On day four, we visited Rambling Heads and Cecilia talked about how we follow our gut when it comes to tightening a story and making it thrilling without losing touch with reality.
In our interaction with other authors, we have heard them discussing the writing of love scenes and how some think it the hardest part to write. Oddly enough, the love scenes and romance aspects of our stories are the easiest to both of us. We are fairly certain that this comes from our background as role players where you actually wear the skin of the characters you are portraying and play fairly erotic scenes often. In that case, practice makes perfect. The more we played erotic love scenes, the easier it became to write them for the novels and shorts.
What we find the hardest are the intense fight scenes in our stories. These have to be precise, the movements fluid, the punches accurate. We have to study physiology of the human body, progression of debilitation due to certain injuries, evolution of bruising and even decomposition. When you get it wrong, readers question it. Yet, the hot market out there is paranormal romance where characters have super strength and can do things humans can't. We write contemporary romance where humans are...humans. They fail; they succeed by sheer power of desperation. Fight scenes have to match the "reality" of the story. You can't have a human in a contemporary story fighting with super-hero strength. In real life situations, in a fight, both parties are scuffed up.
In COUNTERMEASURE, one of the most thrilling scenes is a fight scene that took us a long time to polish. Cassandra James did work the field as a CIA operative but not as a Super Spy. Trevor is a geek (granted hot geek) Data Analyst. They are not kick ass paranormal beings with super hero strength. They are human and non-combative for the most part. Granted, Cassandra has been trained by her father, a Navy Seal and strict military man, and by the CIA at the Farm, but there is a big difference in how they react to situations compared to paranormal characters would.
When another author critiqued our first fight scene, she shredded it. The main complaint was related to the fact that our hero didn't look like a hero because he was not winning the fight at all times, kicking ass and coming out unscathed. At first we were chest fallen but then we studied what she said, we read and we researched. We revisited our fight scenes with a different perspective and in the end, we were proud of the final polished scenes.
Trevor and Cassandra fought as they knew how, with rage, determination, and a little help from Trev's laptop, Jack. No help from the Gods or any extra-terrestrial ability, just plain and simple wit and will to overcome adversities.
Most rewarding of all is to hear comments from readers on how the scenes feel real, how they read them at the edge of their seats, how they enjoy each and every move as if they are watching a movie play in front of them. Although we didn't follow the author's advice to make our hero a super hero, we are still grateful for the advice given and for the drive to push the envelope, tighten the scene even more.
To all writers beginning this amazing journey, go with your gut. Do not try to make your characters something they are not. If Trevor had gone from desk jockey to Chuck Norris with a change of a scene, he would no longer have been himself. Take criticism, turn it around to your advantage, and run with it.
To readers, all we can say is thank you for the amazing feedback and comments on our much worked on fight scenes. We hope you enjoy them as much as our hot love ones.
Cheers,
Cecilia
