This post is part of a series.

Part 1: Damn Good Romances
Part II: Romantic Tension
Part III: Romantic Conflict
Part IV: Emotional Intensity

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Emotional Intensity

When I first started writing romance novels, I was still living in Australia.  Everyone writing romance back then seemed to be reading Harlequin Romance and Harlequin Presents books.  We knew them as Mills & Boon novels.  The big sweeping historical romance novels that most American readers grew up reading were unavailable to us.  So when we started writing, we naturally turned to Mills & Boon as the market we wanted to break in to.  It was also a very lucrative market.  There were dozens of authors making very good money indeed writing four books a year for M&B, and many of them were Australian and New Zealand authors.

Back then, Mills & Boon in London had a standard rejection letter which was notorious in writing circles, and universally dreaded by writers just starting to market their work.

The body of the letter — all of it — ran:

“We have considered your novel Wuthering Heights, and although it is well written, we feel it lacks the extra degree of emotional punch for which we look.”

Trying to crack this “emotional intensity” code was the subject of endless working sessions where manuscripts were critiqued to death in search of the answer.

The telling thing about this rejection letter is that it is standard — in other words, it serves to explain the majority of rejections.  This means the majority of manuscripts received do not have enough emotional intensity.

It’s a good demonstration of how important this element is to a romance novel.

Emotional intensity isn’t a single element you can put your finger on, and say “there it is.”  It’s a by-product of a dozen different elements in a romance novel all working together seamlessly, to build up the emotional tension to a fever pitch, then mercilessly holding it there until the endThe bigger elements that contribute to the emotional intensity include:

• The characters
• The plot
• The romantic conflict

To some degree, the setting can also contribute.  Historical romances, for instance, can add to the reader’s sense of emotional intensity, if they’re historical lovers, and the author has done a good job of description and scene setting.  Paranormals, with atmospheric settings, can work the same way.

But settings can also kill off the positive romantic emotional tension, if they’re the wrong sort.  That’s why romantic suspense authors are possibly the most underrated authors in the genre.  They’re constantly juggling hard, gritty storylines against the need to keep the romantic storyline tension wound up tight.  It can be an enormous challenge.

But you will know when the emotional intensity is creeping upwards, because whenever a scene shifts away from the hero(es) and heroine and their problems, and you are mildly annoyed, because you just want to get back to them and see what happens next — that’s emotional intensity at work.

That’s when a romance novel starts to become “unput-downable.”

Next: Heart Stopping Moments

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My erotic historical romantic suspense, The Royal Talisman, has just been uploaded to the Apple Store and on to Kobo today. Barnes & Noble and Sony are still holding out, but I’ll report when they’ve stocked it.

Have a great weekend!

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Forgive me for the size of the cover, which is taking over the post here.  I really wanted you to get a good chance of checking out the hero’s eyes.  They’re something else, aren’t they?

If you’re reading this post on a handheld, or via email, or through a media that has crunched the cover image down to matchbox size, I encourage you to follow the link back to the original post on my site and have a good look at the details of this cover when it’s blown up to full size.  It’s absolutely stunning how much Dar Albert, the designer, gets into it.

I told her my hero’s eyes were catch-your-breath blue.  Boy, did she deliver!

And also check out the embroidering detail on the heroine, Bian’s, sleeves.  Dar creates all this herself.

Anyway, in case the subject line didn’t tip you off, I spent all day yesterday chained to my desk, plus I think I ended up nailing Dar to her desk for most of her Saturday, too, finalizing the cover, while I got The Royal Talisman formatted and released.

Ta-dah!  It is now officially available.

You can get The Royal Talisman in Kindle, ePub, RTF, LRF (Sony), PDB (Palm, from Smashwords), Plain Text,  PDF, Palm DOC/iSolo (From All Romance Ebooks), Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket (.prc), Rocket.

And with a small bonus.

The Royal Talisman used to be Masquerade’s Mate.  I have spent the last few weeks editing and adding scenes and wordage (there’s a much longer explanation about this inside the book).  I added so much, in fact, that The Royal Talisman is no longer a novella.  It’s it’s a short book that can be printed in its own volume.

So as this is my “Author’s Edition” I could add all the special features into the stand alone print edition.

Life is good.

I’ll add the blurb and an excerpt below that isn’t from the book’s page.

Enjoy.

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It is 1884 and France is at war with China.  Stuart Sutherland-Bruce returns to England after a posting in China as a member of the English diplomatic corps.  He meets the astonishingly beautiful Bian, an exotic woman who turns his life upside down with the power of his desire for her.  As she continues to astonish him at every turn with the unexpectedness of her life and her responses to him, he falls deeply in love with her.

But Bian did not wander into Stuart’s life accidentally.  She has orders to become intimate with him and prove he has been giving English secrets to the Chinese.  Yet as she works her spell on Stuart, she learns he does not seem to be the traitor her British superiors assure her he is.

Bian is caught in a trap:  If she reveals to Stuart her real — and shocking — identity, she will lose the man she loves.  If she honours Stuart’s highest values and does her duty, then Stuart will be tried for espionage and hanged.

__

An Excerpt From: THE ROYAL TALISMAN
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

Patrick’s butler returned with a morning gown and other essentials, which allowed Bian to appear in public once more. Dressed in a dark purple velvet suit, which offered some protection against the damp wind gusting along the streets, Bian climbed into her carriage and snuggled under the lap robe. She gave directions for Madame Evamy’s on Bond Street, with a sigh. It was the only establishment she knew. Madam Evamy would have to provide the props she needed to verify her sudden urge to replenish her wardrobe.

Bond Street was as busy as usual. The damp air rising from the Thames and whistling down the street had not discouraged business in the slightest.

Bian’s driver dropped the steps for her and handed her out, along with a caution in his rough accent, “Wotch it, Miss Bian. I couldn’t get no closer and the gutters are a right mess.”

She took a long step on to the footpath and looked up.

Stuart was there.

Bian smothered her gasp of shock with her gloved hand, staring up at him. He towered over her, large in his dark overcoat. His hair was ruffled and his chin unshaved. He looked like he had gone for a month without sleep.

“Dear lord! Stuart! Where did you come from? You startled me.”

His hands were pushed deep into his pockets. “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was as rough as his chin. “Why can I not stop thinking of you?”

She looked around for observers. Her driver stood with the carriage door open, watching with a wary eye. “It’s all right,” she assured him, for he looked like he wanted to leap to her defence. It wouldn’t be the first time he had wielded his blackjack for her and she knew the damage he could inflict. “I know this man.”

“Ye sure, miss? ’e don’t look all that good t’me.”

“I’m sure. But wait a moment.” She turned back to Stuart. “Where have you been, to look as you do?” Genuine concern pushed the question from her. He looked like he had been to hell and back.

“Following you,” he rasped. “I needed to know…needed to…” He stepped closer to her and cupped her cheek with a hand that trembled. “God, who are you? I’ve not slept since that night—”

It was more than she wanted her driver to hear. She glanced over her shoulder but the driver was staring at the passing traffic, apparently stone deaf.

“Come,” she told Stuart, tugging at his sleeve. “Come with me.” She climbed back into her carriage and gestured for him to board, too. She knew there was a risk she would be seen in a carriage alone with a man but didn’t care. The raw emotion pouring from him was making her own heart sing with joy and her insides roil with need. It didn’t matter that this man had betrayed his country. That she was here in London to find proof of his deeds that would survive cross examination in court became a distant fact she could barely bother acknowledging, when before it had driven her every action.

She could only feel the pleasure of being with him, even as dishevelled as he was. His ragged, exhausted, driven state sent a shiver of excitement through her. She had brought him to this.

She settled back into her corner of the bench and spoke quietly to her driver, who stood patiently at the door. “The townhouse.”

“No,” Stuart said sharply, as he sat beside her. He gave the driver an address that she recognized.

“Your house?” she said. “My reputation would not withstand the impact if I were seen entering it without a chaperone.”

“I suspect your reputation has survived far more than a peccadillo of this magnitude,” Stuart said, with a piercing glance at her.

She bit her lip, then nodded to her driver, who tugged at his hat brim and shut the door.

________

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When it comes time to write these posts, my habit is to open up my reading software on my cellphone — Kindle, the ePub reader, Acrobat, etc — and find what it was that I’ve been reading lately, and report on that.

Which puts me in an interesting position this month.

First up, I’ve been working my way through Time to Write, a how-to by Kelly L. Stone, which is really a compilation of time saving tips from other authors.  I’m  always interested in learning how to write faster, or find more time for writing, so this book was of interest.  So far, I’ve learned nothing new.  I’m hopeful, though…

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I have been reading one book book — a print book. Fast Fit by Sandra Betzina, a sewing classic.  (My other obsession – one I don’t get nearly enough time for.)  If there is a reason print books will hang around, it’s because of books like this one, which wouldn’t translate well to ebook with the state of current technology.  I could only read this on a big screen tablet, in PDF, right now.  It’s super graphics heavy.

But the book IS making me wish I could offload some of my writing time and get back to the sewing machine.  I don’t have any upcoming reader conventions to give me that excuse anymore…

_________

And my confession is also the third book I found open on my cellphone.

I gave a copy of Fatal Wild Child to a co-worker for Christmas, and she started reading it before the holiday break.  One morning she came steaming into work and confronted me at my desk, her hands on her hips, accusing me of ruining her sleep the previous night.

“I just got to the part where they’re in the room for the night.  All that incredible tension in the restaurant and then she goes and does…that!”  She shook her head.  “And now I have to wait until my lunchbreak to find out what happens next!”

I blinked a few times in surprise.  I was pleased, of course.  What writer wouldn’t be?  The news that I had deprived someone of sleep because of my writing is very hard to take.

What surprised me was the bit-that-came-next, after the restaurant.  I had forgotten about that bit of that scene.  During that day I kept trying to rememer the sequence of events and scenes in the book.  I think you can guess what happened next.  I gave up and loaded the book onto my cellphone and read it, to remind myself of the details of the story.

Yes, I do read my own stories every now and again.  But I like to read them when they’re so cold they’re frozen:  When I don’t remember who said what, and what comes next.  Oh, I always remember the big sweeping movements of the story, but not the little things.  The small moments.  Bits of dialogue.  Pulse pause moments I managed to squeeze in.   When it’s been long enough for me to forget those things, then I stand a chance of being at least a little bit surprised and pleased, just like any other reader.

Reading Fatal Wild Child was a nice escape for a couple of hours, and a refresher.  I had, indeed, forgotten some of the moments I’d got in there.

____________________________

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As a Christmas gift to my readers, I’m deeply discounting my two indie titles between now and Christmas Day.

By using the two coupon codes listed below, you can get 50% off and pay only $1.50 for each title at Smashwords, but only for the next three days, so hurry!

Blood Knot, my erotic MMF urban fantasy vampire romance, now only $1.50 in all the popular formats, at Smashwords, if you use the coupon code WL27A when you purchase your copy.

And Fatal Wild Child, my romantic suspense featuring black ops hero Seth O’Connor and set in the Canadian Rockies at Christmas time is a perfect tales for sitting next to the tree and sipping eggnog and reading.  Use coupon code EX78W when you buy your copy at Smashwords.

And have a great holiday season, everyone!

Cheers,

Tracy

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A quick follow-up to my announcement the other day about book title rights that have been returned to me, and therefore won’t be available for sale — just for a short while! — while I repackage and beef them up and put them back out there.

Several other books have been returned to me and I’ve taken the “for sale” sign off their pages:

Black Heart
Red Leopard
Solstice Surrender
Masquerade’s Mate
Dangerous Beauty
Forbidden

If you’re interested in obtaining a copy of the new edition of any of these titles (I’ll be releasing in e-book and print for the novel-sized titles), sign up for my newsletter, so that you get a notice of the release of the new edition, or subscribe to my RSS feed via your favourite Newsreader or via Email, to catch any announcement I make on the blog.

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It’s 48 years ago today that the The Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released.  On September 27, 1964, this most eagerly anticipated report found that there was no conspiracy involved in the president’s assassination, to the utter amazement of almost the entire nation, and the world.

Conspiracy theories have continued to circulate for nearly half a century despite the Warren Report.  Why do they surge so strongly?  My theory is that many people don’t like the idea that such a beloved president could be destroyed in such a senseless act as a single puny man acting alone for meaningless, trivial reasons.  If Kennedy had to die, better it be at the centre of an all-powerful conspiracy, surrounded by overwhelming enemies working in concert to bring him down.

Put that way, it makes sense, and makes the world seem like a more balanced and sane place.  Not a world where a single man with a gun can reach out and kill the most powerful man on the planet.

Conspiracy theories in fiction, however, are much more fun, both to write and read.  I haven’t got around to doing a full-blown conspiracy plot yet, although I’ve done minor conspiracy sub-plots here and there — my Vistaria series is prime ground for introducing a conspiracy plot somewhere….

One of the best conspiracy plots I ever saw, a long time ago, was Capricorn One.  Remember that one?  About the first flight to Mars?  Only it never happened.  It was all faked.

And there was a great conspiracy sup-plot that got the whole movie rolling at the start of Deep Impact, starring Tea Leoni.

Name your favourite conspiracy theory story.  Movie or book.

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After all my raving about Castle and Beckett a few months ago, did I convince you enough to check out the back episodes and then catch the season three cliff-hanger conclusion during the premier of Season Four on the 19th?

I did.  So did about eight of my friends and family, all sitting around my coffee table, chowing down on pot-luck and fine coffee, while playing Facebook status one-up-manship with their cellphones (you can see the roadkill on my personal page) as we waited for one of the most eagerly anticipated TV episodes in years.

It is the first, and probably last, time I have watched real, live television, complete with ad breaks, in about twenty years.  Only for Castle would I stoop to it.  And it was sooo worth it!

…and I so did, too, call the ending to the episode!  I knew it!  Ha!

If you watch(ed) the show, what did you think?

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I’m almost scared to start blogging again.  There’s a small mountain of news, tasks, and dust to blow off the site.

Not to mention about 800 photos we took in Australia that I should really comb through to share the best of with you, that I never really had time to upload while I was on the road.

But I have to start somewhere, so I’m just diving in.  I figure it’ll all sort itself out as I go along and if I don’t start now, I’ll never start, y’know?

So, let’s start with good news.  From my in-box while I was away:

Blood Knot, my erotic paranormal MMF romance, was selected for Coffeetime Romance’s Reviewer Recommended Award.  The award recognizes outstanding writing styles in all book types and genres. The reviewer who nominated Blood Knot told me:  “Your book has received this award because I feel it is above and beyond a 5 Cup Rating. I was simply amazed at your writing talent!”

To check out the award nomination, click here.  The original 5 cup review is here.

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Fatal Wild Child also received a very nice 4-star review from Coffee Time Romance, that included the magic words: “This is one of the best romantic suspense novels I have read this year.”  That was an email worth opening!

I’ve posted an excerpt of the review on the book’s page (here), and of course pasted it all over Facebook and Twitter. :)

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Fatal Wild Child emerged onto the secondary markets while I was away.  You can now buy it at Barnes & Noble, Apple and Sony and I’ve added buy links to the book’s page.

_____

Smashwords will soon be adding mobile apps to the list of formats they offer readers, which means you will be able buy formats for Apple, Android, Windows Phone 7 and HP’s WebOS.  I’ve been reading my books on my cellphone for years.  It appears that many other readers have been, too, if Smashwords are making this move to provide formats for mobile phones.  In Japan, reading on your cellphone is the norm, which is why ebook covers are so small and simple.  With the first surge of popularity in ebook reading passing on and early adopters are already looking around for the next cool gadget to play with, perhaps there might be a secondary wave of movement toward cellphone reading as people merge their handheld devices into one convenient all-in-0ne handheld.

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That’s it for now.  I’ll be back, I’m sure.  As soon as I hit “publish” I’m sure I’ll think of something else…!

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My first non-erotic romantic suspense in quite a while, Fatal Wild Child, just went up onto Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, and Smashwords yesterday.  So it’s officially released now.

One of the things I’m finding different about self-publishing (unlike legacy publishing) is that there’s no such thing as a cast-iron release date.  I can point to a date on the calendar and say “I’m uploading on this date!” but I’m still at the mercy of systems and computers that take unknown and unguessable amounts of time to compile formats and pages.  Amazon, for instance, says it takes 2 business days, but the page popped up within three hours.  And while I can’t access the publisher’s sales data on Fatal Wild Child, my author’s information tells me I’ve already sold copies.  Yet the Amazon page isn’t showing a sales rank yet.

So it’s impossible to say a book will be released on xxx date, because it just might not be available by then even if I upload two business days before…or it could be available two days early.

This self-publishing business is so much fun!

Fatal Wild Child, although it isn’t erotic, it is sensual.  I don’t think I could write a sweet romance to save my life!  It’s also short.  You could read it in a couple of hours, with a good cup of coffee by your elbow.

Here’s the blurb and an excerpt that isn’t the one on the book’s page:

_____

When Seth O’Connor pulls Gabrielle Sherborne out from under her wrecked car in the middle of an icy river high in the Canadian Rockies just before Christmas, he never thought that someone might actually be gunning for the infamous wild child of the famous Hollywood director, Cameron MacKenzie Sherborne III, and the family that puts up with her antics.

Told by his superiors to insert himself into the Sherborne family and protect Gabrielle, Seth learns that the former film star is anything but a brat. She’s all woman, incredibly sexy and smart, with a vulnerability that eats right through the armor over his heart. That makes doing his job suddenly very tough for Captain Seth O’Connor, for the unfriendlies are closing in…

_____

An Excerpt From: FATAL WILD CHILD
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2011
All Rights Reserved.

She studied his profile as he drove with a non-flashy style, handling the old truck with a competence that was reassuring. He’d managed to overtake the Mustang on curves that scared most tourists, at a speed that had probably tested this truck to the limits. For a long while, the silence stretched between them, warm and comforting. She let it stay that way, enjoying the warmth. Then, knowing she had to deal with it, she sighed and asked the question.

“You never asked me for my name,” she said.

He glanced at her, the blue eyes raking her up and down in one sizzling glance.

“No,” he agreed.

“Then you recognized me,” she said, feeling a bone-sapping weariness that had nothing to do with the immersion into the icy water, or the harrowing loss of brakes in mountainous terrain.

“You’re a household name, Gabrielle Sherborne. You’re going to get upset because people recognize you?” His tone was neutral, possible even uninterested.

She swallowed. “Not recognized, no. But boast about the fact that they got to strip me naked. That’s something the tabloids would pay a lot to know about, Seth O’Connor.”

“Don’t read ‘em,” he said easily. He turned the truck off the highway onto a well-ploughed road, overhung with old trees with gnarled boughs, bare now, and holding up thick layers of snow.

Ahead, there was a clearing with a big, well-founded cabin nestled under the trees at the back of it. The cabin had a wide verandah, window boxes, a big river stone chimney and a solid lean-to that looked like it served as both a garage and wood store. A gangly Irish red setter was bouncing around at the approach of the truck, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.

“You don’t have to read them,” she said. “They’ll pay you anyway.”

“I already have a job and they pay me more than enough to live on.” He halted the truck with a sharp jab on the brakes, throwing her forward against the seatbelt. It should have been warning enough, she knew. She opened the door, unlatched the belt and climbed down and discovered her mistake. She stepped into snow and almost immediately felt the cold bite into her socked feet.

Seth rounded the truck. “Goddam, couldn’t you wait?”

“You don’t have to look so pleased about it,” she shot back. “They’re your socks.”

He scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes and she drew in a breath, shocked beyond words. The recent emergency aside, people didn’t touch her. Not without negotiation and permission. It wasn’t done. It tended to make security people unhappy, media people far too happy and speculative and rumors rife. She had put a general ban on people touching her even casually years ago. She had learned all the signals and motions that squashed even the most touch-happy people’s tendencies to reach out.

She clutched at Seth’s back, staring at the Irish setter trotting happily after him, as Seth marched up the steps to the cabin, and wondered if Seth was just one of those people who completely lacked any sensitivity and rode roughshod over others’ feelings.

The inside of the cabin was warm and comfortable, surprisingly neat and tidy, and not nearly as rustic as she had been expecting for a cabin on the edges of the national park. She struggled to get down, but he was still moving.

“Hey, I’ve been using my own feet since I was three,” she protested, pummeling her fist into his back.

He dumped her onto a bed and she landed with an ‘oomph!’ and brushed her hair out of her eyes, after sliding the oversized sleeve of the coat down her arm. She looked around. The bedroom was probably his, she reasoned. There was a door to the right that revealed an en suite.

Seth O’Connor stood at the side of the bed, his arms crossed over the thick chest. A furrow dug between his brows. “Take a shower, get warm,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest. “While you’re there, think about who you want to contact first. I have a land line here, so you don’t have to use a cell phone. There’s towels in the cabinet next to the shower. And I’ll find fresh clothes you can put on while you’re in there. Something closer to your size.”

He turned to go.

“Seth.”

He looked over his shoulder, the single blue eye all she could see of his face.

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent three years trying to off-load some of the crap I landed myself in over the years. This…felt like I was in it all over again. I prejudged you and I was wrong.”

“You did, and you were,” he said evenly. “Not everyone wants to use you, Gabrielle. Some people are actually human beings.”

“I’ll only believe that when I see them bleed,” she shot back. “Some of the people I deal with don’t even have a pulse.”

Seth turned to the door, gripped the handle. He didn’t look at her when he said softly, “I’ve bled plenty.” He shut it quietly.

___

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