Ednah Walters - Venturing Into Other Genres

Posted by Night Owl Reviews in

16 comments

Enter to win a Print copy of "Slow Burn" (Adult Romance)!

***

VENTURING INTO OTHER GENRES
Writing both YA and Adult romance
by Ednah Walters

“No, you don’t want to do that….stick with one genre…once people get used to your style in one genre, they’ll expect the same tone and level of sensuality in all your books.”

I heard it all but life is too short. I say, go where the muse takes you. Re-invent yourself. My muse slapped me upside down once and I’ve never stopped swinging both ways. No, I don’t mean between the sheets. I mean writing both YA and adult romance. Is it easy? No. Making the mental transition from hot kisses that shoot adrenaline through your veins to PG-13 lip-locking can be painful. Believe me, the yo-yo-ing does wonders to your creativity.

So where did my tango with different genres begin? I could say…It started on a warm summer afternoon…but I’d be lying. It started with my child. My pre-pubescent know-it-all daughter.

I had just finished the first draft of an untitled adult romance and was feeling mighty pleased with myself, sipping a glass of wine and contemplating a depraved, steamy picture for the cover, when my daughter walked into ‘my office’ with her nose buried in some YA book. My office is actually a desk at an alcove in the bedroom of my 6 and 8 year old—they love to fall asleep to the rhythmic pounding of the keyboard and occasional chuckles when one of my characters says something witty.

Anyway, so my oldest daughter walked in laughing and stopped long enough to say, “Mom, you should write something like this. It’s amazing.”

Amazing, ashmazing…what did she know? What I heard was, “Why CAN’T you write something like this?”

“Sure, hun,” I responded casual-like but on the inside I was miffed.

Hadn’t I just spent 4 gruesome months with the hottest guy EVER and a pig-headed artist? Visited a speakeasy and walked through the underground tunnels of L.A.?(online of course) Interviewed a real portrait artist and visited a local studio to chat with another?(I really did) Hung out with Hotshot firefighters and drooled over their toned bods? Jealous? Wondering if I really did? I did. All these cool stuff in the name of writing the best adult romance ever. In fact, I was busy visualizing a shirtless hunk with tats on his arms breaking through billowing flames with the heroine in his arms when my daughter interrupted me.

So the challenge began. If I can write an adult romance, I should be able to write YA, right? Grinning like a villain master-minding the ultimate heist, I dove into the teen literary world, read everything I could find. Some plots were funny-I don’t do funny. Others were ridiculous, I don’t do that either. Then I thought, why not go for something different? Write about a love so forbidden hell and heaven will strive to keep the characters apart. Since they’re teens, they can get their Happily Ever After on book 3 or 5. It’s been done before you say? I say no, it hasn’t. Not when the Nephilim are involved. I had no idea fallen angels were going to compete with the fanged ones, but I finished and submitted AWAKENED, book 1 of the Guardian Legacy series, to agents.

I got one agent interested, the über wonderful agent Leticia Gomez of Savvy Literary Agency. One phone call and we clicked. While she tried to find a home for AWAKENED, I went back to my shelved adult romance, my Hotshot firefighter with the body of a god and the artist he wanted to…use …tame…love. I reworked it to my satisfaction and finally came up with a title…SLOW BURN.

So enamored by the family I had created and still waiting for the call from my agent, I started working on my second and third adult book, MINE UNTIL DAWN and KISS ME CRAZY. Finally I got the call. My agent had sold AWAKENED…rah, rah, bring out the pom-poms. Through edits, the waiting and nail-biting, I polished the adult romances and started on my second YA book, BETRAYED, book 2 of the Guardian Legacy series.

Is it crazy to switch back and forth between genres? Yep. Is it fun? Absolutely. How do I do it?

1. I pretend that my YA characters are dead waist down. Absolutely no mention of a boner or blood rushing to the, uh, lower extremities. That was hard at first, but after AWAKENED, I’ve become a pro.

2. Get inside teenagers’ head by watching teen TV series, listening to my kids and their friends talk about high school, cliques, angst, understanding the annoying “I’ll absolutely die if he talks to me…no, I’ll die if he dumps me…” things that drive grownups nuts but make perfect sense to teens.

3. Keep the dialogue simple… Having a 16 and 13 year old around the house helps. I read out dialogues and they go, “Mom, no one talks like that.” “I did,” I retort but listen to them.

4. After delving into the psyche of an arsonist or a twisted, jilted lover, it is refreshing to see things through the optimistic eyes of a teenager. Plus the switching back and forth between the genres keeps your mojo working.

5. And when I’m fed-up with tame love-scenes…oops, make-out scenes, it is exhilarating to get dirty and raunchy in hot, clothes flying off bodies-scenes.

6. Watch out for words you can get away with in YA but appear juvenile in adult fiction. My editor had fun with a marker crossing out juvenile words.

7. Last, find a way to make them soul mates. Why? Because they are still teenagers. They will go to college or rejoin their pack, their den, return to their parallel world or planet before they can come back to be with the hero or heroine. We saw it in Twilight, I am Number Four…. The bottom line is the HEA must be inferred unless the heroine decides to get married at 18 and have a baby.

So now I write both YA and adult romance. AWAKENED (book 1 of the Guardian Legacy series, YA) was released in September 2010.

SLOW BURN (the Fitzgeralds, adult contemporary romance with elements of suspense) will be available on Amazon.com in print and on e-format everywhere, including iTunes. Don’t miss the blog tour hosted by Forbidden Reviews.

MINE UNTIL DAWN (the Fitzgeralds, cont. romance with element of suspense) is due in June in e-format and print.

BETRAYED (book 2 of the Guardian Legacy series, YA) will be out August 1st.

KISS ME CRAZY (a feel-good contemporary, e-format and print) will be out later in the year.

Meanwhile, I will be writing book 3 of the Guardian Legacy series (due out 2012), and the next Fitzgerald novel.

Happy Reading.

Ednah Walters
http://www.ednahwalters.com

--------To Enter the Contest--------

Just comment on the post below and leave the first bit of your email address. You do need to be a NOR Newsletter / Fan Club subscriber to enter. USA Postage Only. Ends - 5/13/2011