The RomCom

 I taught a quick class last weekend on how to write the RomCom and ended up going over the 2 hour mark. There is a lot to say about how to write one of these movies, turns out!

However, I just discovered that all you need to know about RomComs is right here in this Tweet thread I just had with Aminah Hughes, another screenwriter on Twitter.

There was a joke going around in screenwriter twitter saying "Hello, I'm the gal on TV driving a car and don't need to look at the road for a full 10 seconds while I talk to my passenger," or "Hello, I'm the doctor in movies giving a shot who wastes half the shot by squirting the contents into the air first" etc.

Funny stuff.

I wrote one and it carried on for a bit with Aminah like this:

Me: Hello, I’m a woman in a RomCom who works at a failing but charming bookstore and I live in an adorably cute cottage in a nice neighborhood on $12 an hour.

Then Aminah Tweeted

Aminah: OMG I think I know you! Do you also ride an adorable old-fashioned bicycle with a basket on the front? I think you were in the first screenplay I wrote in film school! Hi!

Me: That's me I also have a kooky best friend who wears overalls and big glasses that slide down her nose

Aminah: Give her my love! And pass on my best to the grumpy old man with a heart of gold who owns the bookstore. I know how hard it'll be for you when he finally carks it & you have to fend for yourself in the big bad world outside the beautiful bookshop bubble.

Me: Especially because my parents are dead and I look to him as a parent

Aminah: At least his long lost son is coming home for a visit soon and you'll finally get to meet him. Heard he's grumpy like his dad. Probably won't like him at first.

Me: I already know I dislike him immensely because he wants to sell the bookstore! Dang, why is he so handsome?

Aminah: Stupid city slickers, coming into our lovely town with their ... big city ways! You'll soon show him who runs this bookstore! He so rude. Stop LOOKING at him over the top of that book!

Me: I can't help it! We once kissed, kinda by accident when his face got really close and I'd been crying and he was comforting me and it just happened And now I can't forget that his lips are soft!!!!

Aminah: You must remember that he wants to dishonor his father's legacy and take away the only place you've ever loved (and felt safe - remember, believing that you're capable of stepping out into the world & finding your own path is SCARY!)

Me: When I see his shoulders straining against that tight shirt when he puts books away on the quaint rolling ladder thing, I think I might just be able to convince him to give up the corporate job and move to Niceville.

Aminah: Especially when his hair accidentally gets messed up for a second and hangs over one eye.

Me: And when that puppy got lost and scared and he held it in his arms, I could almost forgive him calling me a "naïve small town temptress" at the Niceville Corn Roast and Charity Dance.

Aminah: I just hope he's gone by Christmas. I know how hard the holidays are for you without your parents. Be terrible if he got snowed in and had to stay...

Me: Oh I love Christmas. I hope he doesn’t spoil it for me. I'll probably end up hating him, then loving him and we'll get married and run the bookstore.

________________________________________________

So there you have it. 

A Twitter thread to get you started writing your own RomCom. Make sure you make some substitutions like the bookstore might be a hardware store and the Corn Roast is a Fish Fry, or Aminah and I will have to pursue legal action. Ha ha.

www.Twitter.com/KimHornsby

SCUBA Diving - Yes or No?

When I first thought about trying scuba diving, I had two emotions—terror and wonderment.

I’m an avid swimmer, lifeguarded during high school, but also saw the movie Jaws and didn’t go in fresh water lakes for years after that. Also, I’m a wee bit claustrophobic and wondered if the pressure of all that water on top of me would trigger something that made me want to rush to the surface for fresh air. Rushing up is a big no-no in diving.

Turned out, I loved it. And the feeling was the polar opposite to being closed in. I felt like I was flying. Slowly flying through a dense medium, but suspended and free from gravity and the need for feet to propel me forward.

My first dive off Nassau was spent trying to gain neutral buoyancy and keep up with the group because the instructor had given me too much weight to keep under, but the distraction of swimming alongside fish and floating through coral gardens was not lessened by pushing off the sand every few minutes.

I went on to dive off Maui on a vacation in my mid-twenties and loved it so much that I signed up to take my dive certification class over the next five days. It’s a crash course they offer in resort areas where you can cancel all other planned activities to stay wet for five days learning how to dive safely. I then went home (which was British Columbia, Canada) and took the courses needed to become a Dive Master. Diving in dark, frigid water was much different from the turquoise, clear waters of Hawaii but it made me a better diver. And gave me an appreciation of diving in a shorty wetsuit with no hood or legs!

Then, I quit my job and moved to Maui to take my instructor course and work as a dive instructor. I ended up certifying hundreds of students, making over five thousand dives in eleven years and loving almost every minute of it. I say almost because I did have some moments I could have done without like being on a sinking dive boat in the middle of the ocean, getting trapped inside a dark cave with a shark and having a student lose a finger when his wedding ring caught on the boat handrail and he jumped into the water. Even writing that last sentence makes me cringe.

I did see sharks down there, and they had no interest in me as another large sea creature. I swam with dolphins, saw Humpback whales, had an octopus suction on to my bare armpit, dove caverns, caves, went on night dives with an underwater light, and ran a successful business called Kimberley’s Scubadventures. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

In my bestselling book The Dream Jumper’s Promise, the hero is a dive instructor on Maui and has a fear of the ocean after her husband goes missing while surfing. She can’t teach or even go on her dive boat. When an old boyfriend shows up with a strange way to help, she must decide if she trusts him enough to allow him back in to her life. There are lots of diving scenes in the book and I’ve been told it’s quite thrilling to read them.

Write what you know, and I know diving.

Was it good to push past my fear of being under the water to try diving? Absolutely! It opened a whole new world to me and led me to the fantastic life I now lead, even if I only dive on vacation twice a year now like in these photos of me diving last year at the Cathedral Caverns off Lanai, Hawaii. Conquering fear is a wonderful way to feel good about yourself. And as I always say to my daughter who is very fearful of many things, “It’s not brave if you aren’t fearful in the first place.”

Do you have something on your bucket list you want to try but haven’t because of fear? 

Tell me…

 

Link for The Dream Jumper’s Promise – http://amzn.com/B00AA4FAJC

Kim’s Amazon Page – www.bit.ly/kimamzn

On Your Mark, Get Set, CHRISTMAS!

 Christmas Movies are Here

I love Christmas and I love Christmas movies and books. I write Christmas movies and books but I love to keep that magic going from Thanksgiving to New Years. Actually, as someone who writers Christmas stories, I keep the magic going all year.

Just since Nov 22nd, I've watched several Holiday movies including HOLIDATE (not sweet or without swearing, Netflix), LAST CHRISTMAS (sweet but modern take on dating Netflix) THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (fun and magical, Netflix) and ELF (Classic and hilarious concept, Netflix).

I plan to fit in a few Hallmark Romances, The Polar Express, The Grinch, Jingle Jangle and maybe even Chronicles 2 soon. Something that Kurt Russell said in the first Chronicles stuck with me:

"People need Christmas to remind themselves how good they can be."

Christmas is a time where people dig deep for their best sides to give to others, be more tolerant, understanding and able to forgive. If you had magical Christmases as a child, it's only human nature to want to recreate that feeling of wonderment and joy again.

Through Christmas movies and Christmas books we stir those emotions again and become nostalgic for childhood innocence.

That's why Christmas stories are so popular.

I keep my novellas inexpensive so anyone who needs a Christmas boost can afford to find that nostalgia and entertainment without taking out a second mortgage to their home and my set of 4 novellas is cheaper if you buy in bulk!

Here you go to get you started this season:

The Set of 4 Christmas Romance Novellas $2.99 

Buy HERE

The Individual Novellas 99c

Christmas in Whistler (somewhat sexy)

Christmas in Crystal Creek (sweet)

Maui Kalikimaka (somewhat sexy)

The Christmas Challenge (sweet)

And Here's an Anthology I Belong to This Year with 8 Awesome Authors!!!

NEVER ENOUGH CHRISTMAS - Set of 8 Books by Bestselling Authors - 99c

Fill Your Kindle with uplifting stories this year for under $10!

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

Halloween Reading - Scary Lite!

MOODY & The GHOST is perfect Halloween Reading if you don't want Horror elements that will keep you awake at night worrying. 

When I started writing Moody, I gave myself permission to write 1st person, my favorite, from the viewpoint of a slightly snarky person. How wonderful is that? I'd written this quirky character in a book called Dream Come True about a ghost interfering in the lives of a family who lived next door and I liked the ghost hunter, Mrs. Moody, so much, I gave her a series of her own.

As a reward for all my hard work that year, I allowed myself to write purely for fun, to inject my sense of humor into the paragraphs and characters and to be as strange as I wanted. But first, I wrote the TV pilot. Why, you ask? I'd met a producer I thought was looking for content that could be shot in Oregon so I hurried to write the pilot to pitch to him. Turned out he was not looking for material after all, instead changing careers to real estate BUT I had the beginnings of a pretty good TV show. Then, I wrote the novella with the intention of making this a long series. A serialized series that continues. I didn't realize that readers have mixed views on cliffhangers at the end of books. Actually, many readers don't appreciate being left hanging, the way a TV show does at the end of the week's episode. Oops. I continued on, knowing if I priced the books low, readers might forgive me for leaving them hanging and having to buy the next book to see what happens next.

The TV pilot has gone on to win several awards, the latest of which was at the Austin Film Festival as a 2nd Rounder, something I'm very proud of. The script has had coverage, consultations and editing up the yin yang to be the final version it is this month. 

As for the books, they have a faithful following of readers who think Caspian Cortez is their book boyfriend and Bryndle Moody is their alter ego. I'm proud of the fact I introduced time travel and didn't end up going bats in the belfry nuts over the logistics. It wasn't easy keeping track of all the time travels and twists in the story arcs but according to my readers, I delivered and for that, I'm proud.

Moody & The Ghost books are written from the viewpoint of a 28-year-old woman who has gone blind in a car accident but finds she can see in the presence of a ghost. The spirit, Captain Caspian Cortez (named by one of my readers!) just happens to be a very handsome sea captain from the 1850's and as Bryndle Moody copes with his comings and goings and the life of a blind person, she gets in all kinds of sticky situations.

I like to say the tone of the story falls somewhere between The Haunting of Hills House and Scooby Doo, then add a romance like in the movie GHOST. There's a fun team of paranormal investigators led by Bryndle and they travel around in a van called the Marshmallow. But also, there's this amazing romance that comes to fruition in Book 3 that is doomed and conflicted and desperate.

It's Ghosts, Suspense, Time Travel, Humor, Romance and you even get a few Recipes with each book!

5 Books with a 6th on the Way

99 cents each. 

On KINDLE UNLIMITED for Free

eBook and PRINT

Kim's AMAZON LINK to Books: www.bit.ly/kimamzn

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

Suspense, Tension & Conflict

 Every story needs suspense to keep it moving forward. Even The Three Little Pigs has elements of suspense with the wolf threatening to huff & puff!

Here are the notes from my PNWA presentation September 26, 2020 on Zoom, about using suspense to drive that story. The notes were compiled by myself and Christine Fairchild, the Editor Devil for our 2 hour class.

Kim and Christine Looking Suspenseful

PLOT ELEMENTS

·         Unfold the story/mystery. Whether solving a crime or just setting things right—there must be revelations/discoveries along the way, beginning to end

·        Allow characters to follow a trail of clues that need to be decoded (by the hero, villain, side kicks) to piece the puzzle together

·         Shock the reader at key plot moments using twists and turns (physical & psychological), interruptions, surprises( especially after a calm), emergencies

·         Strike a balance between action/suspense and narrative—can’t be suspenseful every moment. Take a break from action occasionally. Use comic relief, pauses between suspense, or even give characters time to reflect and plan for their next move.

·         Throw in the dreaded monkey wrench to mess up events/expectations (storm at a picnic, fired day of buying a house)

·         Include Red Herrings and Dead Ends/Bad Leads, but know when to use/avoid them so you don’t overuse them. Or let a Red Herring be the real deal in the end, like the missed/dismissed clue.

·         Put two (or more) events and/or characters on a collision course. Marriage vs. funeral, promotion vs. demotion, baptism vs. prison sentencing.

·         Create competing agendas (2 characters pursuing the same promotion) or literally competition (2 guys competing for same woman).

·         Add complications right to the end, not just in the plot or events, but in the characters.

·         Create consequences that are dire, threatening, personal, must block truth from hero succeeding

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT & POV

·         Write your bad guys and good guys so they share aspects of the other & let them switch roles in scenes occasionally so they are unpredictable.

·         Add character traits that readers dread in your hero/heroine, like manipulative characters or ones with bad/dangerous habits, so they are edgy.

·         Show soft side of bad guys, like a serial killer (make us like him). Reversely, show the killer side of hero/heroine so the reader has an emotional push-pull.

·         Employ secrets, secret identities, lies, hidden information that, if exposed, will hurt someone. Then expose them.

·         Inject misunderstandings between key characters that are connected to the plot. Like people misunderstanding each other or events (a detective not understanding a clue or intel), or a character not reading hidden motivations for another character’s actions (sociopaths disguising stalking for flirting. See Ted Bundy.)

·         Allow power plays between characters, especially between protagonists and antagonists. Does the bad guy always get the best breaks? Let that come back to haunt him in the end.

·         Let fears and phobias create unpredictable characters/actions/decisions. The FBI agent terrified of heights climbs a tower to save the woman he loves, but gets stuck halfway.

·         Reverse expectations when possible, but make sure it’s believable and not ridiculous. That FBI agent can’t climb back down because a fire started below and he’s more afraid of fire than heights.

·         Play with POV (which character viewpoint is running the show) but don’t use too many character POV's or it dilutes reader attachment and thus dulls reader response. Definitely NEVER switch POV midstream in a scene.

·         Leave your main character (or even the reader) in the dark, like when a train is heading toward the character who’s distracted (see colliding events above).

DEVICES & PROPS

·         Make the keys, codes, tools or passwords NOT work.

·         Allow weapons (for destruction or for defense) to malfunction.

·         Let physical objects do the talking so they can inform/misinform your main characters.

·         Deliver "loaded" devices that carry meaning/symbolism, like the heroine’s Teddy Bear about to be torn apart, or the rose from her boyfriend now covered in blood from the serial killer.

·         Don’t lose track of your devices! A gun in the opening needs to be accounted for through the rest of the story till it’s used, lost or destroyed. That creates anticipation.

WORD CHOICE

·         Choose active/energized verbs (run vs. sprint, leave vs. flee) and clear, specific nouns (car vs. Maserati, gun vs. Walther PPK).

·         Load your words (tool vs. crossbow) and phrasing (removing her vs. dispatching her).

·         Avoid clichés, blah/everyday words/phrases and comedic throwbacks.

·         Employ professional, generational, localized or tribal language to keep characters sounding authentic.

·         Use unpredictable dialogue and subtext (speaking in code) so readers can’t wait to hear what they say next.          

PACING, TEMPO & TONE

·         Start with a hook, end with a hook. In fact, load your scene/chapter openings and endings with hooks.

·         Create reading momentum through paragraph breaks, action ramping up and gearing down (note: time between action scenes are shorter near end), and shift in settings/events (moving from one place to another, especially if new place is more interesting).

·         Change-up of verbs, increased tension words, and shorter sentences near high conflict to increase pacing

SETTING

·         Create suspenseful/moody environments on both the physical and mental levels (like the cave in Star Wars symbolized Luke’s inner fears/darkness while the Death Star was his the physically realized fears/darkness).

·         Inject elements into the setting that come and go and thus unreliable or unpredictable (see staircase in Harry Potter).

·         Let setting change over time so reader can’t expect it to be the same/stable place, like seasons/aging.

·         Give setting a heartbeat so it moves/changes/acts of its own accord.

·         Make setting a direct threat, an unknown hazard, a promise land that falls short or an elusive oasis.

·         Let setting be unpredictable or reverse expectations (biker bar full of nuns), dangerous (mob casino/den with cops helping them), promising (church, school run by serial killer), disappointing (family home falling into disrepair).

FORMATTING & COVERS

·         Formatting and white space on the page can set a tone, allowing the reader to turn pages faster, which gives the reader the illusion of a quicker pace. Use of punctuation to slow or quicken the pace, use of shorter sentences and avoiding anything to slow the action.

·         The Loaded Title: Choosing a title is essential in your promise to a potential reader. Keywords create urgency, danger, panic. Use your title to ask a question, promise a crime, add mystery, hint at conflict, secrets, revenge, vengeance.

·         The Suspense Book Cover: Suspense genre has a certain look. Note similarities, Font, Spacing and set up. The look of your cover delivers a promise to the reader-- dark/light, photos, font and how and where to place the title and your name. 

Suspense drives the story forward. Use it!

Kim Hornsby

www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

Turn That Book Into a Movie!

Hollywood loves Adaptations (See? I even capitalized the “a” word.)

The number of Academy Award Winning movies that were once novels, memoirs, comic books, stage plays, etc. is staggering.

A studio executive in the movie industry is more likely to read an adaptation from a successful book than a screenplay with no history of fans and nothing to speak for it.

Even if your book isn't a NY Times Bestseller, it might translate well to screen.

Have you ever thought this?

Me too. 

A few years ago, I attended a Sisters In Crime event at Universal Studios Hollywood that brought together a group of Hollywood’s Who's Who to talk to a select group of crime writers about turning a book into a movie. It was highly inspirational, to say the least. I got to talk to the woman who wrote Batman Forever, the showrunner (boss writer) of Bones, the woman who negotiated Gone Girl for Gillian Flynn, Shari Smiley, and many other big wigs. I came home pumped and ready to find a screenwriter for my novel.

Cut to a year later and I still hadn't found someone to write the screenplay, but I was wondering about writing a script. I attended another conference, this one in my home state of Washington and it was there I met my book to film agent and shortly after that, was offered an option for my 3-book series. Luck had something to do with it, being at the right place at the right time, then having an agent with connections and vision and tenacity had something to do with it too, although the book is high concept.

Before I’d signed the option contract, which is a very long legal bundling of papers to talk about subsequent film deals, merchandising, payment, option length, consequences if the movie doesn’t get made, legal rights etc I was asked by my agent to write the screenplay.

And, because I didn’t want to tell this amazing angel from my dreams that I couldn’t write a screenplay, I started reading everything I could find about how to do such a thing. I read Save the Cat three times, I read the Screenwriters’ Bible twice, I read how to Adapt a Novel to Screen, and anything that was written online that suggested it was possible for a verbose novelist to reduce their 100,000-word book to a mere 100 pages of mostly white space. My agent reassured me that she just wanted to have a spec script in hand. It looked better than having a book in hand with no script.

It took 3 months to polish the script to a blinding shine, but I wrote the thing. There were loads of rewrites, scenes were dropped or rewritten or combined until everyone thought my screenplay of 102 pages sounded marketable. The company who optioned the 3-book series, 5 x 5 Productions, liked the script and set about showing it around Hollywood to draw other producers in to the fold.

Films take a really long time to get made. Many optioned books, or screenplays never see the camera lens and although I know this, I am hopeful mine will. To help the project, I’ve begun looking for investors, actors, awards for the script. At this point I have some interest from a big-name actor but he wants a director attached first. The production company is in pre-production for another book to film project and mine is next. They don’t object to me dabbling in producer-type activities and I’ve been looking for investors to help with the 3-5 million needed. That’s what I’m working on in my spare time between writing books. And as far as awards are concerned, The Dream Jumper’s Promise screenplay won The Los Angeles Film Awards Best First Screenplay, semi-finaled in the Burbank International Film Festival Screenwriting Competition and won Best Feature Screenplay in the Royal Wolf Awards and won the Hollywood Fellowship of the Bigfoot Screenplay Contest. There were other wins, but these were the biggies, the ones I’m most proud of.

I wrote another script from a Christmas Romance novel (these are wildly popular!) and then wrote a TV one-hour pilot, then wrote the book from the pilot, something I don’t recommend. Writing both at the same time was confusing, and it isn’t easy to confuse me somedays.

These days, I speak on the subject of adapting your novel to a screenplay at writer conferences and promote the idea that novelists make fantastic screenwriters, especially of their own work. No one knows the story like you. You already know how to write. Boiling your story down to 45 key scenes that are visually pleasing to carry the story line to a satisfying end is all you have to do.

Go ahead, write a movie.

If I can, you can. 

Want the Power Point to the RWA class? 

email me with this as the Subject:  POWER POINT

kimhornsby@yahoo.com

I'll send it to you by email because I cannot figure out how to put the one drive link in here. Apologies.

Also, join my Facebook page for screenwriting!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/197600128169218

Follow me at my Beach site on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/188081488503196

Or TWITTER where there is a big active screenwriter community 

https://twitter.com/kimhornsby

Try #PipelineWriters on Friday night at 5 pm, PST for a fun mixer of screenwriters!

The Dream Jumper's Promise

 The Dream Jumper's Promise is a Bestselling Novel, Amazon #1 Suspense, #1 Supernatural Suspense, #1 Paranormal Romance and now an award-winning screenplay.

_____________________________________

Publishers Weekly said, "Hornsby has written a fascinating and engaging paranormal romance... believable and richly portrayed"

______________________________________

My name is Kim Hornsby and I wrote the book in 2012, published it under Top Ten Press and it quickly flew to the top of the lists as a bestseller. No one had heard of entering dreams before. Then, Inception (the Christopher Nolan movie) came out and entering dreams was lifted to a commercial height I hoped to benefit from. 

When my Literary Manger, J.D. DeWitt at 5x5 Literary Management asked me to write a spec script for the book, I said yes and promptly started to learn screenwriting. Years later, I teach the adaptation.

The Dream Jumper's Promise was optioned for 18 months but fell out of option, had a shopping agreement with another production company which ended and is now available again. 

Here's what it's all about:

Logline

A Maui Dive Shop Owner is haunted by otherworldly dreams after the mysterious disappearance of her husband and when an ex-boyfriend resurfaces with a preposterous claim of entering dreams, she must decide whether to trust him when he offers to enter her subconscious.

Check out the book site on Amazon (ebook and print)   http://amzn.com/B00AA4FAJC

5 Book Series (Franchise Potential)

Book Blurb

Tina Green's husband is presumed dead from a Maui surfing accident and now she's being haunted by otherwordly dreams. When former boyfriend, Jamey Dunn, turns up at her Lahaina dive shop and offers to help, she can't believe his preposterous claim -- he can enter dreams. As James deciphers her dreams, the mystery unravels for Jamey, Tina, and her best friend, Noble. But secrets, lies, and heartbreak rise to the ugly surface and soon we realize that no one is entirely who they seem. 

One person is an impostor, one, a traitor and one is flirting with insanity.

The LEADS

Locations

Maui - Lahaina Side, Underwater Scenes

Molokai, Underwater Scenes

Kandahar Scene

Carnation, Washington - Farm

The Dream Jumper's Promise - Screenplay Awards

Look Book and Synopsis Available on Request