Tag Archives: clem

I’ve been stumped for a while on my women’s fiction manuscript re: a key growth moment. The easy solution would be to kill the scene that isn’t working just to get over the slump, but it lessened significant growth that I insist needed to come at a certain point and from a certain character.

I think I’ve solved that. At least in my head. Getting it down, on the other hand…

But now I’ve hit a new block. I wrote the original ending fully aware I rushed it. I wanted, nay, longed for my heroine to get with the right man. I mean seriously, I’d been writing sexual-tension scenes for eighteen months. Enough! And so at the first seemingly plausible opportunity I thrust them together. But I shortchanged her growth.

So here lies my conundrum: Do I go the traditinal romance route and end it dramatically and with great fanfare? Would it be more effective to draw out the eventual romance, or would that just bore the reader? Because let’s be honest, when we see all the prides and prejudices that keep our heroine apart from her true love we break out the pom-poms and toss in a couple of herky splits just so they’ll get it on already.

My instincts say to draw it out. But the entire book is fairly fast-paced. Not sure how gradually real love should grow and still mimic the rest of the manuscript’s rhythm.

I suppose I could go this route: "She didn’t mind being alone anymore, yadda yadda yadda and three months later he shows up and they finally get busy."

That could work…