Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
You've reached the end of the Lecture.
Tip sheets
• Calculating Love (an excerpt from a novel)
Alicia d'Marvel
• "The Story of an Hour"
Kate Chopin
Age—in her late 20's
Appearance—stunningly attractive:
well proportioned but slender; "coltish,"
even girlish.
Personality—perky, independent, smart
but not intellectual); eventually submits to
her man; will cry when appropriate.
Motivation—love first, career second; competent and ambitious,
but never grasping.
Romantic sensibility—use a "soft focus," nothing overtly or anatomically graphic.
Lovers may have sex—but only once or twice; there must be no hint of promiscuity for either.
Loves scenes follow a pattern—first, after a period of doubt; again, after a
misunderstanding and
estrangement.
Glamorous locales, the beautiful places where readers fantasize living . . .
Urban—New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris... chic, beautiful cities around the globe.
Scenic—coasts (the Mediterranean or Pacific); hills and mountains (Tuscany, the Alps); wherever the fashionable gather.
Probably not where you live. Definitely not where I live.
Age—in his late 30's (must be older than heroine)
Appearance—good-looking, well-built, use words like "hard" for musculature and "dark" for eyes or facial expressions.
Personality—strongly masculine, confident,
in charge of his world and those around him.
Status—successful, affluent (better yet, wealthy), sophisticated tastes in food, clothes and gadgets. The kind of man you don't know but wish you did.
Driven by growing attraction between lovers. Tension is created by
uncertainties in their feelings toward
one another; they may dislike each
other at first.
Pattern of complications and misunderstandings followed by reconciliation.
Fast-paced—not bogged down by long political, philosophical discussions or
detailed descriptions
(except clothing).
Complex characters and innovative plots.
Deeper meanings and insights into life.
Author motivated by creative expression.
Challenges and broadens our views.
Shallow characters and unvarying plots.
Pure escape from everyday life.
Author motivated by desire to make money.
Reaffirms our basic views about life.
Writing that flows from the author's creative imagination. It offers more in terms of serious ideas and deeper, richer meanings.
Also called formulaic fiction because it follows a formula prescribed by marketing experts at publishing houses. Publishers know exactly what readers like and what makes money.