Monthly Archives: May 2023

June 25, 2023 Meeting – Romance Tropes and the Shifting Sands of Time with Kathryn Le Veque

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Our March 19, 2023 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop on outlining titled “Romance Tropes and the Shifting Sands of Time” presented by USA Today best-selling, award-winning author and publisher Kathryn Le Veque, which will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting. Not a NERW member but want to attend the workshop? Join NERW now and receive access to our monthly workshops, private email forum, and Facebook group!

Headshot of author Kathryn Le VequeWorkshop Description: USA Today best-selling, award-winning author Kathryn Le Veque will be discussing the different tropes of romance novels – past and present. What may have worked even twenty years ago has evolved as readers’ tastes change. We’ll talk about what works today, what doesn’t, what can be tweaked and twisted, and what can’t be. We’ll talk about what’s popular by genre (Historical Romance in this case, but this can be expanded into Contemporary and beyond) but also what tends to be universally popular. We’re going to talk about the fun part of tropes – making them our own, as an author, and how the reader looks for the author’s unique touch on a common trope. We’ll talk about how tropes work for ALL romance – because love is love. We’ll also talk about No-No tropes and how to avoid them. Trope’s the word!

Bio: Kathryn Le Veque is a critically acclaimed, USA Today Bestselling author (having hit the list 30 times), an Indie Reader bestseller, a charter Amazon All-Star author, and a #1 bestselling, award-winning, multi-published author in Medieval Historical Romance with over 140 published novels. Kathryn is also the CEO of Dragonblade Publishing, Amazon’s #1 small press for Historical Romance ebooks.

May 21, 2023 Meeting – WRITE WAY BETTER SCENES with Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez

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Our May 21 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a with a workshop presented by Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez from Pages & Platforms. Not a NERW member but want to attend the workshop? Join NERW now and receive access to our monthly workshops, private email forum, and Facebook group!

Workshop Description:

Good Scenes are the Building Blocks of Great Books! Too often, writers settle for subjective opinions about what makes a scene “work.” They don’t know that there are actually objective criteria you can apply to a scene to ensure it’s riveting and know how to fix it when it’s not.
In this one-hour workshop, developmental editors Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez will lead you through the practical steps it takes to write amazing scenes that will have readers hungry to turn the page.
Participants will gain indispensable new clarity into the basic building block of a story, the scene. They will come away understanding exactly how to assess their own scenes, fix the ones that aren’t working, and improve them all, for a better, more compelling story.

Bio:

Anne Hawley – When she’s not editing stories, Anne is writing them, reading them, researching them, or analyzing them. She specializes in helping writers discover the heart of the story they’re trying to tell so that they can tell it more beautifully. She can often be seen riding her Dutch bike Eleanor around Portland. She’s the author of Restraint, a love story set in 19th Century London. Learn more about her editing services and her writing at https://www.annehawley.net
Rachelle Ramirez – Rachelle helps writers develop their stories and believes stories are our most important catalyst for change. She has an MA in psychology from Goddard College and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Masters in Creative Writing Program on a merit scholarship. Before becoming a developmental editor, she served as a mental health counselor and as the executive director of a national writing community. You can learn more about Rachelle and her editing services at https://www.rachelleramirez.com