by Amy Patrick

I completed my first novel in 2010, pantsing my way from Chapter One through The End. When I sat down to write each night, I had no idea what was going to happen next. It was exciting and fun. It took me six months of writing three hours a night, five nights a week to finish that book, a YA fantasy that became a 2013 RWA Golden Heart finalist. That’s the good news.

The bad news? I had to rewrite that book several times over the course of two years before it was anywhere near good. Some of it was because it was my first book. Mostly it was because I knew nothing about story structure beyond what I’d gained through osmosis from voracious reading. And I didn’t know if I could ever repeat the process.

During those rewriting years I joined RWA, went to a few local conferences and attended workshops, gained a wonderful critique partner, and read some excellent writing craft books. The cumulative effect of all of that is I learned—I am a plotter at heart.

I have many wonderfully talented writer friends who absolutely hate plotting out a story before they write. They start with a kernel of an idea and a couple of character sketches and go for it, turning out beautiful stories in the process, God bless them. But as for me, I’m a total convert.

When I learned there was a structure that could be followed that’s basically guaranteed to eliminate saggy middles, keep readers engaged and turning pages, and create emotionally satisfying stories time and time again, I was thrilled. I knew this was a process I could follow for the rest of my life.

Some people fear plotting or story structure will lead to formulaic stories, but I think of it as, not a formula, but a skeleton. Every human being has one. And yet we’re all unique. Size aside, all of our skeletons probably look pretty similar. It’s the muscles and skin stretched over them that make us different. Story structure works the same way.

Before I start writing a novel now, I first plot out the major turning points, then go deeper and actually write out a brief sketch of every scene in the book, beginning to end. I find it to be an exciting and creative experience. I do some character development worksheets, and then I start writing. I can now complete a first draft (writing about 3 hours a day 5 days a week) in a month to six weeks.

It’s still exciting and fun. And I don’t stick to the scene-by-scene outline rigidly—in fact, I write it in pencil and have worn down many erasers. New ideas strike me, characters do surprising things, and events and places can change. But I still have that map to follow. I never get too far off on a gravel side road, I don’t waste time with major detours, and I always know where I’m going.

I credit plotting with the fact I’ve never experienced writer’s block. And it’s allowed me to finish four full-length novels in one series since January of this year. I’ll start plotting the fifth next week (I already have a rough outline,) and there’s a chance I could complete that one, too, before 2014 is in the books.

If you’re interested in some good starting places for investigating story structure and the plotter’s way of writing, I suggest these books: Save the Cat by Blake Snyder and My Story Can Beat up Your Story by Jeffrey Schechter. I’ve read many other wonderful writing books, but I found these to be the most accessible. Bonus: On Schechter’s website, there’s a printable scene-by-scene story outline that’s *amazing*. You should read the book first, though, so you’ll understand the outline completely.

I’m also a huge fan of Michael Hague and his teachings on story structure concerning the inner and outer journeys of your characters. And here’s an author website that’s been helpful to me and is chock-full of posts on story planning, complete with spreadsheets (if you’re into that kind of thing).

http://jamigold.com/for-writers/worksheets-for-writers/

I invite you to visit me at my website and I’d love to chat with you on Twitter and Facebook.

The first book in my swexy (sweet + sexy) New Adult contemporary series, CHANNEL 20 SOMETHING is free for a few more days on Amazon and all the major online retailers, if you’d like to check it out.

And here’s a look at my newest release STILL ME (20 Something Book 3):

23 year old Kenley Moran is going through a mid-life crisis… WAY early. Pushed since childhood by a nightmare stage-mom to use her looks to “land a rich man”, she’s reeling from a broken engagement and regretting the day she gave up her career in TV news for a guy.

Now Kenley’s determined to change her life, shunning makeup and fashion and fighting her way back into the highly competitive career she loves, off-camera this time. When she lands a producing job at Worldwide News Network in Atlanta, she plans to keep her head down, work hard, and prove she’s not just another pretty face. And vows NO ONE is EVER going to make her compromise herself again.

WNN anchor Larson Overstreet has it all—old money, good looks, a prestigious job, and more women than he can count throwing themselves at him. Problem is… none of it is real. He’s known his whole life that people are only interested in him for his fortune and his famous family name, in that order. Except for Kenley. The shy news producer isn’t interested in him at all.

Working closely with the anchor of her new show, Kenley’s dismayed to feel an instant spark. Larson’s everything she doesn’t want. He’s too good looking, too charming, and worst of all, too rich. She’s not looking for another big money honey. In fact, she’d prefer a nice little guy from the mailroom, maybe a guy who lives at home like she’s been forced to do.

But when they must travel together for a special report, Kenley realizes Larson’s not the spoiled pretty rich boy she pegged him as, and she’s not as immune to him as she’s pretended to be.

Now, even at the network level, what happens behind the cameras is the real story.

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Amy is a two-time Golden Heart finalist (2013 and 2014) who writes Young Adult fiction as Amy DeLuca and New Adult romance as Amy Patrick. Her books have won and finaled in many RWA chapter contests, and she is the author of the New Adult contemporary 20 SOMETHING series. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two sons and actually craves the heat and humidity of Mississippi, where she grew up. She’s been a professional singer and news anchor and currently narrates audio books as well as working as a station host for a Boston TV station.

Writing with Tropes

by Sara Jane Stone

            Late one night, while rocking my daughter to sleep, I read an article about a young woman who’d served in the Army and returned home with a burning desire to embrace life.  The article stuck with me, and idea for a character formed—Georgia Trulane, the first heroine in the FULL EXPOSURE: Book One: Independence Falls.  I wanted to write about Georgia, but I didn’t have a story.  Yet.

            And that’s when I turned to my favorite romance tropes. 

            I love a good falling for the best friend’s little sister story.  So I thought, what if Georgia had a big brother who wanted to keep her out of trouble?  And what if her big brother arranged for her to take a job as his best friend’s nanny?  Now, I had two tropes framing my story—best friend’s little sister and falling for the nanny.  And my plot began to take shape.  The tropes delivered conflict, a necessary ingredient in any romance novel, on a silver platter.  And from there, I started writing.  I created a world that would offer three more ideas for happy-ever-after endings.   

At the moment, I’m revising the third book in the Independence Falls series, HERO BY NIGHT (on sale January 20, 2015).  I really wanted to use the wrong bed trope.  I think this one presents so many challenges, especially in a contemporary romance.  Why are the characters in the wrong bed?  And how do they not realize it immediately?  Had one character been plotting and scheming to end up in the other’s bed?  And how do the hero and heroine move past this hiccup and head down the road to happy ever after? 

So many questions!  But finding the answers forms the basis of the story, at least for me.  In HERO BY NIGHT, the hero is the town playboy and the heroine is a veteran with PTSD who does not like to be touched.  She has coping mechanisms in place including a service dog trained to help her manager her anxiety.  The dog signals when someone is approaching her so that she doesn’t mistake a person passing her on the street for a threat, and the animal pushes people away when they too close.  She also sleeps with a loaded gun beside her bed.  Landing in this heroine’s bed by mistake could be dangerous—and so much fun to write!       

            All writers have their own process.  But for me, starting with a character, maybe an idea for a scene—like a woman drawing a gun on the man in her bed while her golden retriever snarls at him—and adding a few tried and true tropes is challenging and fun. 

Do you have a favorite trope?  Love a good revenge story?  What about friends to lovers or one-night stand?  Personally, I’m a huge fan of forbidden love and ugly duckling stories (dying to write one of those!).  And I can never resist a mistaken identity book!

After several years on the other side of the publishing industry, Sara Jane Stone bid goodbye to her sales career to pursue her dream-writing romance novels. Sara Jane currently resides in Brooklyn, New York with her very supportive real-life hero, two lively young children and a lazy Burmese cat.

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When edits turn into a re-write.

By Alexia Adams

I don’t think there are many authors who enjoy the editing process. You submit a book that a publisher loves enough to acquire and then they ask you to change it, substantially sometimes. You’ve already written the best book you could, so what do you do?

This spring I submitted a story (An Inconvenient Love) that I’d already rewritten at least 10 times. I’d tried to give up on it, but my critique partner and beta reader both said the characters were their favorites. So, I persevered and rewrote it one last time and sent it to my publisher. Within two weeks they got back to me saying they wanted to publish the book, but I needed to change the beginning. Okay, I could do that. I’d already changed it eleventy billion times, what was once more?

Then I got the edit letter (cue dramatic music, you know the one where you know someone is going to die). It wasn’t just the beginning that needed modification. The editor suggested eliminating one of the adversaries and turning the second one into a friend—bitch from hell to BFF. At first I was horrified. My story! But then I became intrigued by the suggestions. I could see how reducing a lot of the external conflict allowed the internal conflict to shine through. My characters grew and changed, became more complex and interesting. And by decreasing the external conflict, it allowed for more moments of lightness. My sense of humor, as reflected by my heroine, could shine through. It was a lot of work, especially with a two week timeframe, but I loved the storyso much more when I was done. By the time I resubmitted it, only 30% of the original story remained.

So, how do you go about rewriting a story based on an edit letter? First, read the letter very carefully. Then let it sit for a day while enjoying a bottle of wine. This is an important point. Allow yourself time to grieve the death of your story—get angry, write a rebuttal if you must about how your writing is sacred and shouldn’t be messed with. Then rip that up and get on with it.

I print out the edit letter and highlight the key points. Next, I read through my manuscript from start to finish, writing comments in the margin about first thoughts on how I can change it, what to keep, what to discard and possible ideas for alternate scenes. If I don’t understand a requested change, or strongly disagree, then I’ll go back to my editor and discuss these with her. Sometimes we reach a compromise, sometimes I stand firm, and sometimes I give in. Often the editor will make suggestions about a new direction. I use these suggestions as a starting point but let my characters decide how they are going to play out the new scenes.

Next step, drink another bottle of wine. Then I reread the edit letter and make a start. Before each editing session I reread the edit letter to remind myself of the goal I’m trying to reach. I try to do long days editing so I don’t lose the flow. Eventually, I have a new story that, believe it or not, needs more editing. I switch the track changes to “show no editing” and pretend it’s a brand new story. I look at sentence structure, word repetition, all the things that I’d do before submitting an original work. When I’m finally satisfied that I’ve got the best story I can write, I return it to my editor with a letter of my own outlining how I’ve addressed the issues she highlighted.

Then I drink another bottle of wine while I wait for my editor’s reaction. To date, they’ve all been very pleased with my edits (thankfully). If not, I’d make another run to the liquor store and start again.

So there you have it. My 3 step (um bottle) plan to tackling an editing rewrite.

Alexia once traveled the world, meeting new people, experiencing new sights and tastes. She’s lived in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England, and France, as well as spent time in Panama and Russia. When life demanded that she stay rooted in one place, she took to vicarious voyages through the characters she created in her romance novels. Her stories reflect her love of travel and feature locations as diverse as the wind-swept prairies of Canada to hot and humid cities in Asia.

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Books

An Inconvenient Love / An Inconvenient Desire / Miss Guided (a Guide to Love novella) / Played by the Billionaire (a Guide to Love novel) / Singapore Fling (also in the Sexy in the City box set)

My Writing Work Space

by Amalia Dillin

When writers talk about their work space, most of the time, they talk about their desks, their offices, their computers and their bookshelves. Do they keep these areas tidy and neat, or are they messy? What do they keep in that space for inspiration? Et cetera, et cetera. And that’s entirely reasonable. Writers need a space to sit and write, ultimately, and usually a room and space set apart from the rest of one’s daily life is conducive to productivity. But for me, the set up is a little bit different.

Summer

For starters, I don’t have a desk. (Well. I do. But it’s too high for a laptop to be used comfortably, so I gave up trying to use it as a workspace.) I don’t work in any one place in the house. Sometimes I sit at the kitchen table with a view of the birdfeeder and the back yard.

Spring

Sometimes, on nice days, I sit on the 3 season porch, with “The View” from the house which reaches, on the clearest days, all the way to the mountains of Vermont. Sometimes I work at the dining room table, which allows me to stare out through the porch again, or I work in the living room, from the comfort of the sofa or a recliner, with the front door and the windows open wide and the birds and chipmunks and various wildlife only a glance away.

Fall

Perhaps by now you’ve noticed the common theme to my work spaces: the yard and “The View” and the looking outside. Which is a little bit strange, maybe, because I pretty much hate bugs, and I’m not much of an outdoorswoman in the grand scheme of things. But man, being able to look out the window while I’m working at night, and see the moon shining down on me, or the rainbow of changing leaves rippling in the wind…

Winter

There is nothing more inspiring, more fostering of my creativity than that. In fact, some pieces of the landscape here have wormed their way into my books almost directly. The immense, perfectly shaped Catalpa tree in the yard, for instance, became a template for my Tree of Knowledge in my Fate of the Gods trilogy. My characters take walks through woods that look just like mine in one of the novellas I’m working on, currently, complete with fallen pine-tree, and a vine that’s naturally twisted and twined to form a perfect bench.

So, what does my workspace look like?

Well, if you ask me, it looks pretty darn beautiful.

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Why I Decided To Sign With A Publisher

by Stacey Nash

I’m aware that this is a somewhat controversial topic, but please… read on. I want to shed light on what it’s like to be published by a digital imprint at one of the big publishers.

Today’s publishing options are far more varied than they were ten years ago. Authors are no longer barred from entering the world of publishing by traditional gatekeepers. If you don’t have an agent, doesn’t matter. If you aren’t picked up by a publisher, who cares: Many people don’t even entertain the idea of submitting to publishers anyway. They want the control and freedom that self publishing allows. And as an author signed with a big publisher, I’m often asked but why? Why would you sign away your rights and a portion of your royalties when you could keep that for yourself?

There were a number of reasons why I didn’t want to go it alone. Why I chose to sign with HarperCollins’ Voyager Impulse line for my debut YA series:

• No financial outlay: If I was to self publish I would want to hire a professional cover artist, editor, copy writer, and publicist. These all add up to a large initial outlay and by signing with my publisher, I didn’t have to part with a cent. Yes, I don’t get as much money in royalties, but I think the pay off comes out about even.

• Industry professionals as mentors: Those professionals I mentioned above, not only worked on my books, but continue to guide me along the way. We’ve talked about future books in the series, marketing plans, and they even gave advice before my school visits and other public appearances.
  Market placement: My imprint is digital first, so my books aren’t in brick and mortar stores like authors whose books are with the more traditional imprints of HarperCollins. But there are online stores where they place my books that are not open to indie authors, such as department stores. This increases my reach much further than it would if I weren’t with them. Thus giving a broader sales potential.

• Publicity: All of the marketing doesn’t fall on me. My publisher creates swag, lists my books on reviewer websites, plus promotes them on social media and their website. This is all reach on top of my own reach, so it’s a fabulous bonus.

• Credibility: There is a certain credibility that goes with the name of some publishers. I don’t believe my publisher’s name makes my books any better than the next person’s, but there is instant brand recognition that goes with the big 5. Some readers like that brand recognition.

All in all, I love my publisher and am very happy in the choice I made by signing with them, but that’s not to say that my choice isn’t the best or the only option. As I said earlier, there is no right or wrong way to publish and I believe not only every author, but sometimes every book needs to walk a different path. Whatever your publishing journey, good luck!

And if you have any questions about my publishing journey feel free to ask away.

Stacey Nash writes adventure filled stories for Young Adults in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. She loves to read and write books that have a lot of adventure, a good dose of danger, a smattering of romance, and KISSING! Hailing from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, she loves nothing more than immersing herself in the beauty and culture of the local area.

Author of the Collective Series; Forget Me Not and Remember Me.

Harpercollins Australia | Author Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram

   

Anamae is drawn into a world which shatters everything she knew to be true.

Since her mother vanished nine years ago, Anamae and her father have shared a quiet life. But when Anamae discovers a brooch identical to her mother’s favorite pendant, she unknowingly invites a slew of trouble into their world. They’re not just jewellery, they’re part of a highly developed technology capable of cloaking the human form. Triggering the jewellery’s power attracts the attention of a secret society determined to confiscate the device – and silence everyone who is aware of its existence. Anamae knows too much, and now she’s Enemy Number One. She’s forced to leave her father behind when she’s taken in by a group determined to keep her safe. Here Anamae searches for answers about this hidden world. With her father kidnapped and her own life on the line, Anamae must decide if saving her dad is worth risking her new friends’ lives. No matter what she does, somebody is going to get hurt.

Forget Me Not
Amz US / Amz UK / Amz CA / B&N / iTunes / Kobo

Remember Me
Amz US / Amz UK / Amz CA / B&N / iTunes / Kobo

Today’s AuthorsTalk is with the utterly amazing Heather Young-Nichols! If you didn’t catch our review of her latest book Up for Grabs be sure to head over and do that now!

Heather is going to tell us a little about her thoughts on Writer’s Block and how to fight it!

What’s all this about writer’s block?

I’ve heard this concept bandied about. “I haven’t written anything. I’ve got writer’s block.”

What is this unseen thing that stops writers in their tracks? The kryptonite to their Superman-like power to put words on the page at breakneck speeds? Something that completely blocks all words from flowing in their brain?

I don’t have the answer because I’ve never experienced it. I have never had a time where I literally just stared at a blank page and couldn’t put a sentence together. I’m not claiming that it doesn’t exist at all but have often wondered if it isn’t a case of the writer getting in their own way. Too much pressure to produce making it impossible to actually produce. The need for every word you write to be gold making them stop all together. A self-fulfilling prophecy maybe? I don’t know.

Sure, I have times that I “don’t feel” like writing and if at all possible I just don’t write because everybody needs a break now and then. If I just need to get those creative juices flowing, I’ll grab a book or even re-read whatever I’ve already written in that story to get me back into it.

But sometimes not writing is just not possible. There are word count goals we place on ourselves and deadlines others give us. If that’s the case we can’t just sit back and wait for the muse to find us. We have to lasso that muse ourselves or continue on without it.

What to do then when you don’t “feel like” writing or “nothing’s coming to you”, or at least what do I do?

 

I sit my ass in the seat and write.

A while back I read a “how to” of writing by a guy whose name I don’t remember. It was just something he posted on Facebook. But the answer to every single question or problem in regards to writing was “Sit your ass in the seat and write.” I took that shit to heart because really how else is anything going to get done?

Yeah, the words aren’t always going to be the best you’ve got but honestly, they usually aren’t right off the bat. That’s why we have the editing process. Just put it down there even if it reads like “See Jane Run”. That’s fine. Because when you edit you can have Jane running like Usain Bolt, and hopping over hurdles, attacking a bear, all while wearing heels and not a hair out of place. It doesn’t have to be great as soon as you write it.

So instead of worrying about writer’s block, I sit my ass in the chair and write.

One of the most fun things I’ve done was NaNoWriMo last year and I’m doing it again this year. I sat down and wrote 64,000 words in 15 days. I don’t even know how I did it other than I decided to do it and it got done. Though I will admit to being scared to go back and read it because of how horrible it was going to be. But I did that a few weeks ago and yeah, it needed edits, they always need edits, but it was pretty good. I surprised myself. I have to chalk this up to not worrying about whether it was good or not, not getting in my own way and letting the story flow from my fingertips.

Maybe someone will want to publish that story, maybe they won’t. And maybe I’ll just do it myself because I love that damn story so much. Regardless of what happens to it, I didn’t let the idea of something that could hinder my writing get in my way of making it happen.

Heather Young-Nichols is the author of Up for Grabs, a new adult contemporary romance from Swoon Romance about a girl who is desperate to stay in college and goes to some extreme measures to ensure it happens.

She loves books and coffee and lives in Michigan where, in the dead of Winter, she tries to remember that she actually loves the snow but would rather lounge on a beach somewhere warm.

She chose the perfect college and found the perfect guy.

She has a plan to keep them both … but it won’t be perfect.

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