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About the book
Blurb for Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes
My thoughts
This book breaks down a romance novel into beats. The beats are plot points that are expected in popular romance stories. It helps you identify if your romance novel has all the right ingredients.
It’s good but brief. I’m glad I read Save the Cat first as it’s similar but that book goes into more depth. This book was like a romance appendix to STC. I don’t think this will be a resource book I turn to very often now I’ve read it.
It’s part of the Writer’s Helping Writers series. The series includes a number of thesaurus covering different aspects such as character traits or settings. The aim of the books are to help writers find the words they need to make the impact they want.
They also have developed an impressive web-app (https://onestopforwriters.com) that’s described as a library of resources and tools to support writers.
What is the book about?
The one I got is on character expressions. It’s a thesaurus about different emotional responses and covers internal and external reactions.
How it works?
You look up the emotion your character is feeling, like lust, confusion, envy, fear, betrayal, etc.
There’s a little description so you can check you understand what the emotion is and make sure you picked the right one.
It then has a list of ways a character might behave if experiencing this emotion.
There are also some suggestions for internal sensations, which is useful for 1st person POV.
There are even some suggestions on how the emotion can escalate or deescalate.
How I used it?
Editing (Ocean Heart)
I used this book alongside the developmental feedback from my editor. She highlighted some points in my story where I needed to amp up the emotions and some places where I had skipped along without any reaction at all.
I looked up the emotion in the book and read the suggestions. I reflected on which reaction was most true to my character, then worked it in.
Future use…
This book will get used time and time again. I’m planning to next use it alongside writing Sky Heart. Hopefully it’ll reduce any feedback from my editor about under played or missed emotions.
Final thoughts…
This is a really useful book and has left me wanting the rest of the series.
It’s more of a resource than a thesaurus and I don’t think there is anything out there quite like this. It is designed especially for writers to aid their craft.
I highly recommend this book.
Do you have any writer resources that you swear by?
This June the latest World Indie Warriors Brochure was released.
Indie Books
The brochure is packed full of indie books, their blurbs, where to buy and how to connect with the authors. But, thats not all…
Indie Services
There is a directory of service providers. These are small indie business offering services that support the indie community. It’s a great resource to discover cover designers, book formatters, editors, coaches and marketing.
Indie Products
The brochure also showcases indie businesses that make and sell their own products. This enables you to discover unique and custom items that can’t be bought in mainstream shops.
Articles
The brochure is full of useful information from start to finish. There are tips for readers and an interview with a book blogger. There is an interview with the author who won a book cover contest. And you can discover what World Indie Warriors is all about.
It’s FREE to download
If you’ve read this far, you probably want to know how to get your hands on it.
The brochure is to showcase World Indie Warrior members. To join you just need to follow them on Facebook or Instagram – they are working on a forum.
They do lots of different activities to support the indie community. For example, this month, they are doing CampNaNo on Instagram and have a goal tracker on Facebook. Being part of a team is a great way to stay motivated towards achieving whatever creative goal you set.
If you check their blog you’ll find details on how to get your content included in the next edition.
This is a book I wouldn’t naturally pick up but Sarah Padfield-Neofitou sold it to me on the idea that it could help me with naming my characters. It certainly will make me think more about their surnames but there was more to this book than that.
What is it about?
The book is aimed at recently engaged, soon to be married couples. It addresses the different traditions and beliefs following marriage about names. It raises awareness that you don’t have to take your partners name and they don’t have to take yours and all the different options available to you both.
The book also has tips on how to announce your post-marriage surnames, things to watch out for like avoiding unfortunate initials.
The most eye opening part of the book was on how people judge others for their name decisions. You suddenly realise how many prejudices there are connected to a simple choice that doesn’t really affect anyone but the name bearer.
The real shocker I discovered is I have judged people for their choices and I’ve no idea where my ideals came from. I never thought I was a judgemental person until I saw myself in her words as that person. I hadn’t expected to evolve as a person from reading this but I did and I’m a better person for it.
Do I recommend it
I think this book would make a great engagement gift. When I got married I didn’t give a second thought to changing my name. It is what you do…
But now I realise how vast my choice was. I also think if I realised how difficult it is to officially change your name, I wouldn’t have bothered.
I’m not sure I would have bought this book as a writing resource, although, now I have it in my collection I’m sure I will refer to it for inspiration when coming up with surnames.
