“Psst. You. The one with the chocolate-fingerprinted keyboard. Will you give me a scene already? I’m dying here.”
“Kill me off? You think you can kill ME? We’ll just see about that.”
I am Jeannie Ruesch, and I am a romance author. I must, therefore, admit the above sentences are actual thoughts that have run through my head… not, I am compelled to point out, when I’m sitting at my computer praying for my characters to show their faces.  No, that would be normal.
I’m talking about completely …

“Murder @ Work” (Echelon Press, 2004) and “Murder @ Play” (Echelon Press, 2009) are set in South Africa of the 1990s. The nineties were a fascinating time in South African history: new thinking challenging old beliefs, the media slowly hinting at the possibility of equality for all people, hope and goodwill rising despite the escalating violence. The whites still had a cushy lifestyle: secure jobs for the men, large mansions with swimming pools for the women (many women chose to stay at home and look after the family with the help of their domestic servants). The non-whites still vacuumed the thick carpets and polished the silver BMWs at work, then went home to mud shacks. But the changes – the changes were already afoot….

Stacey Joy Netzel needed today off to deal with the craziness of life, but be sure to check in next month for her next post.  In the meantime, ladies (and gents), it’s time to show me yours.
No, I’m not getting frisky with you.  I am going to ask you to share, though.  Earlier, the topic of Alpha vs. Beta males came up with one of my fabulous CPs.   And because I have a google addiction, I decided to google the topic and see what I came up with. There has …

You’ve created the “perfect” character — layered, unique, an average guy with a hero’s capability or a hero with a quality that brings him down to earth.  Your story has moved along perfectly, your pace is fabulous, your character is primo.
But, wait.
Is he too perfect? Is he so perfect that he’s incapable of making a mistake??  HAS he made a single error in judgment, a single mistake throughout your story that relates to his deepest desires and fears? If not, then he’s not perfect at all.  In fact, that would …

I’ve always suspected I’m a little OCD, but I recently confirmed it via self-diagnosis on the internet. In fact, it’s worse than I thought.
Actually, this entire post is just an excuse to point you to The Character Therapist. The more we understand our characters’ mental state, the more vividly they leap from the page, and The Character Therapist can help us do exactly that. Blogger Jeannie Campbell is a writer whose day job is licensed therapist, and she generously shares her knowledge and skills.
One of my favorite features of the …

Words Matter.
In a world that lives by the “actions speak louder than words” motto, it’s easy to forget that words have an effect.  As writers, we have to be acutely aware of every word choice, every adjective.  We are also aware at how those words relate to what a character is DOING — do the words match the action? They might, but sometimes when they don’t, it says a lot more about that character’s state of mind.
In a thousand ways, every day, words define where we stand with someone.  I …

We talk a lot here about happy endings and romance. (See blog title.)  But there are other elements in books and life that are just as important…ones I always enjoy reading about.  And some of my favorite books have secondary stories or relationships that make me love it just as much as the main story and romance.
I’m talking about friends.  Friends in books.  Books about friends.  Friendship. In my book SOMETHING ABOUT HER, I gave both my hero and my heroine a friend. I loved writing those scenes — where …

I’ve declared that I am most definitely a plotter.  I outline, I character chart, I write as much about my stories, and the people in them, as I possibly can before and along the way of writing them.  It makes it much easier for me to sit down and write when I know what’s coming. For instance, I’m currently finishing the first draft of my second Willoughby series book, I’m working on the second draft of a short story and in the back of my mind, I’m getting to know …

Hey, everyone!
Nice to meet you. I’m new to Happy Endings, though many of you know me from Yahoo Groups or Twitter or MamaWriters! At any rate, thanks for the invite to blog here at this BEAUTIFUL site.
I’m working my way toward my current WIP’s Happy Ending, and have been slogging through a change in plot direction. Picture this. I had a fully plotted, plausible novel, with twists, turns, and a climactic scene I couldn’t wait to write! An evil villain, a tormented hero, and a heroine worthy of saving him–BUT…
Then …

I just returned from the Writers Retreat Workshop — ten nonstop days of learning and work — and I'm a little sleep deprived. And practically giddy over my sparkling new knowledge and chapters. I cannot recommend WRW highly enough. It's a grad school education in writing fiction.
On the second or third day, I was sitting at lunch with five other people, one of whom was Cricket Freeman, a literary agent with The August Agency. Cricket is delightful and interesting, and I had noticed that the table at which she sat …