I am re-posting this oldie but goodie from my 2011 blog tour because I think it’s worth a read!

How many times have you read a romance book where the hero and heroine have a fight? The hero storms out. The heroine packs her things and moves out. This is it. The breakup to end all breakups. Then the heroine gets the call: “There’s been an accident!” She rushes to the hospital. Her vision clouded by tears, she maneuvers around the crowded Emergency Room in a desperate search to find someone who can help her, someone who can tell her if the hero is alive, or heaven forbid, *dramatic sob*….dead. And at the thought of losing him she is suddenly slapped by the realization she loves him, would be lost without him, and has no desire to go on living if she can’t do it with him by her side.

 As a reader I think: WHAT? Three pages earlier she’d thrown a cleaver at his head, told him he was scum and she could never forgive him for cheating on her with those slutty triplets he’d met at the bar. Sure, he’d apologized profusely. But she’d been adamant. She could not get past—and would never, ever forget—the images from the videoed play-by-play that’d gone viral on the Internet. He was depraved. She was humiliated. They were done. 

 But then, with the possibility of him being dead or gravely injured comes her declaration of unconditional love? I’m not buyin’ it! Because if it were me, I’d be thinking: ‘Take that you lying, cheating, scumbag. You got what you deserved.’ But then readers wouldn’t have the expected happily ever after ending, would they?

 External plot devices are things we authors throw at our characters to create conflict or make them do something so the story moves along the way we want it to. In the first draft of When One Night Isn’t Enough, my very first Harlequin Mills and Boon medical romance, I had a secret baby, a threatened miscarriage, a car accident, and the hero’s estranged wife, who he’d never bothered to divorce, showing up in the E.R. on the day the heroine had decided to tell the hero about her pregnancy. Oh, did I mention the estranged wife was also pregnant? 

 Oh the drama!

 Upon reading my complete manuscript (after signing me based on my first three chapters (thank goodness)) my then agent said, “Wow. You’ve got a lot of external plot devices here. I seriously suggest you get rid of some.”

 Newbie that I was, I thought: External what? And did a Google search.

 Then my brand new editor who’d agreed to take me on (because she’d loved my voice (again, thank goodness)) in an attempt to see if I could revise my manuscript into a saleable novel said, “The hero and heroine cannot get together simply because she’s pregnant. And while the pregnant estranged wife showing up is dramatic, I don’t think you need it.” Then she went on to talk about internal motivation, character driven plot, and character growth.

 Okay. Back to the storyboard. 

 What I learned from revising my manuscript (actually rewriting it – twice) is that by eliminating external plot devices to create conflict and move my story along I really had to dig deep into my characters’ heads to determine who they were, what they wanted, and how they planned to get it. I let them determine their own fates based upon their decisions and actions. By removing the threatened miscarriage as a means of getting the hero close to the heroine, I was forced to show the progression of their relationship. How he grew to care for her before finding out she was carrying his child. And by changing the car accident scene, which originally served to prompt the heroine’s disclosure of her pregnancy to the E.R. doctor treating her – yes, the hero, I was forced to show her thought processes and anxieties leading up to the big reveal. And by deleting the estranged wife showing up at the hospital I kept the focus on the hero and heroine.

 All in all I think the changes made for a much more satisfying read. I hope you agree. If you haven’t already read When One Night Isn’t Enough, you can find out more about it, and my other books, on my BOOKS page.

 So what’s your take on external plot devices?