A Good Neighbor

by April Knight from the January 4, 2016 issue

Tagline: Lindsay liked helping people, so when her neighbor asked for a favor, how could she say no?

Observations: I liked this story. I identified with the heroine, Lindsay, because I used to say yes to all sorts of things and over-commit. Now, I say no and I'm much less stressed. But back to Lindsay.

Writing a character like Lindsay, who is a helpful person, can be tricky. You don't want a doormat character that people roll their eyes at and turns readers off, rather than entice them, but I think Knight did a good job. I felt that Lindsay might have a slight problem, but she hadn't ventured into doormat territory yet.

Giving a character quirks or slight problems to overcome helps the characters seem more real and three-dimensional. In a super short story like the ones in Woman's World, I wouldn't say it's mandatory if only because you have so few words to work with, but in general, rounded characters help the story feel richer.

I laughed a lot reading this story. For instance here:

"You don't have a big, yellow tiger cat?"

"I don't have a cat of any color."

I think it would have been a teensy bit funnier if there had been a beat after the word 'cat.'

"You don't have a big, yellow tiger cat?

"I don't have a cat," Cooper said. "Of any color."

I liked their banter a lot, especially the part where Cooper explains what he's been thinking...

"...the fact is, I've been wanting to ask you out, but I was afraid it might be awkward. If you said no, then I'd be embarrassed. If you said yes and we didn't hit it off, we might start avoiding each other and things would get all weird and uncomfortable. I'd start climbing in and out of my bedroom window to avoid meeting you in the hallway, and you'd start wearing crazy disguises. And then I might have to move, and I haven't even finished unpacking yet."

I always love humor in a Woman's World story.

Photo credit: torbakhopper via the Flickr Creative Commons license

Sunshine Ahead

by April Knight from the July 13, 2015 issue

Tagline: Raine O'Day didn't mind that her name made people smile--especially people as cute as Patrick!

Observations: It never ceases to amaze me how much Woman's World loves their tropes. The car trouble trope is familiar, but the thing that makes it a little bit different is the fact that the cowbell is making the noise. I thought that was a cute little twist.

On the characterization front, I liked the little ways Knight made the Patrick and Raine likable. Raine was a good sport about her name. I have noticed that sometimes, people with names that are easily made fun of sometimes have a chip on their shoulder about it. I liked that Raine wasn't overly sensitive about her unusual name.

I liked how Patrick's sense of humor was a little off-kilter. I thought it made him adorable. I also liked that he turned the name thing around and nicknamed her Sunshine instead.

Then, when Raine found out it was the cowbell in her trunk that was making the noise, again, she was a good sport.

Sometimes I hear that in romance novels, you don't want your heroine to be a Mary Sue--meaning a woman who is just too perfect and who has no flaws. I actually think that for Woman's World stories, you sort of want to err a little on the side of a Mary Sue. The characters in these stories don't have that much of a character arc to make, if any, and so it's okay to paint them with a Father Knows Best type of brush.

Photo credit: "Cowbell-1" by Michael Malak - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cowbell-1.jpg#/media/File:Cowbell-1.jpg

Good Sports

by April Knight from the November 17, 2014 issue

Tagline
Julie and Will met and discovered they liked an didn't like a  lot of the same things!

In a Nutshell
Julie is thinking about changing jobs so she'll meet more men. While staring at a sporting goods store window, lost in thought, she meets a man who is just as non-athletic as she is.

Observations
I wish I liked this story more than I did. This one came in solidly average to me.

My favorite line was "Hey, would you like to have a coffee with me?" He pointed to a cafe across the street. "We can discuss all the things we aren't good at."

Photo Credit: pdphoto.org (pdphoto.org) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

"Make A Wish!"

by April Knight from the May 16, 2011 issue

Tagline: Marley never imagined her birthday wish would actually come true--but then she met Bob, er, Josh...

In A Nutshell: Celebrating her birthday with her friend, Marley wishes for a man. Obligingly, her friend has already arranged a blind date with Bob. Unfortunately, the sketchy description of Bob leads her to approach the wrong guy, twice! The second guy, Josh, offers to help her identify the real Bob. Fortunately, Bob never arrives and Josh asks Marley out for dinner instead.

Teaching Points: When writing these stories, you actually have to make the reader AND the heroine fall in love with the hero, so make sure your story has a place, or places, where you show the hero demonstrating heroic behavior in some way. He can be thoughtful, kind, helpful, romantic, funny, brave, or any combination thereof. This can be shown in action or in dialogue.

In "Make A Wish!" here's where I fell in love with Josh:

"I'm a high school science teacher and a lonely bachelor--except sometimes I pretend I'm a knight in shining armor who rescues beautiful damsels in distress."

Here's Marley's equally funny reply:

"I work in a bookstore...my hobby is wandering around coffee shops looking for men wearing blue shirts."

Which brings me to another point. Humor is always welcome in a Woman's World story. The goal of their magazine is to improve women's lives and if you ask me, laughter is one of the easiest ways to accomplish that. Another really funny part was in the beginning of the story:

"I wish I would meet a wonderful man, fall in love and be married by my next birthday!"

"That's a lot to ask from one candle."

So, those are the lessons to be learned from this week's story: make your hero heroic and make the reader laugh.

"A Lover's Moon" and Catching Up

I'm trying to catch up a little by posting two story analyses this week. :)

by April Knight from the January 2, 2011 issue

Tagline: Rebecca was certain that her dreams of moonlit romance would never come true...

In A Nutshell: Rebecca has done everything she could to make herself attractive and available, but has had no luck finding a man. One bad day, she gets a black eye from a wayward cupboard door and has a root canal that has her cheek looking like she just lost a prize fight. But at the grocery store, a thoughtful man strikes up a conversation and even buys her soup to cheer her up.

Observations: This story, like so many Woman's World romance tales, give the reader hope that something like this could actually happen to them. A woman meets a man in a grocery store. And he's a thoughtful man at that! This is the type of "fantasy" that Woman's World readers and editors like. I'm sure many of them like to imagine being swept off their feet by a millionaire ex-SEAL with a tender side, too, but the type of guys in Woman's World stories are not bigger than life. They are life, at least, more believably real life.

"Twenty-four Wedding Gowns"

by April Knight from the September 27, 2010 issue

Tagline: Lily had a big collection of bridal gowns. Now all she needed was one man in a tux...

In A Nutshell: When investigating a possible addition to her wedding gown collection, Lily meets a man who collects antique toys. They click.

Observations: The story opens with a conversation between Lily and her friend. This conversation accomplishes two things: 1) it communicates the backstory--how Lily got started collecting wedding gowns and 2) it introduces the friend so that at the end we can wrap it up with another conversation between the friends, giving the story some circularity.

However, if it had been my story, I'd have opened it with Lily on Jim's doorstep. I'd have inserted the backstory into their conversation instead, thereby giving myself a lot more room to develop their attraction. For the ending I might have had her contemplating Jim looking at her someday in the one gown in her collection that she really loves.

The reason why I would have nixed the friend is because the 800 word count is so restrictive that I feel we should take advantage of as much room as possible to have the hero and heroine interact and get that chemistry going. You'd still have the great appeal of the wedding gown collection idea, but combined with a more satisfying interaction between the two main characters.

However, Johnene, the fiction editor, liked it as is, so take my musings with a grain of salt. :)

Dear Santa

by April Knight from the December 7, 2009 issue.

Tagline: Tory's letter to Santa helped her discover what love is really all about...

In a Nutshell: When Tory's co-worker at the Dollar Store suggests she ask Santa for a man for Christmas, Tory writes a letter requesting a gorgeous, fantasy man, but she immediately feels wistful because that type of man would probably never be interested in her.

Then, in walks an average guy who wants gifts for kids at the school where he used to work as a teacher, but because of layoffs, is now working as a custodian.

In the course of conversation, he remarks, "I keep hoping some nice lady will put me on her wish list, but I don't think anyone would be interested in an unemployed teacher." He invites them to a holiday program his school is putting on and leaves.

Tory realizes the custodial Santa is more in line with what she really wants for Christmas.

Observations: This story follows the classic three act structure. Act One: We start out with the convo between the friends, setting up the goal: Tory wants a man for Christmas. After she determines that she wants someone rich, handsome, and strong, we get the conflict: she's feels she's undesirable (short, 20 pounds overweight, has a sucky job.) And immediately, probably every woman who reads Woman's World identifies with her.

Act Two: The hero comes in. We find out he has sparkly brown eyes. He's not married, which is always a fact that you have to establish in these "first meet" stories. He's dedicated to his (ex-)job. Through some clever conversation, Knight gets him to confess he's wanting a lady for Christmas, just like Tory is. Lastly, he leaves the flyer for the program, which acts as the plot device so that Tory can contact him/see him again.

Act Three: Tory realizes how shallow and insincere she was when she jotted that letter to Santa, hence the character grows during the course of the story. Each of her worries about her own flaws, the hero has. She's short and so is he. She's overweight and he's losing his hair. She's insecure about her job, he's a custodian. There is no real climactic moment when we fear all is lost. We only get a little devil's advocate conversation with the co-worker, but the story still works.

My Favorite Part: Even though Tory is sad when she says this, I laughed: "I wonder if some man is writing a list of things he's looking for in a woman. Do you think he'd say he wanted a short, brown-haired woman who's twenty pounds overweight and who works in an 'everything's a dollar' store?"

My Nit-Picks: Political correctness often rubs me the wrong way, especially when it's contrived. For instance, in the first Twilight movie, Bella's circle of friends was so perfectly, and implausibly, racially balanced. I fully embrace multi-culturalism but don't think it's necessary to twist a story in order to appear all-inclusive.

In "Dear Santa," Knight (or the editor) chose to list three holidays:

"I made it a tradition to give each of my kindergartners a Christmas, Chanukah, or Kwaanza gift."

*sighs* Don't get me wrong. I respect everyone's choices as to religion and/or holiday. To each his own. But wouldn't it have just been easier to say, "a holiday gift?"

Also, the ending line is "I guess I do believe in Santa after all," and I think Knight missed an excellent opportunity to make the story come full circle if she'd had Rose say she didn't believe in Santa at the beginning of the story.