NYT bestselling author Eloisa James shares secrets for getting to the top and staying there

"Happy endings only happen if you plan for them."
~Swamp Dogg





Eloisa James was the featured speaker at this month's Liberty States Fiction Writers meeting in Edison, NJ. A complete podcast of her talk is available to members (membership is only $35 and worth it for the podcasts alone) at Liberty's website.

Eloisa is my new heroine. She likes money and is very generous about teaching other writers how to like--and make--it, too.


Plan, plan, plan
Plan for what the reader wants (even if she doesn't know she wants it yet)
She began her electrifying discussion by quoting (perhaps ironically since it's romance fiction she's talking about, after all) from an interview with blues musician Swamp Dogg: "Happy endings only happen if you plan for them."

Although Eloisa's planning does seem to have a magical quality (her first manuscript was plucked from a slush pile by an assistant to super agent, Kim Witherspoon; they've been together ever since) two of the several points she made about planning your way to success, stand out.

Be a tease
Before you can really begin to write anything beyond character sketches, you need to plan where your characters will "go" before they reach the end. Eloisa says it's key for a writer to finesse the convergence of: the circumstances of the story, the audience's desire for a particular ending, and an element of surprise that causes the audience to worry that their desires won't be met.

"There has to be a moment when the reader, who knows what's going to happen because the cover already promises how the book ends, still worries things won't work out," says Eloisa.

"That will never work!" is music to your ears
When agents reject your manuscripts saying, "this will never work", says Eloisa, you know you're on to something. (According to Eloisa you must have an agent--for more on that part of the discussion, become a member of LSFWriters and check out the podcast.) Unless your plot is thoroughly preposterous and illogical, hearing that it will "never" work means that eventually, it will pique someone's curiosity--"How will this work out?"

If you can plan thoroughly for that "black moment" when all three elements collide, and for how your characters will emerge, much to the relief and dismay of your readers, you will stand out.

And here's a tidbit Eloisa tossed to the audience: if you're following the consumer publishing industry at all, you're probably aware that most of it is losing money, most of it that is, except for romance fiction--and in particular paranormal and historical. That means new romance writers are in demand, especially good ones.

Face the "this will never work!" moment in your own life
Eloisa is proof that putting your mojo to work can pay off big. "Plan what you want, and say it out loud," she recommends. At the beginning of her own writing career, Eloisa wanted both to pay off a student loan and have a child. She tells of how her husband was not keen on having both a child and a heavy debt load simultaneously. But in a classic, "this will never work" moment, Eloisa not only sold her first manuscript, she calculated exactly what she'd need to sell it for in order to pay off her student loan, said so, and then not only sold her first work--received exactly what she needed to meet all her desires of being debt-free and on her way to motherhood. Problem solved. And, not to mention a mega-successful career launched.

Know what you don't know--and then learn it
Eloisa says that once questions of talent and perseverance are out of the way, success--especially big success--comes from being your own CIA. "Realize this business is very competitive. If you don't, then you're kidding yourself," she says. The antidote to this is to know everything you possibly can, while saying as little as you can. For example, Eloisa makes it her business (emphasis on the word business) to know what other authors in her genre are getting paid by picking up information from other writers and whatever other sources will provide it, (including the trades like Literary Marketplace, Publishers Marketplace, Bookscan, Publishers Weekly, etc.) . Then, she discusses how she is not shy about insisting she be paid at least the same as other top authors, or more: the market can obviously bear it--and her work has a clear track record of leading the market.

By the same token, she says to be aware that others will also be watching you, and maybe not with your best interests at heart. Anything potentially damaging you ever say or write about someone, she warns, has the potential to come back and hurt you--and possibly others whom you'd rather not see wounded. So, unless you are positive you can trust the ones you're kibbutzing with, simply keep yer trap shut.

These are two of ten secrets Eloisa shared. For more on how to treat your writing like the business it has to be in order to reach--and stay--at the top, visit the members only section at Liberty States Fiction Writers and look for the podcast of Eloisa's talk , which will be posted by May 10, 2009.

New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James's upcoming This Duchess of Mine is due out from HarperCollins on May 26, 2009.
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