Crowded House: Engaging Readers As Writers

Our returning guest blogger Alina Adams has written Regencies for Avon, contemporary romances for Dell, soap-opera tie-in novels for Pocket, and figure skating mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. Now, it’s enhanced e-books that live close to her heart. Alina talks about how, when it comes to writing romance and involving the romance reader, three (or more!) definitely isn’t a crowd.

Previously, right on this very blog, I wrote about enhanced e-books and my plan to take over the world with them. I published my first one, When a Man Loves a Woman: Enhanced Multimedia Edition, last month. The electronic re-issue of my 2000 Dell paperback original now features its own musical soundtrack to complement and comment on the action (and, IMHO, a much nicer cover that the original).  Check it out on Amazon. My upcoming enhanced e-project, though, is something I’m particularly excited about. I intend to “crowd-source” a romance novel!

But, first, a little background…

I spent close to ten years working for Procter & Gamble Productions.  I wrote three best-selling tie-in novels for them, Oakdale Confidential and The Man From Oakdale for As the World Turns, and Jonathan’s Story (with Julia London) for Guiding Light. I also developed a property called Another World Today, a bi-weekly serial where every episode ended with a question. Fans voted and whatever majority ruled, I wrote.

Now, I am ready to try authoring a romance novel series, Counterpoint, in the same way. Every book will end with a cliffhanger (I do come from the world of soaps, after all!) and a chance for readers to vote on what they’d like to see happen next. I intend to put out a book a month, all reader-directed. There will also be a message board, where those who need to express their ideas and suggestions in more detail can do so. I am very curious to see what the result will be, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it will answer the question of whether readers want to be involved in the story-telling process, or whether they prefer to be swept away by the action.

For instance, with Another World Today, only about half of the people who visited the site actually voted, and some visitors even posted that they refused to vote because the emotional issues were too complex! (I am going to take that as a compliment. No matter how they meant it.) Another point that came up with AWT was that while some vocal posters on the message board expressed particular fondness for one character, whenever questions about her were put up for a vote, the response was lackluster — and, more often than not, against her!

And then there were the split-down-the-middle tallies. For instance:

Should Kirkland accept Sarah’s challenge?

Votes for Yes 52%
Votes for No 48%

Quite clearly, whatever I did here, half my audience was going to be unhappy!

There was also the day when the following two comments were logged in within an hour of each other:

Great episode but I’m tired of the Zeno story already.

Thanks for that scene between Zeno and Cass. I am really enjoying this new character.

So, yeah… what to do?  (And these are merely the less controversial storylines! When we explored racial identity and bisexuality, boy, were opinions split!  And heated!).

So why am I tackling such an experiment again, this time in romance novel form? Because I love trying new things. Because the latest technology makes it possible. Because I really, really want to see what happens when I do!

Interested in coming along for the crowd-sourced romance ride with me? Please join the Alina Adams Media Mailing List. If you’d like a copy of When a Man Loves a Woman to review for your own web site, please contact me at AlinaAdams@gmail.com.

(Interested in guest-blogging and chatting about your own new endeavors? Shoot an e-mail to perfectromance.magazine@gmail.com)