Where Do You Get Your Story Ideas? Alison Stone Wants to Know

As writers, that has to be one of the biggest questions we get. Ah, I hate to sound cliché, but ideas are everywhere.

 
For my book Random Acts, I read an article about a young girl who had been pulled over for speeding. The police took her into the station and bullied her into signing an agreement to be a drug informant. A drug informant! This college student had never been involved with drugs. But in exchange for leniency for her speeding ticket, she was pressured to be an informant. Fortunately for her, her father was a lawyer. He not only went to the police, but to the media.

 
I then searched the Internet and learned this wasn’t an isolated incident. In 2008, a woman in Florida was killed when she was forced to purchase drugs undercover after being caught with a small amount of cannabis.

By now, my wheels were turning.

For my second book, Too Close to Home, I used an idea that had been bouncing around in my head for years—longer than I had been writing. I used to be a manufacturing engineer for an automotive parts supplier. As a twenty-some-year-old female engineer, I was well aware the guys on the floor liked to yank my chain. One guy told me that once someone drowned in one of the large tanks used in the manufacturing process. He claimed he was murdered in retaliation for a drug deal gone bad. I have no idea if “his” story was true or not, but in my story,Too Close to Home, drugs are smuggled through a manufacturing facility and into Canada.

 
Ideas can also be generated by thinking, “What if.” When I learned Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense was looking for more Amish stories, I started brainstorming. The Amish generally shun technology. How could technology wreak havoc in their Plain world? Then it hit me: What if a plane crashed in an Amish field? What if the heroine’s brother was killed in a single-engine plane crash in an Amish field and she has to go there to claim his body? What if while she’s there, the FBI hero starts asking a lot of questions?

This idea became Plain Pursuit which will be released by Harlequin in June 2013.

Here’s the blurb: When her brother is killed in a small Amish town, Anna Quinn discovers she’s an unwelcome outsider. But the FBI agent investigating the case is right at home–because Eli Miller was born and raised in Apple Creek’s Plain community. Eli left his Amish faith behind long ago, but his heart is rooted in a local cold case he can’t forget–a mystery with strange connections to Anna’s loss. Desperate to uncover the truth, Anna and Eli are faced with stony silences and secrets…secrets that someone wants to keep buried in the past.

 
It’s fun to see an idea grow into a book, then be summarized in a few-sentence blurb.
Once I was outside chatting with neighbors and one of them stopped, looked at me and said (in all sincerity), “This isn’t going to appear in a book, is it?”
I smiled and said nothing. I don’t make promises I can’t keep.

 
So tell me, If you’re a writer, where do you get your ideas?

Also, Random Acts, originally released in eBook format, is now available in print.

Blurb:Bitter experience left Danielle hesitant to open her heart. When a family crisis brings her home, the hard-nosed attorney is forced to face the man that let her get away. And that her sister’s accident was staged to mask a beating.
Though Patrick guards his heart, seeing Danielle again reignites their old flame. But no way will he bring her into his daughter’s life, not when her values on faith and family are so different from his own. Yet they must work together to bring a criminal to justice before everything is destroyed—including their second chance at forever.

Links for Random Acts:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Random-Acts-ebook/dp/B00795G1X4/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1362254466&sr=8-2
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/random-acts-alison-stone/1108890294?ean=9781609289386

ALISON STONE writes romantic suspense for Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense and Samhain Publishing. Her debut novel, Random Acts, was a finalist for the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award in the unpublished inspirational category. Alison lives in Western New York with her husband of over twenty years and their four children where the summers are absolutely gorgeous and the winters are perfect for curling up with a good book—or writing one. Besides writing, Alison keeps busy volunteering at her children’s schools, driving her girls to dance, and watching her boys race motocross.
Website:www.AlisonStone.com.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alison_Stone or @Alison_Stone
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonStoneAuthor
Blog: http://alisonstone.wordpress.com/

The Change Exchange

Long ago, in a publishing landscape far away — does it seem like I’m beginning too many posts this way? I bet you can tell it’s Thea Devine posting today. In any event, Casey’s post a few days ago about flying monkeys called to mind a conference I ran many years ago where I’d invited not only industry people, but also the gentleman in charge of programming at Lifetime TV (seemed like a natural fit, romance and Lifetime), and a producer from USANetwork. I don’t remember anything from any of the workshops I attended (it was a looong time ago) except this: the USA producer talked about writing TV drama and the key to moving the story along.

He said, at the end of each act, something must change.

Extrapolate that for novelists: At the end of each chapter, something must change.

Think about it. Every little shift and setback, a small emotional moment, a big get out of my face statement — and something changes. It can be subtle or monumental. It can be something someone says, or something your heroine sees, or realizes, or theorizes (rightly or wrongly). It could be someone setting your protagonist on the wrong track. It could be a disappointment, a revelation, a decision, an apology, a resolution, an action, or taking no action. It could be something that’s not what it seems or someone’s hidden agenda.

Any of those changes (or any you could think of) should send your protagonist off in a different direction which will lead to more changes, more ramifications and more consequences.
In essence, you’re programming: if heroine does this, then this could happen. Or that. If she says something, someone could be affected negatively, or someone could overhear and spread gossip about it. If she chooses to leave, she will feel free, or she will feel as if she were falling into a black hole all alone. If the hero confesses everything he knows, he would be breaking a childhood code of silence, and therefore implicating his friends in a long ago unsolved misadventure … but he’ll win back the woman he loves.

Each of these moments of change has consequences which then raise the stakes in each succeeding chapter, almost like you’re climbing steps from one complication/change to the next until everything is tied up at the end.

So ask yourself at the end of each chapter: what changes? What can change? If something changed, what would shift? What would send the heroine in a different direction? What if it did? What if it didn’t? What if she wants to stay in place when even when she has choices? What if someone gives her an ultimatum? Or challenges her? What if she walks away from everything? And then wishes she hadn’t. Or is ecstatic that she did?

What happens next?

I leave that to your imagination, your tolerance for change, your aversion to or embrace of risk — in fiction and in life.

Thea Devine’s books defined erotic historical romance. She is the USAToday best-selling author of 25 erotic historical and contemporary romances and a dozen novellas.. Her 2008 erotic contemporary romance, His Little Black Book, was reissued in October. She’s currently working on a new novel.

When Work Doesn’t Feel Like Work by Katy Lee

Happy New Year! I have just returned from a writing retreat in the mountains, but technically I didn’t step outside, except to buy chocolate, that is. I spent my days glued to my laptop, and honestly, I have never had so much fun working.

Because Suze already told you about the benefits of a writing retreat, I will just second everything she said. See Suze’s post here. BUT I will add one more thing to her list that I came away with this week.

Find a way to do what you love.

Now I’m not saying that means work will be easy for you. It’s called work for a reason and anything worth doing will be hard. It’s going to need a strong will and a strong desire in your heart to complete it. But that’s where the love comes in. If you love it, you’ll do it, and you’ll do it well, and you won’t mind the work. In fact, the harder it is, the sweeter the victory will be when you accomplish what you set out to do.

This week as I sat for long hours from sun up to sun down behind my computer, typing out difficult scenes and plot twists and pulling on my hair when the story and characters took over, I did it all with a smile. I could literally feel my cheeks hurting because I was loving my job so much.

Now if you honestly can’t find that desire in your heart for your work, then perhaps a little search for it will help. Holding onto tasks that you have always done just because you’ve always done them isn’t always a good thing–for anyone. You’re not happy, and the people you’re working for know something is lacking. And perhaps there is someone out there who does have a heart for the work you drudge through. By stepping back to find the work you love, you allow them to step up and find what they love to do, too.

And then everyone’s cheeks will be hurting.

The Unlocked Secret: The secret here is not to find what you love to do. That’s no secret. We all know that. The secret is to learn a way to make a living from doing what you love. Like I said before. It’s going to be work. Hard work right from the beginning. But it all starts with your willingness and openess to learn. And the chocolate does help.

Question: Tell me…what do you love to do??? Have you found a way to make a living doing it? What’s stopping you?

 

 

THE BOOK I HAVEN’T WRITTEN

Thea Devine today.  I’m working on a variety things, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the book I haven’t written.  We all have one of those, the one you started, wrote, rewrote, set aside, tackled again, fell into a rut long before the middle, and packed away because you knew you were absolutely going to finish it — someday.  I think mine is buried in the attic right now just because I’m itching to get my hands on it and of course, Murphy’s Law, I can’t.

I started this book back when I was working for that big multi-national advertising agency I wrote about previously.  In fact, nearly everyone in the copy department, when they weren’t working on copy, was writing a book.  I had no idea what I was doing — I was maybe twenty-three or four.  I just loved to write and the intermittent stabs I made at writing advertising copy petered into one interesting idea one of my bosses used in a tv commercial she pitched which ultimately got shot down.

So definitely not copywriter material (remember I was very young).  But a book … that was a whole other story.

There was small branch library across the street from where I worked, and there I came across a pictorial history that piqued my interest.  From that I devised a scenario with an unconventional heroine,  her male friend, a missing family member (little did I know then that I had one too), an ambitious father, a prim and proper older sister, the daughter of a family friend who comes to stay with the heroine’s family, a housekeeper with a mysterious past, a stranger in town who falls for the heroine, and the town madam.

Sounds promising, right?  I had NO idea how to write it.  I started with the heroine and her male friend on an adventure, but that seemed to go nowhere.  I wrote a prologue with the missing family member, a brother, which made more sense, but then what?  Okay, so what about the daughter of the family friend?  Or better yet, what about the interconnections between the families, and why was the old friend’s daughter even there?  Yikes.  Now I had to go back and account for that somehow, but if I did that, I’d throw some other plot points off kilter.

So — send the family friend daughter back to her father.  But then, the only ones the heroine is at odds with are her sister and her father and maybe the housekeeper.  I also had the mystery of the long-gone brother permeating everything, because the heroine wouldn’t let go of the hope he’d return someday.  Well, okay.  But what if he didn’t?

Put the mss aside for a bit.  And then — start the story with the stranger coming to town who will fall for the heroine.  How do they meet?  Should they meet?  What’s his business in town anyway?  Is he a good guy or is he dangerous? Did I really have to know all that before I started writing about it?

You bet.  And worse, as I continued flailing along, the daughter of the family friend started taking over the story. She was beautiful, greedy, outspoken — that girl could have been the heroine but that wasn’t how I envisioned the story. I wanted unconventional girl to be the heroine.  She flouted conventions.  She was at odds with her family.  She had more at stake.  Wait — what did I mean by that?  So time to put the thing down and think about it some more.

So I thought about it some more — like, oh, 40 years, and now, even though there are days I don’t think I know what I’m doing, I do think I finally know how to write this book. I think it could be pretty good.

I could be wrong.

I still haven’t found the original mss pages I wrote, but I do remember the plot points.  I’m thinking I should just start all over, divef in and see what happens. We all should start all over and see what happens.

After all, we all know how to write it now.

Do you have a book you haven’t written?  Or you want to write?  Or never want to tackle ever, even though the idea of the story haunts you?

Thea Devine is working on her next erotic contemporary romance (and peripherally the book she hasn’t written).  Her sequel to The Darkest Heart. Beyond the Night, will be a September 2013 Pocket Star release.

Three Chords, One Premise, A Dozen Changes

Thea Devine today, remembering how my mom loved country music. She had a really nice singing voice, and oh, be still my heart, she could yodel.  I mean, really yodel, with that back of the throat crick that you can’t just learn ( I tried).  And folk music. Mom loved folk music;  Burl Ives.  Susan Reed.  Names you probably don’t know any more.  Names I grew up with so of course, I was going love folk music as well. All that came to fruition in college when I met a guy and he gave me a guitar.  And book on How To Play.

The guy didn’t last.  The guitar did.  I painstakingly practiced those three major chords, C-F-G, until I was proficient enough to play “To Everything Turn Turn Turn,” and then there was no stopping me.  I mean, do you know how many songs you can play if you know three chords?   If you can figure out progressions?  Or learn tablature instead of music?

John and I lived in the Village when we were first married.  We spent a lot of time in folk clubs.  Saw Buffy Ste. Marie, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, Fred Neil, John Hartford, David Blue — names perhaps you don’t know any more.  Names I grew up with.  I never stopped playing.  I don’t play well, but I love to play, learn songs, and write lyrics and chord them, as much as I love to write books.

It occurred to me that story premises are kind of like chords.  That you can play a dozen plots off of one premise just like you can play any number of songs off three chords:

(C)   the heroine is running (from, to)

(F)     her (ex, her past, her future, the  consequences of her actions, her childhood nemesis, her inheritance, her sisters, her stalker)

(G)    and complications (bad guys, the hero, her presumed dead husband, a                 long lost friend, the death of a sibling, a quest) ensue.

Add an A-minor — obstacles:  no money, trapped in a blizzard, electricity goes out, she lost her job, a parent dies, a serial killer is after her, all of the above — and voila.  The makings of a plot, which can twist in any one of several directions as you figure out who “she” is, what she’s running from, and which of the complications are going to prevent her from getting to her goal.

But I expect those of you who play know all this.  However, it’s comforting to fall back on when plot seems like a foreign word and everything you come up with feels like you’re duplicating every storyline ever written.

But, three chords: dozens of songs.  One premise, dozens of variations.  Really, it’s true, it works.

Do you play?  Do you write lyrics?  Did you ever think of plot in terms of chords? Does it help?

Thea Devine is the author of twenty-five historical and contemporary erotic romances and a dozen novellas.  She’s currently at work on her next erotic contemporary romance.

Making Old Things New

PJ Sharon, here with another snowy morning in the Berkshires. December is right around the corner and it’s time to put on the studded snow tires, dig out the winter duds, and hunker down for the long winter ahead. Having grown up in New England and having spent most of my youth in freezing ice skating rinks, I kind of like the winters. Although as I get older, the cold seems to seep a little deeper into my bones—incentive to get off my writer’s butt and start kicking it into high gear with some activities to get the blood moving. Tae Bo snow-shoeing anyone?

Some of you that know me have often heard me report on the constant state of chilliness in my 1840’s humble abode. She’s a drafty old place and with my husband being a bit of a polar bear and the frugal sort, we tend to keep the house anywhere from 55-65 degrees through much of the winter months. Oh, I could crank up the pellet stove and turn on the oil heat, but I like the challenge of seeing if we can get through the winter on just a tankful of oil and a couple of tons of pellets. I’ve learned to layer up, wear warm socks, and if all else fails, I have my darling husband—who is “hot” in so many ways—to snuggle up to. I’m sure that is all part of his evil plot.

Lest you think him cruel or me crazy for living in these harsh conditions, I will gladly take the blame for my plight. You see, I’m all about conservation. I shudder when I see someone throw away something that could be recycled, re-used, or re-purposed. I’m forever shutting off lights and I even take a trash bag on my walks now and again to pick up discarded cans and bottles along the side of the road. It has taken some time, but I’ve gotten my husband on the band wagon with me, and if something can be fixed rather than thrown out, he’s your man. You have to love engineers. I’ve learned so much from living with him that I think I’m beginning to think like him—as terrifying as that is to admit. So if that means re-using zip lock bags and aluminum foil or even re-working an old scene from an unpublished manuscript to fit a current WIP, I’m in!

To show you just how deep this renew/re-use/recycle thing goes, I mentioned on face book a few weeks ago that my hands get cold after I’ve been at the computer for a while. I had several helpful suggestions. More than one person mentioned that I should buy a pair of fingerless mittens or cut the fingers off a pair of old work gloves. I happened to be shopping in Great Barington this past weekend and saw some lovely—and VERY pricey—such gloves. They were cashmere and cost more than I would spend on a good pair of shoes, so it was a no brainer to walk away, but I must have had the idea rumbling around in my head, because when I wore out the heels of my favorite pair of Smart Wool socks and was just about to begrudgingly throw them out, a brilliant plan popped into my head. I stuck my fingers down into the uber warm sock and let my thumb pop out the hole in the heel. Aha! Then all I had to do was to cut the toes out and I had an awesome pair of “hand socks.”

So with Christmas coming, I’m putting on my thinking cap for ways to give “practical” gifts from the heart. I’m thinking Smart Wool socks for everyone…with instructions for re-purposing them when they wear out.

What about you, dear readers, have you had any ingenious uses for old stuff? How about re-crafting a scene that you’ve taken from an old manuscript?

How to Speed Date your Character

Hey Scribe’s fans, PJ Sharon here. This past weekend, I spent Saturday with my writer friends at the CTRWA (CT Romance Writers of America) chapter meeting. Our usually packed monthly meeting had only about thirty members due to the New England Crime Bake conference that many of our members ditched us for attended. But even with our skeleton crew, we managed to have a fabulous time. Thanks to Jamie Schmidt, our illustrious leader for the day (that’s her in the Victorian garb and the funky boots), we enjoyed a most helpful exercise, called “Speed dating your character.”

Some of us took the liberty of getting into character by dressing up for the occasion. That’s me in the silly glasses (Lily’s eye shields that look suspiciously steampunky rather than dystopian but work for the costume, I think). Left to right is Christine Bundt, Jennie Francis, Angelique Meltivier, Jamie Schmidt, me, and Melanie Meadors.

 I found that becoming my character was especially challenging since I’m far from a sixteen-year-old girl and even farther from the year 2057. The exercise itself, however, was very enlightening. We divided up into groups of five or six and went around the table asking questions of each other’s characters, focusing on one person for about five  to ten minutes. Being grilled about our likes and dislikes, and the most intimate details about our character’s lives and personalities felt a bit like being on the Dating Game.

The funny thing was that as I answered questions from each person in the group, and each answer led to deeper questions, the more I felt like Lily Carmichael, my main character from Waning Moon. I had to totally put myself in her place, talking about my family, friends, what life was like in my fictional future world, and even what my hopes and dreams were. It really made me think about what my story was about and who my character was down deep. After a few minutes, I actually began talking in a different voice and even felt different inside. It was strange to answer in Lily’s voice and from her experiences in the book.

The following questions came up, which I thought really got to the core of our characters.

What are you most afraid of?

What is your greatest flaw/strength?

Who do you love/hate?

What are your hopes and dreams?

What is it like being a teenager with so much responsibility?

How do the people of the future survive and what does the future world look like?

These were only a few questions, but the idea was that we put each other on the spot and forced each other to dig deep and get to the heart of our characters. If you have critique partners or a writing group, I highly recommend you try it.

What questions do you ask your characters to get to know them better?

 

Starting Something New…

Up until a few days ago I hadn’t written anything new for months. I was stuck in edit land, learning new things about myself as a writer. Getting edited by a professional editor is different that going through the revision process by yourself. When you’re revising everything is your call. Your decision. It’s only your book, but when you get a revision letter from an editor it’s different… It’s hard to explain. It’s like the book becomes bigger than itself, because getting that letter reminds you that you’re one step closer to releasing your baby into the world.

 

Every book has flaws, sometimes fatal flaws and as writers we know what the flaws are in our work, but having somebody else point them out is almost painful. Some writers love going through the editing process. They say it takes a mediocre book and makes it into a good one. But a lot of us don’t feel that way. A lot of us turn that book in and pray that our editor won’t see the flaws, that we’ll be able to skate by without having to fix things.

But that never happens. Those smarty pants editors always see the flaws and they send you a letter highlighting them. You read the letter and each point they make is like a little stab in the heart. Why? Because all the points are valid. They are never the little things that are easily fixed, like random spaces before punctuation. They are big things. Things that you knew were off when you sent the book in. They weren’t things you didn’t fix because you were lazy, they were things you didn’t fix because you didn’t know how.

So you read the letter and read the letter again and reread it twenty more times, hoping that magic will happen and you’ll suddenly know how to fix everything. But that rarely happens. It’s weeks of thinking and writing and rewriting and being stuck in your head. A lot of times it takes talking to another writer to make things clear, sometimes things will clear up by themselves.

And then one day you’re done. The book is as fixed as it’s going to get and you send it back to your editor. You feel free then, joyful almost. That weight has been lifted off your shoulders. But that feeling only lasts a few minutes because now that means that you have got to start something new.

Crap.

I was talking to fellow Scribe, Jennifer Fusco on Facebook the other night. We are both starting something new. And I had been feeling panicky/ anxious all week. I had a thousand thoughts running through my mind, a thousand scenes, a hundred lines of dialog that could go in my book but I had no direction. Where is this book going? What am I doing? What am I writing?

It may sound a little mean but I was glad to see that Jen was going through it too, because I realized that I was not alone in my pain. And if she felt that way and I felt that way, then there must be more of us out there who feel that panic when they are faced with something new.

And I think that’s why joining a writer’s group/ connecting with other writers is invaluable. If you get nothing else out of it, the feeling you are not alone in your pain is enough. :)

So… It’s your turn. How do you feel about starting something new? Is it all rainbow and sunshine? Or cloudy days and crying? How do you feel about the editing process? Can you relate? Any and all comments are welcome.

Retreat Recap

Tuesday’s Scribe, PJ Sharon here. I had the great pleasure of joining several CTRWA members this past weekend at the lovely Guest House Retreat Center in Chester, CT. We’ve been planning this weekend retreat for months, and no one was more excited than me to get away and share some quality writing time with my pals. I thought you all might like to hear about the highlights.

After checking in at 3:00 on Friday afternoon, we were all treated to a wonderful dinner and dessert before settling in for an evening of critiquing. We divided up into small groups, and each had the opportunity to share the first five pages of our WIP. This was immensely helpful to me personally, as my fabulous critique partners, Jane Haertel and Tracy Costa, convinced me yet again, that my short story prequel to my trilogy, to be released as part of the WG2E October Anthology, called SOUL REDEMPTION, actually started in chapter two. (Read my previous post about “The story starts here.”) I’m not sure why I haven’t quite mastered the art of where to start a story, but they were absolutely right and it will now read so much better.

Saturday morning, I rousted eight of my fellow writer friends out of their beds to join me in a 6:00 a.m. yoga class. I’ve been teaching yoga for about seven years now, and I love sharing a gentle, restorative practice with newbies and experienced yogis alike. Relaxed, refreshed, and energized, we had a hearty breakfast and then spent the next few hours working on our individual WIP’s in the comfort and solitude of the many nooks scattered about the quaint old inn.

After lunch—and I have to say here, that the food was simply outstanding—we gathered for an interactive debate with authors Kevin Symmons and Arlene Kay, who shared their humorous and spirited take on setting vs.character. Then we had more alone time before supper, where most of us made another dent in our weekend word count. I was able to finish all of my edits for WANING MOON, and I heard from Melanie Meadors that she broke her record of 5,000 words in a weekend. WTG Melanie!

Saturday night after a tasty Salmon dinner and blueberry cobbler—seriously, did anyone else gain five pounds this weekend—we got together for a fun-filled evening of Plotting Playoffs with our hostess diva, Jamie Pope, aka. Sugar Jamison. Our illustrious Prez, Jennifer Fusco won the big honor of the night and was rewarded with the coveted tierra, boa, and pink girly gloves—not to mention the best writer on earth certificate.

I’d like to personally thank the brilliant Jane Haertel, aka Suze Hardy, for helping me plot out Book Two of my trilogy, WESTERN DESERT. It’s going to be awesome, but I may need another retreat in the spring!

Much wine was consumed, laughs were shared, and in my opinion, the best line of the weekend came from Jennifer Yakely, another CTRWA contracted and soon-to-be published author, who said, “Historical romances are all about balls and Duke screwing.” I love writers! Don’t you?

It’s a Mad,Mad, Mad, Mad Lib!

Hello, loves! Suze here. So glad to see you.

Today’s post is just for fun. Did you love Mad Libs as a kid? I did, and I still do. So how about we do a romance version? No reading through to the end of this post or your Mad Lib won’t be as good! Here’s how it works:

Write down a word, romance-y or silly, for each of the following entries:

1. noun
2. body part
3. verb
4. noun
5. noun
6. past tense verb
7. verb
8. plural noun
9. plural noun
10. emotion
11. past tense verb
12. past tense verb
13. adverb (yay! you get to use adverbs, guilt free!)
14. adverb (yay! another one!)
15. body part
16. body part
17. verb
18. verb
19. plural verb
20. noun

Got your words? Great! Now take them and plug them into the following paragraph from a classic novel. Sorry, all you purists out there! I mean no disrespect to Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy–well, maybe only a little. But it’s a loving kind of disrespect.

Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common ___1___ and anxiety of his ___2___, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to ___3___ that her ___4___ had undergone so material a change, since the ___5___ to which he ___6___, as to make her ___7___ with gratitude and ___8___ his present ___9___. The ___10___ which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never ___11___ before; and he ___12___ himself on the occasion as ___13___ and as ___14___ as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his ___15___, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his ___16___, became him; but, though she could not ___17___, she could ___18___, and he told her of ___19___, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his ___20___ more valuable.

How’d it come out? How about sharing your “creation” in the comments section? Have a lovely day, Scribelings!