Writing Actions Scenes

Suspense involves a lot of elements. Killing scenes and love scenes I've mastered perfectly. (A little bit too good on the love scenes, huh, LOL.)

But the action scenes have been a challenge for me for a while.

The best action scene I've written is in Stealing Innocence when Onyx and Lethal entered the house and Onyx took that guy out with extreme prejudice. Dropped him like a bad habit and didn't blink. Then there was the warehouse scene where the bad men were shooting up a storm with the kids and Kimberly.

I liked that one.

Although that the scene where William fought with the killer in Stone's Revenge was pretty good too.

I mean when its involved in killing I've been surpriseningly and scarily pretty good too.

The Hearts have always been an action family and they've been a good outlet to write. But these darn action scenes are so damn detailed in this book because I'm dealing with more than one Heart at a time and they've all got drama of their own that weaves around main story line.

Writing action (fighting and showing the emotional impact to each character involved) is like describing a Jackie Chan and Jet Li fighting with a lot more blood involved when it comes to the Hearts. This means something to the characters and if you've kept up with the Heart of Detroit series, you know that it means a ot to you as a reader that I do justice to each scene.

This makes it more complicated and harder to write.

Or more like exhausting. Can you just imagine having all these big strong overwhelming men in one room all talking and doing things?

That's how I feel and that's why i've been slow at posting to my live story Emperor's Addiction because I have to take them one layer at a time so I don't feel so damn overwhelmed (especially when dealing with King and Lethal.)

I'm currently trying to get this story out the way and concentrate on my conference.

His Subsitute Wife...My Sister

Drama, Drama and more Drama

Where does it all come from? Certianinly not from personal experiences because my life is very boring.

I work in a 311 call center for the City of Detroit. Now Detroit is the Murder Capital, Hair Capital, we're the brokest city (highest foreclosure rate) and we're the fattest city.

Another title is that Detroit should be Drama Capital of the world.

I've lived and been to a lot of cities. I'll read other city's newspapers, but never have I seen the complications of human interaction that takes place in the wide open in Detroit.

We don't wait to get behind closed doors. We love to get out in the open and tear someone a near hole in the rear and this makes life just a little bit more interesting here (hence our popular titles) and for me as a writer, I find that it makes great fodder for books.

Now a lot of readers do relate with the stuff I put in books and I know it happens in other cities, but nothing like Detroit. (That's just my opinion)

My latest venture His Substitute Wife goes into the emotional drama of a woman realizing when it was too late that she had a good man and has to stay with the decision to share her man or lose him. On top of that he wants a baby and neither woman, who are twins, he's sleeping with can give him that. So she does what any woman would do find another woman who would give it to him, her younger sister.

Keeping it all in the family, in the end one sister will die, one will lose and one will get everything she desires.

Read the drama filled live in progress story starting in January of 2008. Click here to subscribe or check out my blog at:

http://www.sylviahubbard.blogspot.com/

Would you like to read an excerpt? Okay, CLICK HERE!

See you there.



Your author,



Sylvia Hubbard

Drawing The Line - Pushing the reader to the limit

A look inside my head:

At this point in the story (Chapter 4 of Drawing The Line) I really had no idea where to go.

This story was constructed in my head way before my Mistaken Identity days. Back in 2004 to be exact when I was trying to also push out Stealing Innocence II and revamping the Stone's Revenge thing.

I knew I wanted something different for Shane, but I wasn't sure I knew how to deliver it to the reader.

I didn't want the regular romance for her. You know the boy meets girl, there's a lot of conflict, miscommunication and so forth, boy loses girl and then boy wins girl back.

I wanted to throw the biggest monkey wrench and push the limits of my readers to the point of no return.

Yet, I like good sin. (Yes, that's an oxymoron). I wanted the reader to accept the situation I planned for Shane.

This is the point (Chapter 4) is where I put the brothers together. In the beginning, they weren't going to be together. I had planned to some how share her between the two men, but I needed justification.

Now that I'm going back in the story, I want it different from the situation I set up in Mistaken Identity. I loved that one and please don't ask me how I put that twist together because I'm amazed at my own brillance with that one.

Fiction should push the limits of the readers. You should read not just to find out how the main plot is going to end, but also change your look and views of reality. Who knows what people do and accept behind closed doors? How do you know the person sitting next to you is normal? We don't know and fiction allows you to see their life. See what you've never seen before and good fiction makes you feel, taste, and show.

Journey with me. Cross the line and don't look back.

The Evolution Of Romance In The Book You're Writing

I'm in the midst of writing my live story sexual intrigue romance called Sex Weed (http://sylviahubbard.blogspot.com/) I really understood the evolution of romance. The hook line in Sex Weed is "One taste and he can't get enough."

It's about Dyson who decides to get revenge by sleeping with his brother's wife, Melissa, but what he thought he could just tap ended up being a very involved relationship with this mysterious young woman.

Of course it has the usual non-communication isues in a romance, deceit, lies and you can't have a good romance without a lot of drama.

In the beginning of Sex Weed we open to Dyson trying to blow Melissa's back out across his desk. Pile driving in her for his own demented selfish sexual pleasure. Blackmailed to enjoy the pleasure of Dyson's rough lovemaking, Melissa does enjoys it and their relationship is that.

Sex Sex and more sex, wherever they can get it and however they can make it happen.

As the story evolves, as much as they try to keep their own emotions at bay, the drama that plays out between them and the people around them draws them closer and closer together and they find themselves in a position where the doorway of love is in front of them and although both of them want to walk through, of course its all a matter of trust when it comes to love.

Since this is one of my live story's where I post on a daily base (three times a week to be honest) a lot of the readers who got on this train to read Sex Weed had complained that this was just going to be another sex story, but now as we hit the balls out climax where danger is coming down fast and their relationship is in jeopardy of ending, the readers are finding out that this story is more complex than what they thought.

But isn't that what love is? Complex?

One reader commented on the story by saying:

I love this update.. This story has so evolved from the first chapter where lust and hate filled melissa and Dyson..to now , where love and trust are fighting for equal supremacy...but I know their avowals of love is but an inch away! Love your stories sylvia. Wow!

In all of this, I learn as I opened up Dyson and Melissa's hearts to each other for the reader is that everyone falls in love a different kind of way. It's kind of like eating food at the table.

Everyone has the same plate with the same portions, but how it's eaten and tasted from each

individual at the table is a different kind of way.

I like having people fall in love and I think as a writer, having a different experience for your reader is important. True there really can't be a new way to write a book, introduce a plot or even bring out the wonderfulness of a character, but there are a trillion ways to fall in love. And

Each book of love is a different story.

And I hope to explore all the new ways in every way in each book I write.

Sylvia Hubbard, Author

http://sylviahubbard.com/

http://sylviahubbard.blogspot.com/

A BOOK IN A WEEK

I was coming off a frenzied three weeks of hammering out WICKED WAYS, the sequel to GETTING HERS, when I decided to take a break and check my email. (Mistake #1). I read an email from my editor from Harlequin saying that she couldn't wait to read my next installment in my Pause for Men Series on Friday. Needless to say it was Wednesday at the time. My hands began to shake and I went into a mild panic attack. Of course my editor MUST be insane. I didn't owe her a book in two days! I scrambled through my files and located my contract. YIKES! She was right. And not only was she right she was actually giving my 2 days grace. I was fresh out of ideas, so the only thing to do was ignore the email of course! I still needed a week to finish the book I was working on.

I eventually called my agent who contacted my editor who graciously said, "Friday is fine." Friday! That was a week away. I finished WICKED WAYS, emailed it to my editor and took a one day break to clear my head. But the only coherent thought in my head was that it was impossible. Yet, I had no choice. The cover was already produced and it was scheduled for release in July. What I needed was a plan. And the one writer friend I knew who could knock out a book in record time was my girl L.A. Banks (aka Leslie Esdaile). After consoling me for about ten minutes, she told me of a plan of action.

1. I needed to be selfish, cut myself off from family, friends and the dreaded internet.

2. Start at 6 am. (yick)

3. Write in blocks of four hours. Take an hour break in between for food and exercise.

4. Stop by ten p.m.

5. Make my notes for the next day and go to bed.

Well... I did exactly what she said. My generaly daily output on a good day is anywhere from 20-25 pages per day. With this plan I was able to up the ante to 35-40 pages in a day.

Fortunately, it was regents week and my son was off from school, so instead of spending the hour in the morning getting him up and out and to school, I had that time to work. And I worked.

But Friday arrived I only had 156 pages. Panic once again set in, but I was going to be brave. I called my editor myself and once again she was very gracious and said "Monday, first thing is fine." Ouch.

I continued with the plan throughout the day and through the weekend. When Monday came I had 210 pages. But miracles to happen. I wrote a grand total of 55 pages in one day. I emailed my completed manuscript at 4:45 on Monday!!! Much to the delight of my editor.

Of course this in NOT something I would recommend on a regular basis. However the plan works. It is simply a matter of being focused and staying the course.

With any book, you must have a plan of action and goals that you set for yourself. If it's five pages per day or a chapter per day, stick with it and do it.

The bottomline is, a writer writes!

Good luck