RELEASE WEEK POST 3
WHO’S THE BOSS?
With just one exception, all of my books have started with a character first, story second. In this case, I wrote TEAM PLAYER approximately six different times, all from scratch. And they were pretty terrible. Some of the fundamental elements were the same: Ty, Gwen, Strip, and the structure of the season. The rest, however…
It’s a really frustrating process to feel like you have the essential elements right, but still not manage to achieve the outcome you want. And the thing I struggled with most was pacing. I had so much back story in my head about Ty and Gwen’s pasts and too much of it was ending up in the book and holding up the actual plot. While I think it’s important for authors to know their characters and have done their research, sometimes that information doesn’t need to make it onto the page, and I was writing down WAY too much. It wasn’t being written well, either. Just random lumps and clumps that kept interrupting the momentum (what little I could build) and slowing things to a crawl.
In what ended up being the first draft of what ultimately turned into the final product, I still had much more back story than you see in the finished book. It just wasn’t working. And it’s one of those cases where the more you peel away, the more what remains stands out weirdly, so you take out a bit more, then a bit more… In the end, I went with very little back story. I tried to include enough details to give a sense of why and how Ty and Gwen had become who they were, without taking away from the present-day plot, which was already eating up my word count. I figured if I couldn’t work it into the story in a way that felt organic, then it wasn’t meant to be there. So essentially I wrote five books of character sketches, then one actual book. That is not an efficient process!
When I was in school we had to go out and write a piece about a random person. I was so shy about approaching a stranger that I’d rather have just died, but then I finally spotted a guy in a cigar shop, looking incredibly bored. I went in, asked if I could write a piece about him, and he agreed. Except when I tried to ask about himself, he just kept talking about cigars. I kept trying, he kept up the cigar chatter. Eventually I wrote a piece about cigars. (That turned out to be very interesting.)
In the case of TEAM PLAYER, I did a ton of (accidental) character work for Gwen and Ty, but then Baseball, which was intended to have more of a supporting role, showed up and demanded to be one of the leads. I kept trying to shunt it into the background, it kept insisting. Five drafts later, it had a starring role. That’s writing for you!
Heads up: Tomorrow’s the last of the release week posts, and it’s a deleted scene I think is short and sweet and worth the read!
With just one exception, all of my books have started with a character first, story second. In this case, I wrote TEAM PLAYER approximately six different times, all from scratch. And they were pretty terrible. Some of the fundamental elements were the same: Ty, Gwen, Strip, and the structure of the season. The rest, however…
It’s a really frustrating process to feel like you have the essential elements right, but still not manage to achieve the outcome you want. And the thing I struggled with most was pacing. I had so much back story in my head about Ty and Gwen’s pasts and too much of it was ending up in the book and holding up the actual plot. While I think it’s important for authors to know their characters and have done their research, sometimes that information doesn’t need to make it onto the page, and I was writing down WAY too much. It wasn’t being written well, either. Just random lumps and clumps that kept interrupting the momentum (what little I could build) and slowing things to a crawl.
In what ended up being the first draft of what ultimately turned into the final product, I still had much more back story than you see in the finished book. It just wasn’t working. And it’s one of those cases where the more you peel away, the more what remains stands out weirdly, so you take out a bit more, then a bit more… In the end, I went with very little back story. I tried to include enough details to give a sense of why and how Ty and Gwen had become who they were, without taking away from the present-day plot, which was already eating up my word count. I figured if I couldn’t work it into the story in a way that felt organic, then it wasn’t meant to be there. So essentially I wrote five books of character sketches, then one actual book. That is not an efficient process!
When I was in school we had to go out and write a piece about a random person. I was so shy about approaching a stranger that I’d rather have just died, but then I finally spotted a guy in a cigar shop, looking incredibly bored. I went in, asked if I could write a piece about him, and he agreed. Except when I tried to ask about himself, he just kept talking about cigars. I kept trying, he kept up the cigar chatter. Eventually I wrote a piece about cigars. (That turned out to be very interesting.)
In the case of TEAM PLAYER, I did a ton of (accidental) character work for Gwen and Ty, but then Baseball, which was intended to have more of a supporting role, showed up and demanded to be one of the leads. I kept trying to shunt it into the background, it kept insisting. Five drafts later, it had a starring role. That’s writing for you!
Heads up: Tomorrow’s the last of the release week posts, and it’s a deleted scene I think is short and sweet and worth the read!
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