Current Project: TEMPTED, book 3, Eternal Guardians
Status: Chpt 5
I don't know why I thought today was Genene's day to post. Genene...you're messing with my mind!
I've been in a reading slump the last few months. Actually, not really a slump, just a "I don't have time to read and nothing looks interesting to me" kind of mood. A few weeks ago I got my RITA books to judge, so I've been slowly working my way through those. (It helps that for the first time in months I'm not on deadline!) Last night while I was reading a contemporary romance, I had one of those aha! moments we writers all know about but don't often think of.Secrets.
They are why readers keep reading. They are what keep you up late, into the wee hours of morning, turning pages. In a suspense, the secret is the "who-dunnit" mystery element. Sometimes it's "Who's the bad guy?" Sometimes the reader knows who the bad guy is but doesn't know why the bad guy is doing the things he/she is doing. And sometimes it's mutliple who-dunnit mystery elements that keep a reader flipping pages.
In other books - paranormals, historicals, contemporaries, urban fantasies - the secret can be a villain, but more often it's another mystery element that makes readers itch to know more. The heroine has a secret she can't tell the hero. What is it? The hero's mysterious past could ruin the blossoming romance and end the world. What is his secret? And sometimes, what keeps a reader reading isn't needing to know the secret but needing to know how others in the story will react to that secret.
I love secrets. I love giving my characters secrets. In my recent book - STOLEN SEDUCTION - the heroine has a secret she keeps from the hero about her involvement in his murder investigation. The hero has a personal secret that's changed his life. And then there's the whole who-dunnit mystery secret that encompasses the entire suspense plot.
In my May release, MARKED, the reader knows the hero's secret from the start of the book. What the reader doesn't know is how the heroine will react when she learns his deep dark secret and how that secret will impact her. Still a secret. Just done differently than my previous book.
What's the best secret you read in a book that kept you turning pages? And do you use secrets in your books?
Before I forget...I'm hosting the RomCon Contemporary Forum today. The topic is Romance Fixes. Hop over and comment to enter to win a copy of STOLEN SEDUCTION and a chance for a paid registration to RomCon 2010 in July!
AND...there are only two days left to win an ARC of my May Release - MARKED. Check my blog for how to enter.
4 comments:
Great post! I was actually thinking about this just the other day as well. After months of not liking anything new, I read Tessa Dare's Surrender of a Siren and Courtney Milan's Proof by Seduction, and both do indeed involve secrets. Surrender of a Siren has one of the best secret plots I've seen in years and carries it through until the conclusion, while Proof by Seduction employs one big secret and several small secrets and uses them throughout the book as needed. Both techniques work well for their particular books. I like the layers of secrets, particularly in contemporaries. One of things that I love about Stolen Fury is how BOTH hero and heroine have secrets both from each other, themselves, and the reader. Loved that, and I learned a lot from your use of secrets in that book.
LOL, Eli! When there was no post earlier today, I double-checked my calendar to be sure it wasn't my day to post also.
Now you're making me think again: about using secrets in writing. Guess that's a "duh" question. The series of nine books that I'm writing has many secrets. Sometimes it's a secret that the main characters of each book have kept and sometimes it's a secondary character with a secret. There are also several secrets revealed in the overarching plot that carries through all nine books.
In my series, the revelation of these secrets is a major turning point in each of these stories and affects the books that follow as the members of this large family deal with the destruction of what they thought was real.
Thanks for a new spin on how to look the elements we use when writing!
I like secrets! I use them all the time but this is a timely reminder to make sure there are more. Can't every have enough!!!
You know, this makes me think that maybe the reason things are happening in my book aren't what they appear to be -- hmmm.
Thanks...
I love secrets in books. I try to have several no matter the genre.
The last book I read was Christy Evan's SINK TRAP. I'm still wanting some answers because she left the romance up in the air at the end of the book. Kind of like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. At the end of them you never know which "hunk" she's going to end up with.
Fun post!
Post a Comment