How Hollywood Helps Me Write

My guest today is Australian Romance Writer, Paula Roe. Many times, as writers, we play with the idea of using certain actors and their traits, for our main characters in our books. Other times we pattern the looks of our characters after certain Actors. Paula talks about how movies can help us with plot and character development.

I love, love, love movies. Many centuries ago, I used to catch every single new release at the cinema but now, with a child and a writing career (and not to mention the mucho $$$ of tickets!) my major business now goes to iTunes and the local Video Ezy. So it was a Rare Thing Indeed when, one Saturday, I had my version of “the Movie Marathon”. In the morning, my son wanted to watch ET. A few hours later, we saw Ice Age 3 at the cinema.

Later that night, we watched our newly bought Bolt DVD. And much, much later, I downloaded and watched Sweet Home Alabama.

Movies are all about story telling, just like books. My favorite ones are all about character and plot, challenges and risk taking. About characters making choices and achieving (or not) their burning desires, learning and discovering new insights. Apart from an overload of movies and a chocolate high (a must when sitting that long!) I ended up with a few interesting facts that day which I’d like to share with you:

· It’s all about character

A great story will throw you into the lives of its characters. In ET, we see a single mom struggling with her family, a young boy who wants to believe in something special and his connection with an extra-terrestrial. It’s a classic ‘boy and his dog’ story... but the dog is an alien. In Ice Age 3, it was all about Sid the sloth finding his place in the world – finding oneself. In Bolt, it was the engaging story of a dog trying to find the one person he loves and a place he belongs. And in Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie needed to find her place in the world. You see the theme here? The major characters were all searching for or wanting something.

So, Revelation 1 - a character with no burning desire to want something is boring.

· Character choice moves the plot

Something has to be happening, not just to the characters, but also from the choices they make. What would have happened if Elliott had decided to turn ET over to the authorities when he found him? If Sid hadn’t taken the T-Rex eggs because he wanted to have a family of his own? If Bolt chose to give up the journey to find his owner after he discovered he was just an ordinary dog, not a crime-fighting superhero? And if Melanie had given up trying to get her husband’s signature on the divorce papers?

Revelation 2 – a character must make choices to move the story forward - and even when they don’t make one, that’s still a choice.

· Challenges and obstacles

A plot doesn’t have to have the ripper tension and breakneck action of Speed to keep you engaged. But it does need an escalation of the story, which means throwing challenges in front of your character to see what they will do. Just when you think they’re getting somewhere or on the verge of their goal... BOOM! A spanner’s in the works. In ET, after we find out ET’s alien friends are returning for him, ET ups and dies. Oh, yeah (I still cry at that scene!) In Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie thinks she’s going to get that signature on the divorce papers once, twice, three times at least. But every time something happens to delay it. And by the time she DOES get it, she knows it’s not what she wants. In Bolt, not only does Bolt have to physically travel across the US to return to his owner, but he also encounters internal issues, like trust and loyalty. In Ice Age 3, there’s a rampaging T-rex, a very-pregnant Ellie and a hostile new world to deal with.

Revelation 3 – The more crap the characters have to overcome, the more they deserve their prize.

At a risk of waffling on too much, I’ll throw it open to comments. Is there a particular movie that was helpful to your writing? One that you think encapsulates great storytelling...how?

Share with us and you could win a copy of Robert Kernen’s Building Better Plots (Writers Digest).

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Paula Roe lives in Australia. When she’s not watching movies (or reading!) Paula is writing. Her current release is The Magnate’s Baby Promise (Silhouette Desire), out now. Last year’s Boardrooms & A Billionaire Heir are short listed for Romance Writers of Australia’s prestigious Romantic Book of the Year award in the “Short Sexy” category.

Visit her at: http://www.paularoe.com/ for more writing advice and info about her book

Bringing Back The Spark—Writing Three-Dimensional.

~Sia McKye~


To me, the connotation of “spark” is putting life in your writing. I think you can have a distinct voice and still not quite have the spark there. For me, it’s that moment when my characters become real, or come to life on the pages. They act and react realistically, and not always as I may have originally envisioned the situation. It’s not so much you, the author, writing their lines…more like you as the author are channeling your character’s lives on to the pages of your story.

One of the ways I know I haven’t gotten the spark is when I’ve written something and there is that niggling feeling that tells me something isn’t right or something is off in this scene. It feels …flat. It might be that I’m trying to force my characters into a situation, or plot area, they wouldn’t be in, or have them reacting in a way, given their backgrounds, they wouldn’t. Or I’m trying to take the easy way out in solving their problems.

I think about how an actor approaches a role. As an actor, you have to step into your character, see who they are, how they react, understand what their goals are, what their motivations are, and what their conflicts are. Once you understand those things, then you know how these characters will act and react in pretty much any situation. You have to be able to do that to portray them in a play or on the screen. An actor can know the character they are depicting so well, that if a scene is rewritten they can and will argue it isn’t right, the character wouldn’t do this or that.

I think as a writer we need to do the same. We have to know our characters well to do justice to them. Some writers put together elaborate files on each character, likes, dislikes, favorite colors, etc. My files aren’t that elaborate. Many times I don’t have the character file when I start my story. I do by the end of the story. I usually write the beginning of the story. My file grows as I write. This is also where I dump exposition edits I’ve done that define my characters, things I need to know, but my reader doesn’t.

There are times when something doesn’t feel right but I can’t put a finger on it, other than my characters are feeling like one-dimensional paperdolls. It’s time for what I call Dr. Sia’s couch time. I put my characters on the psych couch and start analyzing them. I will sit down and write out each main character’s goals, motivations, external and internal conflict. I do this with the villain too. By the time I’m finished, sometimes before I’ve finished, I usually have that ah-ha moment and I can see clearly where I went wrong. The black moment is in the wrong place, or I’m making it a soft gray moment rather than black, maybe my hooks to draw my reader forward are dull or indistinct—not good. Seeing what’s wrong may also mean some rewrites but it puts me back on track and my characters and story again become three-dimensional. It makes their reaction to conflict sharper. Reaching their goals sweeter. It makes a better story.

Life is good again because my characters are back to being real people acting and reacting realistically.

The spark is back and the one-dimensional paperdolls are gone.

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Sia McKye has spent over twenty years in marketing and promotion. She's written and published various articles on writing, marketing, and promotion. She's a Marketing Rep by profession and also writes fiction. Sia has completed a single title romance trilogy and is busy at work on a fun paranormal series.

Mining Personal Gems

Award-winning author of The Chameleon Chronicles, Beth Ciotta, is my guest Over Coffee today.


Readers and writers both often wonder where an author gets their ideas. How to build believable characters that ring true and resonate with their readers. Where does a writer get the needed inspiration for realistic characters?

Today, Beth shares with us how she finds her inspiration for believable characters.


There’s a saying: Write what you know. Writing about something you’ve experienced—a job, a tragedy, a thrill, an encounter with certain personality types—lends authenticity to your tale. That’s not to say you shouldn’t research and write about what you don’t know. Why box yourself in? But if you’re ever stuck for an idea or material, consider the value in mining your own buried gems.

Evie Parish, the featured heroine, ALL ABOUT EVIE, EVERYBODY LOVES EVIE, and EVIE EVER AFTER, is a veteran performer—like me. Her struggles and triumphs within the entertainment industry ring true because they’re based on my own experiences and emotions. The same goes with her body-image issues as an over-40 woman living in a youth obsessed society. Because I’m personally keyed into these subjects, I write about them with an honest passion.

No matter your occupation, age, or personality there’s something within you and your history that will strike a chord with readers. I wasn’t always over forty and I couldn’t always support myself on performance gigs. The other day I thought about some of the odd jobs I've picked up over the years to make ends meet. Each one of these inspires an idea for a story or at least a character within a story.

1. Car hop waitress at a hot dog stand (developed an addiction to root beer and chili-cheese dogs)

2. Front desk clerk at a dry cleaner (Man, it's HOT in there! All that steam. Hmm.)

3. Sales-person at a men's clothing store (That employee 40% discount killed me. Spent more than I made. Although I did learn the 'correct' way to fold clothes)

4. Music teacher at a Catholic School, K-8 (Love kids. LOVE 'em. Except for that one out-of-control 5th grade class that made me cry.)

5. Entertainment Coordinator at Resorts Casino (My first taste of being on the supervisory end of entertainers. Whoa.)

6. PR Coordinator at Tropicana Casino (Perks? Learning how to write a press release, and escorting VIPs around the casino. Gary Sinese comes to mind. What a doll!)

7. Secretary/Assistant at two different entertainment-booking agencies (Something I was really good at, but didn't feel it was I was meant to do.)

On the subject of writing what you don’t know, I also have some dream jobs.

1. An ongoing job as a character at Disney World (Snow White's my first choice. Although I'd be happy with Cinderella.)

2. A travel writer (Getting paid to write about exotic foods and locales? Come on!)

Now it’s your turn. Name one real job and one dream job. I’m betting one
or both could inspire a fascinating tale or character. We’re all brimming
with personal gems. Sometimes you just have to dig.
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Storytelling comes naturally to award winning author, Beth Ciotta. Limiting herself to one sub-genre does not. Dubbed “fun and sexy” by Publisher’s Weekly, Beth specializes in writing Romantic Comedy with a Twist of Suspense and is published in contemporary, historical, and paranormal romantic fiction. Beth’s latest release, EVIE EVER AFTER, is the third in a series with HQN Books and is currently earning rave reviews. Into the Wild, a romantic jungle adventure, is set for release in 2010. Look for these connected stories from HQN Books.

Beth lives in New Jersey with her husband, a zany dog and one crazy cat. To support literacy, Beth works at her local library where she enjoys hawking books almost as much as writing them. To learn more about her chaotic life visit her website at www.bethciotta.com and her blog at http://bethciotta.blogspot.com/