Map your Rout or Fly into the Mist

December 2011

This is often a hot topic for writers, so I should just say, this is just my take on this subject.
I am a pantser. A flyer into the mist, as Jo Beverly says. I have tried to be a plotter. I did plot a complete book once, but I never even started writing it, or at least I had the first page done when I started plotting according to some grand scheme or other, and that is where it sits two years later. I was bored knowing how it all unfolded.
I have to keep going back to my mantra. Every writer is different. What works for one does not work for another.
Then why this article I hear you ask. Or is that me asking? Why bother? Well, to be honest, I just can’t help thinking about this stuff.
Here’s the thing – story is story. The art of writing story is as old as pictographs. There are certain things stories should have – at least in genre fiction. Certain peaks and valleys every story must touch. We’ve all taken the workshops, we all understand the concepts and the need for structure if you want readers to turn the pages. Hero’s journey, W plotting, three act structure, six stage structure,  any advance on six — do I hear a 9? All great, by the way. Great. Helpful. Wonderful that writers have taken the time to offer these tools to other writers.

As far as I can figure it out, what a pantser does (no no there I go generalizing again) what I do, is go back and make sure the story hits the highs and lows required once the draft is done.

These are the questions I ask myself. What are my goals motivations and conflicts for the happy couple? Yes by this time they are the happy couple. Are they clear to the reader and not just in my head?
Where are my turning points? Did I take too long to get there? – thus losing tension along the way.
Is the black moment black enough? Is it driven by the romance or the external plot? Does it work?

Coming in January from Harlequin Historicals

For me, the key scene by scene test  is as follows:
What changed? Who is worse off now than at the beginning of the scene? If no one is, then it needs fixing. Could something even worse have happened? How does it tie back to their goal, their worst fear or their conflict. Is what they have decided to do next reasonable and does it lead to yet more conflict?
Are the motivations clear to the reader? In that particular scene, not the whole book.  Whatever the character does, is it clear why the character does it? And the answer cannot be that the plot requires that they do that. If the plot requires an unarmed woman to go into a dark basement for no good reason, the reader will not buy it.

Without plotting the book, don’t you go off track?  That is a plotter asking, of course.
The answer is. Yes. Terribly. The last book I handed in, well I just never did get hold of that sucker by the date it was due.  And that’s where your editor and/or your critique group can help.  And that is why you need to go back and use the tools in your toolbelt  to polish and sand and rub.  Or at least I do. And I did. Hopefully it turned out much better.
Well that was fun. My guess is there are all kinds of writers out there in addition to Plotters and Pansters, for example:

February 2012

 

 

Pl-antsers   -    they pants a bit and plot a bit, then pants a bit more then plot ….
Plo-sters    -    They get an outline going through to the end then fly off the cliff, catching the odd tree branch
                       they planted on the way down, then leap again
Palonstters -     who knows what they do, but they do it well
I wish to every success no matter how you spell what you are.

At the end of the day, it is the story that really matters to readers.  But as I said, this is often a hot topic.

Ann

Ideas, Where do they come from

I am often asked where I get my ideas. Quite often I don’t exactly know what spawned an idea. It might be a news item or a book I read, or even a photograph, modern or historical.  It is sometimes just my take on an old favourite.: Sleeping Beauty, Marriage of Convenience, Rags to Riches. I still have secret baby somewhere in the back of my mind. Often, it is a number of these things melding together. 

Most often what I get is an opening scene and a character that pops into my head out of nowhere. I might not even be looking for an idea at the time. Indeed, it might be a distraction from what I am working on. In this case, I simply write a few notes, store them in an ideas file and hope that will be enough to  remember it later, as well as stop it from cluttering things up.

 
Where does that alley lead?  Once I get the opening scene fixed in my head, I can start writing.  Often, I am not sure what the theme of the story is, or where the characters are going to lead me, but I start following along to see where it will go.

For example, in The Gamekeeper’s Lady, my first view of Robert was him in bed (very busy in the draft version) with his mistress.  I read the scene to my husband one day when we were driving home after spending some time with my daughter at University.  He got so involved in the story--- he got lost and I had to stop reading until we found the road again.  The scene after that was of Frederica, galloping wildly in the country refusing to believe she was to marry her cousin.  How this couple were ever to get together, I had no idea.

Robert’s twin brother, Charlie, in More Than  a Mistress found his story in a very different manner. He appears briefly in Robert’s book, but he was very, well to put it mildly, dutiful. The good twin, for sure.  I couldn’t imagine what sort of woman would shake him out of his complacency, apart from the fact he had let his brother down badly.  Merry Draycott, a commoner, broke down on the road in front of him. An independent business woman, she was also a heroine fit for a duke.

I have lots more examples and no doubt will be sharing them as we go along, but now it is your turn. Do you have a particular favorite type of story? I would be interested to know, for when I get my next idea.

Ann Lethbridge
Regency Ramble Blog

Introduction

Since this is my first post, I thought perhaps an introduction might be in order.  And if you would care to introduce yourselves, that would be fabulous too.

I'm a Brit, but I live in Canada, I write full time and I write steamy regency romances.  I have a rescued maltese terrier called Teaser, a husband and two grown up daughters. (You can tell who comes first in our household, but then the Brits penchant for their animals is not a myth, but a well known truism.)

I love what I do.

I have written seven full length novels for the Harlequin Historical line so far. Number six, Lady Rosabella's Ruse, will be out in the new year.   Here you have the cover for number five, More Than a Mistress
, July 2011.  This is the  second book in the Rakes in Disgrace Series. The first being The Gamekeeper's Lady. (The books are independent of each other, but it would be better to read them in order.)

This cover represents a scene in the book.  And yes, he is helping her off with her stocking. The couple are engaged in a game of strip billiards. No more spoilers for today!

I have also written 7 short stories for the Harlequin Historical Undone line. These are short hot e-books that are to be found in all the online shopping places and they are connected to the books, though quite separate from them and three of them are connected to each other.  The most recent is titled Deliciously Debauched by the Rake
.

 It sounds odd, but this story, which is tied to The Gamekeeper's Lady by the thinnest wispiest of threads, wrote itself. This couple just wrote their own story. They let me hold the pen (or tap at the keyboard) but they just walked right on the page. No edits or revisions were required.  I do wish that would happen more often

The next one is a Christmas story and more about that later.

Novels 8 and 9 are already in the works and I will be telling you about those as we go along.

So there you have me in a nutshell as it were. Tell me about you, or if you prefer ask me any question you like. Hmm, with regards to that, I find that women always want to know where I get the inspiration for the stories and the characters. Whereas men, bless their little brains (the one in their pants) always want to know who gives me the inspiration for the sex.  I have lots of fun with that one and a few stories to tell which I will save for another time.