May 6, 2005 | Chickens in the Road

Archive for May 6th, 2005

May
6

The HERS system. Harlequin Editorial Resource System. AKA, the Devil. For every book you write, as a Harlequin/Silhouette author, you have to fill out the extensive forms in the HERS system for cover art, otherwise known as the AFS (Art Fact Sheet). We Are Acronym Happy Here. The most frightening thing about my file in HERS is that there are 61 entries. This is because every time you submit a story to Harlequin/Silhouette in the New York or Toronto offices, they are logged in to HERS. Even if they never buy them. I imagine every time I get a new editor and they log in to my HERS file, they gasp, fall on the floor, and begin pleading for their very lives. I’m a teeny bit persistent. YES, YOU WILL BUY ME. I WILL SEND YOU STORIES UNTIL YOU CRACK.

This has actually worked over the years. God bless their weary souls.

After you browse down through the endless entries that were rejected, staring up at you from the screen like angry ghosts of characters forever left in limbo, you click on the title of the book you are currently supposed to be working on (for me, that was the merman story, PAX 3, last night). You know, the AFS you were supposed to be working on two weeks ago before your editor nudged you with an email yesterday gently inquiring HOW IS THE AFS GOING? Not that that happened to me yesterday or anything. The best thing about the HERS system is that in the Days Of Yore when I first sold to Silhouette, they mailed you the forms and you had to go to your mother’s house and borrow her typewriter to fill it in because, you know, who the hell has a typewriter?? Now it’s on the internet.

The first form is the Main Page. This is where you choose the story type (options like paranormal, comedy, glitz & glamor, fantasy, etc), the theme groups (adventure, different worlds, alpha hero, abduction, fairy tales, fictitious fiance, etc), story time period, story time frame, and story locations. They come with dropdown menus with a dizzying array of choices. This last one (story locations) includes options for cities, seasons, landmarks, holidays, and settings. You use a dropdown menu for each item, with options like (for setting) the Scottish Highlands and the Chrysler Building. One always wonders JUST HOW MANY BOOKS are set at the Chrysler Building that it has made its way specifically onto the list??? HAVE YOU EVER READ A BOOK SET IN THE CHRYSLER BUILDING? I want to know.

Then you move on to the Characters pages. You must do Character pages for both the hero and the heroine, and possibly secondary characters if they might wiggle their way onto the front cover. I only did a secondary Character page once, when I had a child that was important to the story. There you select character type (hero, heroine, secondary), name (fill in), marital status, then character theme. Under character theme, there’s a dropdown menu where you have a massive selection of things like pregnant, criminal past, insecure, emotionally traumatized, fugitive, former bad boy, etc. Occupation is next. I was disappointed to find that “merman” was not an option. (What is wrong with the world? They have the Chrysler Building as a setting option but no merman occupation??) Then you have Character Trait (loner, prim and proper, powerful, naive, aloof, etc), Hair Color (does anyone choose the mousy brown option??? and what is titan?? “He combed his fingers through his sexily tousled titan hair…..” I want to use this in a book if only I knew what it meant….), then if Hair Color wasn’t enough you have Hair Description (military cut, neat, hair up, hair down, trendy, unruly…..bald??? WHERE ARE THESE BALD PEOPLE IN ROMANCE?).

Eye Color (green, green-brown, green-grey, greeny-blue….why greenY-blue? why not greenY-grey?), Nationality/Ethnicity (is your character Italian/Australian? HE COULD BE! 5000 choices here), disability (amputee, anyone?), and then they want to know if it’s a “first love” book. There’s a box for you to type in any additional descriptive information. I wrote: HE DOES NOT HAVE A TAIL. HE IS NOT THAT KIND OF MERMAN.

After you do that for both your hero and your heroine, you move on to the Scenes pages, where you are expected to input three cover art ideas. I only ever have ONE good cover art idea. I have learned over time that putting in bad cover art ideas is just an invitation for them to USE THEM. So I put in my one good idea then sort of do take-offs of that one good idea in a mind-control attempt to get them to choose the idea I actually like. The Scene pages include categories to fill in like (and I’ll include my answers for Scene page 1, the one I like, for the merman): Mood/Sensuality (Dark, intense.), Time of Day/Season/Weather (Early fall, stormy, late day.), Situation/Location (Ocean and sky. Boat racing across water. Blue deepens as cover lowers. Hull of ship sticking up from the sand. Gold doubloons scattered along bottom of cover, face of a man taking up most of the upper cover, rising above the water.), Hero’s clothing (N/A, just his face), Heroine’s clothing (N/A, heroine not in picture). I am PITHY. (Let’s be realistic here. They aren’t going to use any of my ideas anyway. Why wear myself out?)

If you haven’t thrown yourself off the back deck by now, you get to cut down your synopsis to approximately three pages and fill in the Synopsis page. A new thing now is that they have Questions you answer to send in to your editor after you do the AFS. They look like college English exam questions. Questions like….. What are the overriding themes that run throughout–the bigger message? (ummm….) What is the significance/inspiration for your title? (Does this mean you’re going to KEEP IT?) Is the title metaphorical or literal? (er…….) What is this book about, beyond plot description? What is the take away? (TAKE WHAT?) For the key relationship, what is the turning point or climax? (DO I GET UNIVERSITY CREDIT FOR THIS?) What interesting visual elements have great significance in the book? (uh…..) WHERE IS A DROPDOWN MENU WHEN YOU NEED ONE?