I enjoy interviewing my ghostwriting clients to gather the material necessary to write their books. People say such surprising things, especially if you tell them, as I do, to be a blabbermouth and just say anything that pops into their heads. I tell them not to worry about wasting my time, I want to hear it all, even the dumb off-topic stuff. Interviews can go off in unforeseen directions, and some of the most colorful passages in books come from off-the-cuff remarks or the spontaneous, “Oh, that reminds me of a story …” Nevertheless, I can’t just ask general, open-ended questions like “What was that like?” or “Describe your grandmother.” Because most people are not blabbermouths and general questions often give them a bad case of brain freeze. I will get answers like, “It was nice,” or “She was sweet.” I must ask specific questions designed to elicit details. For instance, if I’m ghostwriting a memoir, I don’t ask my client the question, “What were you doing in 1985?” (Cou...

Question: I would like to know in contemporary romance, what is the rule of thumb as to how many sex scenes there should be in a novel. Michele Cameron Moments of Clarity Michele, I’ve edited about fifty contemporary romances during the past four years and have never required a certain number of sex scenes, although I do recommend at least two. Some of the novels I’ve worked on have an abundance of sex scenes, and some have virtually none. However, a contemporary romance does need to have certain basic elements, which I abbreviate by thinking of the acronym CLICK : conflict, longing, intimacy, climax, and kiss. I have to scramble the final three letters of my acronym in order to discuss these elements in sequence, but it’s a good memory tool. Conflict lies at the core of any novel, and in a romance it’s crucial. A romantic couple without any sparks is like Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind —nice and sweet, but boring. Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett But...