It's like I can't stop them. LOL! Perhaps it's my own inner child coming out? Perhaps it's because most of us have kids in our lives in one form or another? )

Again, I cannot stress enough how much I value and appreciate your help. Thanks a million!

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You are very welcome, and please, don't hesitate to ask questions. I love answering them. I also love asking them. <G> When I got started, I asked a million questions. It's gratifying to be able to help answer them for others now.

Susan G.