When I was trying to revise my first romance novel, an author who critiqued my first 50 pages told me that my main character needed clearer goals. She recommended Debra Dixon’s book GMC: GOAL, MOTIVATION, AND CONFLICT. Dixon created the now-ubiquitous concept of “GMC,” originally teaching it in workshops. This book explains the concept at length.
I bought a copy of Dixon’s book, read a couple of chapters, and set it aside because I didn’t see how it was applicable. I also didn’t agree with all Dixon’s points, especially with regard to romance novels. Flash forward a year and a half, to when my editor for a forthcoming romance novel kept telling me I needed to strengthen my female lead’s GMC. I trusted my editor’s advice, so I decided to give this book a second shot.
This time, GMC made sense, and I read the book from start to finish. I guess I needed more writing experience before I could fully understand the use of the GMC charts. Having spent more time working on my fiction, I now realize how many golden nuggets there are scattered throughout this book. It wouldn’t surprise me if I reread the book in a couple of years, to refresh my memory. It’s definitely a craft book I’ll keep on my shelf.
I recommend that querying writers ignore Dixon’s advice on writing a query letter, because the structure she recommends is no longer the norm in the industry (so far as I can tell). Instead, look for more recent blog posts or articles that talk about designing a good query letter. However, Dixon’s basic formula of “character wants X [goal], because of Y [motivation], but something prevents them from getting it [confict]” is still a very useful formula for designing a pitch.
You don’t need to buy this book to get acces to GMC charts for character design. You can find those floating around the web for free. But I recommend reading the whole book, because the examples and clarifications will help you use those charts most effectively.
To sum up, I recommend this book and am glad I finally read it. I wish I’d stuck with it when I first got a copy, nearly two years ago.
Hello, romance readers! Today I get to extend an invitation to a fun Facebook event taking place Friday, April 26.
Author Kerry Blaisdell is celebrating a very important birthday, so she’s throwing an online party in her reader’s group, Kerry’s Kindred Spirits. There will be giveaways throughout the day from many different authors, so you’ll have lots of chances to win swag or free books!
I’ll be giving away two copies of The Solitary Rose, and one lucky person will win a mug with character art of Emma and Henry. Hope to see you there!
Look what can now be preordered at Amazon for only 99 cents! Like other Dragonblade books, Secrets at Selwyn Castle will also be available on Kindle Unlimited. This low-heat mystery/romance releases on 8.30.24!
You can now add Secrets at Selwyn Castle as “Want to read” at GoodReads or Storygraph.
Blurb:
Richard Selwyn has a simple plan: throw a holiday house party to help his younger brother find a wife. Richard, having no desire to disturb his comfortable bachelor life, isn’t looking for his own match. But he didn’t expect a castle full of secrets, a jewel thief, and a kiss under the mistletoe that might very well change the course of his life.
Ivy Burnley was raised in luxury by her noble uncle and aunt, but her own parentage is so scandalous that she believes herself unfit to marry a gentleman. She arrives at Selwyn Castle intending only to help chaperone her debutante cousin during the house party. As Christmas draws nearer, winter walks, evening waltzes, and a handsome earl challenge Ivy’s resolution to stay single.
When an unknown thief steals one of Ivy’s most priceless possessions, she’ll need Richard’s help to move past the shame of her background and uncover all the secrets at Selwyn Castle.
As you may know, I have a series of closed-door/”sweet” Regency romances forthcoming from Dragonblade Publishing. The first novel, Secrets at Selwyn Castle, is scheduled to release in summer 2024, with a tentative release date of 8.30.24. And today, I get to unveil the cover! Presenting. . . <drumroll> Richard and Ivy!
I love this cover so much, mostly because of the expressions on the characters’ faces—especially Richard. The artist (Dar) did a great job capturing this sweet silver fox.
Secrets at Selwyn Castle is an age-gap romance with a pinch of cozy mystery. It’s got a holiday house party, waltzing, and kisses under the mistletoe. In length, it’s a little longer than a novella but shorter than a typical full-length novel—perfect for holiday reading.
Can’t wait until you all get to enter the world of Beau Monde Secrets!
Today, the writing community on Threads was full of discussion about the proper punctuation marks for action tags. After reading through some of the comments, I decided to write a quick post about the difference between dialogue tags and action tags. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this!
As I’ve discussed elsewhere, I’m a big fan of using action beats/action tags rather than direct dialogue tags. With action tags, it’s possible to indicate which character is saying something without having to use “said” all the time. See the snippet below:
Linton raised his eyebrows. “Do you know how to use that?”
“Yes. I’ll cover you.” I aimed the pistol at the cottage door.
It’s clear in context that Linton delivers the first line, and the narrator delivers the second line. It isn’t necessary to add “said Linton” or “I said.”
But if you want to use action tags, you should be aware that the rules for punctuating action tags are different from the rules for punctuating dialogue tags. Whereas dialogue tags can be separated from the dialogue with a comma, action tags cannot.
Example A is a traditional dialogue tag using “said.”
“You need to do your homework, mister,” she said, and scowled at him. ✅
Example B is an action tag, using “scowled” as the verb rather than said.
“You need to do your homework, mister.” She scowled at him.✅
Either of those options are considered acceptable punctuation.
What’s not acceptable (at least according to traditional rules) is punctuating the action tag as if it were a dialogue tag. Example C contains a punctuation error.
Example C: “You need to you do your homework, mister,” she scowled at him. ❌
Why is Example C wrong? Because, as a verb, “scowl” means making a specific facial expression. It isn’t a speech act. A scowl doesn’t produce a sound, so you can’t “scowl a word.” It is an action tag, not a dialogue tag, and it needs to be punctuated as such.
Sometimes people disagree about whether a word like “laughed” or “growled” can be used as the verb in a dialogue tag. As a general rule, only words that refer to producing speech (yell, whisper, announce, shout, etc.) can be dialogue tags.
“I love punctuation,” he said.✅
“I love punctuation,” he whispered. ✅
“I love punctation,” he shouted. ✅
“I love punctuation,” he smiled.❌
Strictly speaking, you can’t “smile” a word. You can smile while talking, but the smile only accompanies the words. The smile does not produce the words. That’s why “smile” is not traditionally considered an acceptable verb for dialogue tags. Yes, some writers are comfortable using words like “smile” or “laugh” as dialogue tags, but if you choose to do that, you should do so knowing that grammar sticklers won’t like it.
Tomorrow is a day when we celebrate love of all kinds. That makes it a great day for romance readers! This year, I will be participating in an author event at Rene’s Getaway Party Room, on Facebook. But I’m only ONE of more than sixty authors participating! Join us for a chance to win books and merch. I’ll be talking about my debut novel, The Solitary Rose, and about my upcoming sophomore romance, Secrets at Selwyn Castle.
I’m currently reading Roy and Lesley Adkins’ book Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England, which I recommend. But this post is not a book review. Instead, I want to talk about something the Adkins discuss in Chapter Six, “Sermons and Superstitions.”
“During the eighteenth century the medieval bench pews were often replaced by closed box pews, which provided some privacy and protection against drafts. Inside the church, differences in social quality were reflected by the size and quality of the family’s pew and its position in the nave” (158).
I’ve Tweeted about this issue in the past, because I think it’s really important for Regency fiction writers to be aware of the prevalence of box pews in “our” historical period of interest. Twenty-first century writers who grew up as churchgoers, or whose only expossure to religion is to contemporary Christianity, may automatically think of wooden benches when they read the word “pew.” After all, that’s the kind of pew many churches have now, assuming they use pews rather than individual chairs! The image below displays bench pews of the sort often used today:
As a Catholic born in the late twentieth-century, I picture something like the image above when I hear the word “pew.” But that’s not how most Anglican churches handled seating during the Regency. The illustration of the fashionable St. George’s in Hanover Square below shows you what seating was like in the early nineteenth century. This picture depicts an 1841 wedding. You can see that contrary to what some romance novels imply, wedding guets at ton weddings would NOT have sat in rows of benches as they do today. They would sit in closed box pews.
While I’m talking about fashionable weddings in St. George’s (which show up frequently in Regency romance novels) it’s also important to note that Georgian weddings were not the huge social events that they are now. Some weddings were celebrated quietly, with only immediately family present, if that. (Dorothy Wordsworth did not attend her beloved brother William’s wedding in 1802, despite the fact that she lived with him in Dove Cottage.) The church would not be gussied up for a wedding with white bows and huge bouquets of flowers. The wedding breakfast might be lavish, but not all guests invited to the breakfast attended the wedding. On the other hand, since a parish church is a public place, anyone could walk into the church and watch a wedding purely for entertainment.
From Life In Regency and Early Victorian Times by EB Chancellor (1926)
Today, even very old church buildings do not usually have box pews. Changes in Anglican church seating began only a few decades after the Regency ended. In the Victorian period, some Tractarian writers and church architects pushed back against private box pews for both aesthetic and theological reasons. Many Tractarians believed it was wrong to show distinction to the rich in church. They expressed a preference for allowing rich and poor Christians to mingle together in the church. There was at least one Tractarian novel about the evils of pews, in fact! But that’s a story for another day.
That said, there are a few examples of the eighteenth-century style of pew extant today. This page about “Georgian Churches” has some great examples. Though I’ve not personally seen such pews, I’ve been told that some older American churches still display box pews, too.
If you want a good example of what nineteenth-century pews looked like and how they signified social standing, take a look at this illustration of “The Little Church in the Park” by Hablot Brown (“Phiz”) in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. This is one of my favorite images of a Victorian church service, because it conveys a good deal about the social aspects of corporate worship.
In the illustration above, you can see Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife, Lady Dedlock, standing together in the pew with the heighest walls (left side, center of the church). As a baronet and the local landowner, Sir Leicester outranks everyone else in the church, so he has the best place. Across from them on the right side, in a much lower pew, you can see Mr. Jarndyce’s party. This group of ladies and gentlemen includes Esther Summerson— the girl in the bonnet looking at the Dedlocks. If you know the story, you’ll know why Esther keeps looking at the Dedlocks, and if you don’t know the plot, I refuse to spoil it. Let’s just say that this is a pivotal scene and leave it at that, shall we?
Anyway, back to the Regency! If you write fiction set during the Georgian era, make sure that any church scenes reflect the way social rank and wealth influenced people’s seating. If your characters are nobility or well-ranking gentry, they may very well occupy the best pews, especially in a country church. “Poor” or working class characters may sit in the gallery or in church-provided pews in the back (Adkins and Adkins 158).
If you’re a follower of my kidlit blog, you might want to skip this post, because it’s basically a copy of an earlier post. I’m reposting it here with only minor changes because it really belongs on this blog!
In any case, the research for this post began when I was writing a proposal scene in one of my Regency romances. I wondered whether gentlemen in the Regency period went down on one knee when they proposed, as they sometimes do today. Many Regency romances depict this. For example, in Mary Balogh’s FIRST COMES MARRIAGE, Vanessa requests that Elliott propose properly, on one knee. But some sources I’ve read suggest that kneeling on one knee to propose might have developed later in the nineteenth century, or even in the earlier twentieth-century. While I’ve seen Victorian art or engravings depicting the on-one-knee proposal, I don’t think I’ve found art actually produced in the Regency that depicts a proposal that way.
So what did marriage proposals look like in the nineteenth century? To find out, I searched the internet for paintings or drawings of proposal scenes. I discovered a whole genre of art depicting what I call “Regency proposals gone wrong.” Edmund Leighton has multiple proposal paintings depicting ambiguous or failed proposal scenes. For example, here’s “Yes or No?”
Edmund Leighton. “Yes or No?”
In the painting above, the answer to the question “Yes or no?” seems to be “No.” I’m neither a flower expert nor an art historian, but I believe the blue flowers in her hand are forget-me-nots, which leads me to speculate that she is remembering a different lover. In any case, she seems more interested in the flowers than in her suitor.
The same seems to be true in the (unidentified) painting below.
Artist and title unidentified.
In the painting above, the suitor seems anxious. But to me, the woman looks like she’s wishing he would leave her alone. Some of my followers suggested that she might be displaying the modesty or diffidence expected of a proper young lady in the time period. That would explain why her face is averted. In my opinion, though, her eyes say “OMG, no. I’m not that into you.” Either the anxious suitor is about to be rejected, or she’s going to accept him very reluctantly.
The next painting (again by Leighton) may be more ambiguous. On the one hand, the way the woman looks at the “work” (fiber art) in her hand rather than at the suitor could suggest lack of interest. On the other hand, her lowered eyes might simply indicate shyness or modesty. Either way, this is a far cry from the modern image of a happy bride-to-be staring deeply into her suitor’s eyes as she accepts.
Edmund Leighton. “The Proposal.”
The next two paintings are by Frederic Soulacroix, and they seem to go together. I’ve jokingly suggested that the woman in the first painting is thinking “Ugh, it’s too HOT for this! I need a cold drink!” But the painting that follows is one of the rare proposal paintings depicting an unambiguously happy couple. (Shout out to MJ Lloyd for finding the second of the two paintings!)
Frederic Soulacroix. “The Proposal.”
The painting below is the cutest, happiest nineteenth-century proposal scene I’ve yet to find in art. It’s also one of the few paintings in which the couple sit close together. In some other proposal scenes, you can see the woman physically trying to put space between herself and her suitor. We’ll see an example in the next image.
What caught my attention about the painting below was the way the woman leans away from her suitor, as if trying to get as physically distant from him as she can without falling off the sofa. She has a smile on her face, yes, but the body language all says “Ew, go away.”
The longer I looked at the painting below, the more questions I had. “What is going on with the dead animal under her feet?” Followed by “Why did he tie his cravat in a bow, as if he were a present? Does he think he’s God’s gift to women?” So many questions . . . (Note: I do not know the title of this painting. If you recognize it, feel free to shout it out in the comments.)
Unidentified.
Soulacroix must have liked this subject, because he had other proposal paintings. In the next one, the woman looks away (as in many of these paintings), but I’m not sure that she’s unhappy about the proposal. While there are different ways of reading her expression, it seems to me like there’s a slight smile hinted here. Alternatively, she may be smiling anxiously.
Soulacroix. “The Proposal.”
My last image is a satirical print of a courting couple. Most (all?) of the other images in this post were done in the late nineteenth century, decades after the Regency ended. They thus represent a later interpretation of the time period I’m interested in. The print below, however, is actually from the Georgian era: 1805, to be precise.
Published by Laurie & Whittle. Image from the Library of Congress.
If you have any sources that discuss marriage proposals in the Regency era, feel free to share them in the comments!
I love funny, lighthearted historical romances, but I also like historical romance that does serious political work. Anne Knight’s Christmas novella, A Lord’s Guide to Mutiny, Marriage, and Mistletoe, is an example of the latter. Centered on an early nineteenth-century worker’s rights movement, many of the points the novella makes about the exploitation of workers and the need for a living wage unfortunately still apply today.
That may make the book sound heavy and educational rather than happy and emotional, but this story is a Christmas romance at heart, full of mistletoe, decorations, and even a discussion of early Christmas trees. (As always, Knight has done the research needed to bring this historical moment to life.) Though the romance takes place over the course of a relatively short time, it’s believable because the leads already grew closer to each other by exchanging wartime letters. The sexual attraction between the leads is strong, but so is the emotional bond—which isn’t always the case with romance novellas.
This is a steamy, open-door romance that features disability rep and a class difference between the leads. Note that the novella contains depictions of violence and physical injury, and discussions of deaths and corporal punishment that occur off-page.
Anne Knight is a historical romance writer worth watching, and this is one of the better holiday novellas I’ve read this year. Grab it on Kindle Unlimited starting December 11!
Disclosure: I received a free digital ARC from the author. This is my honest review.
At this time of year, it seems like everyone who writes romance is publishing a holiday novella. Romance readers are spoiled for choice, especially if they subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. While some Christmas novellas rush the romance or feature forgettable characters, Felicity Niven’s Duke the Hallsdoes neither of those things. It’s long enough to develop a believable romance arc but short enough to easily read in a single day.
Both the lead characters of Duke the Halls are memorable. Kit (the Duke of Kittredge) believes himself to be an “arsehole” because he frequently says the wrong thing, has unpredictable fits of bad temper, and all of his interactions with women end in disaster. (Today, Kit would be considered autistic, but in his own time that diagnosis did not exist.) Though he promised his mother he would try to find a bride, Kit’s anxiety about social interactions leads him to run away from a holiday house party at which he would have been the prime matrimonial catch. On the stage coach back to London, he meets Franny (aka Francesca Cranwell), an orphaned young woman who remains good-humored and optimistic despite a particularly cruel twist of fate that deprived her of her expected social position and inheritance.
Kit and Franny have immediate chemistry, so it’s not really a surprise that when Franny offers to teach Kit the social graces necessary to court a woman, he accepts. Their lessons include not just conversation, compliments, and dancing, but also kissing under the mistletoe that eventually leads to more than kissing . . . but their differing social positions seem to prevent their encounter from being any more than a fling. Can Kit face his greatest fear (i.e. a formal social event) to win the love of his life?
This novella contains good autism rep, leads with chemistry, mistletoe and holiday cheer, plus a couple of great steamy scenes. Recommended.
The ebook releases December 4 and will be available on Kindle Unlimited.
Disclaimer: I received a free digital ARC from the author, but this is my honest review.
annerollins.com 