Interview with Karen
Leabo (Kara Lennox)
Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Best-selling
author Karen Leabo, a.k.a. Kara Lennox, has written 40+ contemporary romance
novels for Harlequin/Silhouette and Bantam. Her books have been translated into
18 languages and published in twenty-plus countries around the world. As a
nonfiction writer, Karen has written hundreds of magazine articles on subjects
as diverse as commodities trading and luxury resorts. Her previous
occupations-- art director, fitness instructor, advertising copywriter, antiques
dealer, actress, black-jack dealer—give her lots of creative inspiration for
her often offbeat stories, as do her ever-changing array of weird hobbies.
How did you get your start as a writer?
I was inspired by Woodward and Bernstein and switched my major from
pre-veterinary medicine to journalism. (But really, I've been writing since I
could hold a pencil. When I was 14, I convinced my school yearbook publisher to publish
a children's book I wrote.) I quickly learned that hard-hitting
investigative
journalism wasn't my forte. I don't like confrontation. So I
gravitated toward feature-writing and became something of a puff queen at the
school paper.
I started writing my first romance novel while in college, but it took me about
10 years to actually sell one. Meanwhile, I earned my living as a
freelance writer and editor. I wrote just about anything anyone would pay
me for, including copy for a brochure describing a chicken-processing machine.
(And I'm a vegetarian!)
What interested you about the romance genre?
I was an avid romance reader from high school on, starting with those wild, sexy
historical adventures. (Okay, it was those detailed love scenes that first
got me hooked.) It only makes sense to write what you love to read.
How did you make your first book sale?
I had an appointment with an editor from Silhouette Books at a writer's
conference. I pitched my story idea, she requested the manuscript, and a
few months later she bought it for the Romance line. It was the fifth book
I'd written, and I'd collected many, many rejections before that.
I understand that most romance publishers don't require
writers to have an agent to submit. Do you have an agent?
Yes, I have an agent, and I firmly believe all authors need agents to negotiate
deals. A Harlequin boilerplate contract is over 20 pages long! But
you don't really need an agent to submit a romance novel. Most of the publishers
accept unagented submissions, and even the ones who say they don't might still
respond favorably to a strong query letter. Agents do make the submission
process a bit faster, though. So you might wait six months for an editor to read your work, instead of a year.
(And often it is that slow!)
You've written 40 romances since 1989. That's
amazing! Tell us about how you stay so disciplined, and what your writing
schedule is like.
If you want to make a career writing series romance (like Harlequin), you
have to publish often to build name recognition and to earn a living. My
reporting background trained me to write fast, so it's pretty easy for me to
write ten pages a day or more. That's a good-sized novel in six weeks or
less. But I don't consider myself terribly disciplined. Nora Roberts
is disciplined. She writes, like, ten books a year.
I work a normal work-week--8-5 Monday through Friday. But I'm certainly not
writing all that time. I actually write maybe 2-4 hours per day, in the
morning, and do other writing-related chores the rest of the day (including the
ever-essential computer games, surfing the web, reading industry magazines, etc.).
There are often specific guidelines for each romance
line, including word counts, themes, etc. Do you think writers should
first get guidelines and then write a manuscript to fit a particular publisher's
guidelines, or is it better to write the manuscript first and then figure out
where it might sell?
I think the correct answer to that question is a combination of the two.
You should be a dedicated reader first. If you don't really love the
genre, you'll have a hard time writing/selling it. But if you are a
reader, and you want to write it, you probably already have an idea what
publisher or line you might like to sell to. I recommend formulating an
idea, playing with it for a while, maybe even writing a chapter or two, then
decide where it might best fit based on your reading. Then get the
guidelines for that publisher or line and tailor the story to fit.
You can always write the "book of your heart" if you must. But
sometimes, even if it's a brilliant piece of romance fiction, you might have
difficulty finding a home for it, because the parameters of the various
publishing programs are pretty specific. And certain subject matters are
just downright chancy--a hero in sports or the arts, for instance, will always
be a hard sell.
Where do you get ideas for your novels?
From everywhere--the newspaper, television, other books, dreams, overheard
conversations, or sometimes just out of thin air. I've always considered
the
moment when an idea jells into a book as a sort of magical thing.
Are there any themes or settings that you tend to recur
in your books?
For some reason, I tend to write heroines who have issues with their fathers.
They desperately want their father's love and approval, but choosing the hero
will ensure she doesn't ever get that. (Which is a little odd, because
that was never a conflict in my life. My father always supported my choices.) I also set most of my
books in Texas, partly because it's where I live, but also because it's a
popular setting with readers. (Ranches, cowboys, you know ...) I
also love writing romantic suspense, which I'll get to do more of, now, because
I'm writing a four-book series for Harlequin Intrigue.
Why do you use a pen name for some of your books?
I wrote my first 30 books under my real name. But then I hit a bit of a
career snag, and when I finally landed with Harlequin (as opposed to Silhouette,
which
is all part of the same conglomerate but a different entity), they requested I
"start over" with a new name. (And it's sort of fun to have an
alter-ego. My evil twin, Kara.)
With screenplays, there is a pretty well-accepted
structure: inciting incident, three acts, character arc, etc. Is there any
such structure for romance novels?
Romance novels generally have a three-act structure, too. I was doing it
instinctively before I even knew there was such a thing. There is
definitely an inciting incident (whatever throws the hero and heroine together),
and major turning points, and rising tension, a black moment, a climax, and
resolution. Romance novels have a few other constants as well: Hero
and heroine should meet in the first chapter and remain together for most of the
book; and they should get together at the end of the book, having resolved their conflicts, and make some sort of commitment. Doesn't
have to be marriage, but the reader should close the book with the idea that
everything will work out for these two and they'll live happily ever after. You
can't kill off either main character (which is why Bridges of Madison County isn't a romance novel),
and they both have to, in general, be good people, though they can have some
pretty serious flaws.
Beyond that, you'll see a lot of variety in tone, length and subject
matter--historical, contemporary, futuristic, paranormal, funny, dark, erotic,
squeaky clean. There are Christian romances, multi-cultural romances (i.e.
with African American or Hispanic characters), romances with heroes who are vampires, werewolves, angels, you name
it. These definitely aren't your grandmother's Harlequins!
You're an active member of several writing
organizations, like the Romance Writers of America. What are the perks of
joining such an organization? Can and should unpublished writers join groups
like this?
I never would have published had I not joined Romance Writers of America and one
of its many local chapters. You get so much information and encouragement from the
other writers, it's just hard to overstate the value. Plus you get a
magazine, a national conference (in New York this year), well-respected contests
with editors and agents as judges, all kinds of specialized e-mail loops. The
vast majority of our members are unpublished, and we have over 8,000 members
worldwide. Through RWA I've found critique partners, research sources, lifelong friends,
and my husband. (Yes, he's a romance writer. There are quite a few
males in the ranks. Our president last year was Harold Lowry, a.k.a. Leigh
Greenwood.)
What advice would you offer aspiring romance authors?
Read a lot and write a lot. On average most romance writers write three or
four books before they sell. I know more than one who wrote at least a
dozen before "the call" from an editor. Patience and persistence
pays-- as it does in every area of publishing, I guess.
Anything else you'd like to add?
I think I've blathered enough! My website is www.karalennox.com;
RWA's website is www.rwanational.com. Harlequin's
website is www.eharlequin.com, and they
have a whole section for aspiring writers, with online writing round-robins,
opportunities to ask questions to editors, contests, bulletin boards where you
can mix and mingle with authors and talk books.
Read about Karen's latest novel, Sassy Cinderella, here.
Karen's upcoming releases:
FORTUNE'S TWINS by Kara Lennox
Harlequin American Romance
June 2003
THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR by Kara Lennox
Harlequin American Romance
October 2003
