WTF Happened To My Action, Woman?

That was the scolding I got from a certain man earlier this month after he read the galley of The Hunter. I had a great explanation but he wouldn't have understood!

I kind of feel sad because the last Harlequin Temptation is out, appropriately titled The Last Temptation, by Leslie Kelly. This used to be one of my favorite H/S lines after Silhouette Intimate Moments. I wanted to either write for Temptation or SIM because the stories in those lines had all the emotions that I, as a reader, wanted: drama, adventure, and spicier but not over-the-board sexiness.

I admire many of the authors who have their roots in category writing, especially in these two lines. They do so much to a story with so few words. Very tough. I've found myself missing a lot of that tight writing in many of today's single title authors...dozens paragraphs and pages of stuff that could have been done succinctly in a few! Don't get me wrong. I can get thoroughly absorbed in a long book, but it's been a while since I've actually have a satisfying WOW at the end.

Because of word limitations, many writers have had to "rush" their endings, choosing certain key scenes to happen "off-stage" in the story. Sometimes I feel cheated. Since I know I'm guilty of doing the same myself because of length constraints, and having gone through a horrible experience of having sixty pages cut out of my book, I've started to pare down on my writing.

I mean, I used to write categorical length, so I do have the experience. I told myself that I know how to do this--be sparing and be good at it. Alex Diamond's and T's story was written years ago, a mere 80,000 word categorical, and I still think it has some of my best writing in it.

As an experiment, I pared down Sleeping (elipses* bleeps*) as much as I could and now, during revisions, I have plenty of room to add on if I wanted to. Last night, I finished the epilogue, a ribbon for the present...not truly needed, but gives the final touch to the trilogy. The reader gets to see all three couples together and see growth. That's a good improvement to being told I have to cut sixty pages! If I had written the length I wanted, this epilogue would have been the first to go.

Today, I'm going to add a last scene, an action oriented sequence that I've deliberately left offstage because of trying to keep the length my publisher wanted. I'm looking forward to it because I love to write about a bunch of SEALs having a good time ;-). When I did Hawk's book (The Hunter), I left out a similar action sequence because I didn't want it to be cut (the fear of the cut!) and my favorite male reader nailed me with a "WTF happened to my SEALs doing what they do best?"

That was a lesson I learned from paring down--choose what to leave offstage carefully! Anyway, to mollify this very particular male reader, I'm going to bring back Hawk, Jazz, Cucumber, Dirk, Mink, Zone, and Joker for one macho power ranger show. Where's Turner? Well, he's still sidelined by injury from the first book.

I guess it's a fitting scene to write on Memorial Day, eh?

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