Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance (Aber Writers Guides) [Paperback]

Vince Mooney, Posted on the eHarlequin.com Community Boards Review for second edition Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing RomanceA" Is Probably: * The Best Single Book on Writing Romance * The Best Single Textbook For Teaching Romance Writing * The Most Useful Book for Published Romance Writers I must say to start that I've taken a very long time to read Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing RomanceA". That's because I can only read large type. I've had to read this book very slowly using a magnifying glass. If the book wasn't so consistently excellent, there is no way I would have finished it. Incidentally, I found it very educational to read a book so closely. It's like inspecting a house brick by brick. This is not a typical fan review. It is a professional review. I have been writing nonfiction for thirty years. I've written and edited manuals, created correspondence courses, and taught advertising copywriting in college. I run a real estate school so I know the crucial importance of having a good manual for each course you teach. I am also working on a book about the romance genre and have read at least 40 romance writing books during my research. (Some of the best are listed below.) I found Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance to be unique among the many romance writing books that I've read. It is exceptionally well suited for three different purposes. First, if you were only going to read one romance writing book-to teach yourself how to write at home-this book offers the best coverage. It features many examples, checklists, questions, and, where appropriate, it offers other romance novels that provide additional examples on the romance writing concepts being discussed. Even more important Kate Walker, like all good teachers, is always pointing out what something being taught does not mean. Knowing what something does not mean is very important to a successful learning experience. My biggest problem teaching adults happens when the student thinks he or she already knows what you are trying to teach. These students close their minds and fail to learn. For example, almost every student knowsA" that the mortgagor is the lender and they are wrong. The lender is the mortgagee. Almost every student knowsA" that the broker representing the seller is the selling broker. But they are wrong, he's the listing broker. The selling brokerA" represents the buyer. As Will Rogers once said, "It's what we know that ain't so that gets us in trouble.A") It is very hard to undue what people know that isn't soA". Kate Walker not only states what a romance term or concept means, she also points out what it does not mean. This is invaluable if you are learning at home without a teacher. It is also invaluable for an inexperienced teacher as it provides excellent talking points to go over in class. Let me give you an example from the book found in chapter 2 on EmotionA". After stating what emotional punchA" is, the author goes on to demonstrate what the term does not mean.It does not mean, just arguing or shouting,A" endless crying,A" wallowing in self-pity,A" it is not manipulative,A" it is not just sentimentA" or clicheA", and so on. This house cleaningA", as I call it, goes on for pages. Teachers should love this book. Chapters include: Emotion, Conflict, Dialogue, Focus, Sensuality, Passion, Heroes, Heroines, Characterization and Heroines, Plotting, The Question WhyA"?, The Intense Black Moment, The Believable Happy Ending, Practicalities, and From the Author's Desks (advice from other romance authors). In other words, you are getting the full package here. The book is 265 pages long. --amazon.co.uk

Kate Walker was born in Nottinghamshire, England, but the family moved to West Yorkshire when she was just 18 months old, and she has always regarded Yorkshire as home. She was the middle child in a family of five girls, growing up in a home where books were vitally important, and she read anything she could get her hands on. Even before she could write she was making up stories. At the age of four she was telling the tale of The Three Little Raindrops Drippy, Droppy, and Droopy to her two younger sisters. She can't remember a time when she wasn't scribbling away at something, and wrote her first "book" when she was 11. But everyone told her that she would never make a living as a writer, and that she should work toward a more secure career. So she decided that if she couldn't write books, at least she could work with them, and settled for becoming a librarian. On leaving school she went to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth to study English and librarianship. While there, she met her husband, who was also studying at the college. They married and moved back north, eventually settling in Lincolnshire, where she worked as a children's librarian until her son was born. After three years of being a full-time housewife and mother she was ready for a new challenge, but needed something she could do at home, so she turned to her old love of writing. Her first attempts at writing novels were done at the kitchen table, often working late into the night when her son was asleep, or during a few snatched hours while he was out at nursery school. The first two novels she sent off to Mills & Boon were rejected, but the third attempt was successful. She can still remember the moment that a letter of acceptance arrived instead of the rejection slip she had been dreading. She must have read that letter over and over a hundred times before what it said sank in, and for days she kept checking it just to make sure she hadn't been dreaming. But the moment she really realised that she was a published writer was when copies of her first book, The Chalk Line, arrived just in time to be one of her best Christmas presents ever. Fitting in hobbies around writing and being a wife and mother can be difficult, but Kate always finds time to read. She loves all sorts of fiction, especially romance, obviously, but she also enjoys historical novels, detective fiction, and long, absorbing biographies, and she can spend hours in bookshops, just browsing. During her working hours, her four cats, all adopted from the RSPCA, keep her company in her study, though they have to be dissuaded from sitting on the piles of papers that they are convinced are there just for their benefit. Kate is often asked if she's a romantic person because she writes romances. Her answer is that if being romantic means caring about other people enough to make that extra special effort for them, then, yes, she is. Romance is about making the important people in your life feel valued and letting them know that you care. But she also writes about relationships and the difficulties people sometimes have in understanding each other, or expressing their feelings, or overcoming problems. Sometimes, when the right words won't come, or an idea hasn't worked out as she thought, she wonders why she doesn't have a regular nine-to-five job but only sometimes. When the story's flowing and the characters come alive, she really can't imagine doing anything else. And there's a tremendous satisfaction in knowing that she's doing what she always dreamed of and proving wrong all those people who said she would never make a successful career out of her writing. Kate loves to hear from her fans. You can contact her through her web site at: http://www.kate-walker.com or email her at: kate@kate-walker.com