M. M. Crane on Writing Fake Relationships

I have never been asked by a ridiculously handsome man to pretend to date him or marry him, or act as if I am madly in love with him for the sake of [insert a compelling reason, like our careers or some such thing]. Obviously I view this as a great travesty, but I deal with this enduring disappointment the way I deal with most things: I write about it.

I have thus far written some 30 or so books with a fake relationship element, but I am particularly proud of Reckless Fortune—my new book that approaches this trope by marrying it up with a contemporary Alaskan spin on a mail-order-bride as well. 

In Reckless Fortune, Autumn McCall enters a contest that pairs her up with brooding bush pilot Bowie Fortune and requires them to reenact a version of an old school Alaska frontier-style, mail-order-bride marriage. They both know they’re just pretending, but that doesn’t prevent sparks from flying as the two spend time together. And especially not when disaster strikes and they crash down in the formidable Alaskan wilderness with very little hope of making it to safety…

I loved writing this book, not least because I got to spend a lot of time thinking about the extraordinary courage of the women who decided to take their chances with strange men in far-off locations all throughout history in the hope of a better life. The women who set out on difficult journeys hundreds of years ago, praying that the man waiting for them on the other end wasn’t going to be the more difficult than the wilderness. 

But I also really loved the fact that the mail order marriage in this case is fake. Both Autumn and Bowie know they’re taking part in a contest—a publicity stunt to draw tourists to a remote stretch of the Alaskan Interior. They both know that either one of them could call it off at any point. Instead of being stranded with no recourse in the middle of nowhere with a man she doesn’t know at all, Autumn is choosing to be there. Bowie is choosing to participate in this marriage that isn’t actually a marriage.

Hopefully readers will find that as exciting as I do.

It’s always fun to play with forced proximity in a romance. In real life there are a thousand ways to disengage—even right in front of each other. It’s far too easy to hide from anything intimate behind a screen, or let the bustle of our noisy lives distract us. The beauty of fake dating in a book is that the people involved are forced into acting as if they have a kind of intimacy they haven’t earned, making what happens between them all the more delicious. The beauty of setting a fake dating story in the Alaskan wilderness is that there’s not a whole lot of the noise of the modern world to offer any distractions.

How can they help but fall in love?

Reckless Fortune is out 9/27 and I hope you love it!

M. M. Crane is a pseudonym for a USA Today bestselling and RITA-nominated author. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.

Hybrid Publishing: Tools For Success

Ever since I knew that I wanted to be one of the special people who make magical worlds come alive in books, I wanted to be traditionally published. 

At first, that was the only option I knew about. Then, self-publishing came onto the scene, but that sounded like too much work. You have to find your own cover designer, editor, and market it yourself? Writing the book was hard enough. 

Then, a few years ago at a writer’s conference, I heard about a fairly new way of publishing: hybrid. Someone else can take care of the logistical headaches of making the manuscript into something beautiful but the author gets to keep all their own royalties? Count me in! 

So, when I received an email from Writer’s Digest about Atmosphere Press—a hybrid publisher that was accepting manuscripts—I thought, “Why not?” I sent them The Gift of Dragons, and they accepted the book. 

I enjoyed every aspect of working with Atmosphere. The people who founded it are writers themselves, so they want every part of the process to be enjoyable for the author; they value their opinions. The professional editors pushed me to write the best possible version of the novel. 

But what I valued most besides the people, is how professional and beautiful the designers made the cover. Readers sadly do judge books by their covers, and I knew that without an epic front cover, my book wouldn’t stand a chance in the bookish circles I wanted to be in. 

All the designers’ work has paid off, and now I can’t keep track of the compliments people have paid the cover. Its grabbed people’s attention who wouldn’t ordinarily pick the book up, and it has given me more opportunities. Even local/Indie bookstores don’t want to sell a book that has a cheap-looking cover. 

Atmosphere Press also gives its readers a marketing guide, without which I wouldn’t have made the connection, at least not as quickly, that selling books in-person is much better financially than relying merely on Amazon or other website sales. Thus, I have focused more on in-person events, where, partly due to the stellar cover, I’ve sold out almost every time. 

And through Atmosphere’s list of Indie bookstores, a whole new realm of places to promote has opened up. I’ve already participated in one signing, which did well, and will hopefully have more on the horizon. 

But even more than the physical tools of bookstore contacts, the best way to sell books, connections to other authors, and a beautiful, professional product, are the more intangible tools that working with a hybrid publisher has given me: patience, perseverance, and bravery. These qualities are what lead to true success. 

I’ve always heard that the publication process is slow, and although hybrid publishing is faster, if you want a good product and a good launch, it can still take time. I’ve had to learn to work with editors, copyeditors, cover designers, and fit my schedule to theirs. Learning how to work with professionals in the publishing industry is a quality that I now rely on when communicating with bookstore owners, festival managers, and other authors. This is a business, and I need to be on the same level as everyone else. Patience will also serve me well if I ever venture into traditional publishing (which is still my dream). 

I learned much perseverance through the writing process (you can’t edit a novel twelve times and not learn it), but working with a hybrid publisher reminded me that I have something worth persevering through the difficulties for. The team I worked for put all their hard work into the book, believing in it, and giving me the confidence to keep going during the stress and doubts leading up to the book’s launch. 

The process and the product the team helped me create reminded me that sharing this story was worth persevering through the bad reviews and rough drafts. I now have the confidence to take steps to share this story with the world despite rejections or silence. That perseverance has put me in places—libraries, bookstores, festivals—that I wouldn’t have ventured into without the dedication and confidence of the team I worked with. 

Because I had to do most of the promotion myself, I was forced to take risks like meeting and even talking to strangers at book festivals and conferences. This not only gave me skills I can put in a query letter, but has given me connections to readers I wouldn’t ordinarily have met. And I can now know as humans, not just as readers. Now I get to share my author life with those wonderful people through newsletters and social media and can hear about their lives. What a gift!

Working with this hybrid publisher has been like a gentle hand leading me through the overwhelming, and at times, terrifying publishing process. Although I haven’t sold thousands of copies, I now know how the process works, have relationships and opportunities with bookstores and other events that I wouldn’t have known existed. I also have a product that can stand on its own on shelves and that I can be proud of. 

I’m thankful for the tools that hybrid publishing has given me for future success as an author, and I look forward to what happens from here. 

Rachel A. Greco dreams of being a dragon but has settled instead for being an author, which is almost as fun. Her short story, Fairy Light, won an honorable mention in the Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition, and her YA fantasy debut, The Gift of Dragons, came out in May.  When not writing, she can be found reading, kayaking, or dancing with elves in the forests of her North Carolina home.

My Career Transition from Writing Instructor to Published Novelist

I never, ever considered teaching writing—not once. The mere chance of being forced to re-read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness gave me everything I needed to choose journalism, and then publishing, over the classroom. So, twenty-five years into my career, when my manager at an education company asked if I could teach creative writing to high schoolers, I shook my head.  She finally convinced me that it would never involve Conrad’s novel. That’s when I began to see that guiding teens in discovering their writing voices would educate me in more ways than I could ever teach them.

Let’s face it, even as professional writers, many of us don’t spend significant amounts of time breaking down the foundations of the craft. The act of understanding and then implementing story structure, try/fail cycles, situational irony, or juxtaposition is reserved for those deep in an MFA program or finishing up an English degree. Much of what we do in the process of storytelling is pantsing it. We put words down on paper and hope that typing “The End” after 394 pages means that the story is finally finished.

There is no pantsing it when it comes to teaching. In fact, if you sat in on a class of mine this afternoon, you would hear these very words, “There are no pantsers here, only plotters.” The kids hate it, but they know I am right. Without the understanding of story structure, of how to lay down a path to create situational irony, of how a piece of literature is transformed by the choice of narrative point of view and a dozen other structural choices along the way, you cannot write well.

Teaching forced me, in many ways, to become a better writer. I could no longer singularly rely on instinct or hunch, what felt right, to tell stories. That allowed me to develop a deep respect for the process and the people it NEEDS to involve—developmental and copy editors who see flaws a writer is too close to notice. That is what transformed me, I believe, into a published novelist. 

As I continue to interweave those paths of educator and storyteller in my life, I find myself deeply engaged in a constant learning process. My students challenge me to empower them with diverse and complete toolboxes. They teach me patience and humility. My writing challenges me to lay down the foundations of a good book before indulging in the research and imagination that define my storytelling voice. That combination, for me, is gold. It brings with it a deep respect for student and professional. While there is a structural foundation for storytelling, it is that freshness of ideas and interpretation that keeps the formulas from becoming cliché. To stop learning is to stop creating. As for Conrad, well, he and I have made our peace with the literary wounds he inflicted on me thirty years ago, sort of.

Novelist Robin Rivers obsesses over stories of lost times and nerds out in the realm of all things historical, fantastical, female, and mythological. She spends her days in a literary universe best described as slipstream — a mix of historical, magical realism, and haunting romance.  When not writing, she helps young writers learn the craft as the CEO of Quill Academy of Creative Writing. Her wee family and Hypatia, their sphynx cat, tolerate her most of the time. She lives and writes on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples in Vancouver, Canada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.