Every Book is Different
Terry Odell
There are no hard and fast ‘rules’ about how to write a novel. There are plotters who spend months writing detailed outlines. There are those who have a plot in mind. There are those who have to dive into the lives of their characters before they can put fingers to keyboard. There are those who write the first draft longhand. An author friend has to have a picture of her hero before she can start. Others need a title. Some write scenes on note cards. Some write them using plotting/writing software. And some write a sentence, see where it goes, then write another, and another, and another.
When I was still regarding writing as a fun thing to do, I joined a local chapter of RWA on the advice of others who said I’d learn about more than just writing a romance. My first meeting, there was a lot of talk about how to map out a story board for the typical 20 chapter category romance.
I knew I wasn’t writing a category romance, but the idea of blocking out 20 blank boxes on a foam core board or a poster board looked interesting. I went to my local craft store, bought a package of 3 foamcore boards, and marked them into 20 sections. I managed to have a rough idea of what should happen in the first 3 chapters, and then everything fizzled. Detailed plotting wasn’t going to work for me.
Since I write in a deep point of view, I need to know my characters. But interviewing them in depth before starting to write seemed like a waste of precious writing time. I didn’t need to know what they looked like until I had to describe them. Or what their favorite song, food, color, or astrological sign was. We’re not writing on stone tablets, so we can go back and make adjustments as needed.
For “Seeing Red”, I’d always wanted to use the line “He’s dead, Jim.” So, I wrote that and kept going. It didn’t end up being the first line in the book, but it gave me a start.
In another, I had an idea for my opening “gambit” in a Blackthorne novel, but when I did a little research, I discovered something that had me abandoning the original premise for the main plot of the book. I had one book where the title came first. I’d finished my first novel, and decided I kind of liked the gig, so I wanted to try another. I created a file folder called “Starting Over” which ended up being the title of the book (since changed after I got the rights back).
I’m writing my thirty-somethingth novel. Yes, someday I should go to my website’s book page and count them, but for me it’s just “Write the next book” and don’t worry about giving it a number. I’ve used numerous approaches.
What’s my method? This one’s a total jumble. I knew it would be a Blackthorne, which gave me a rough framework. I knew it would be someone from the Security and Investigations Department, not Covert Ops. Because it was a Blackthorne, it would be a romantic suspense (or, as I prefer to call it, a “mystery with a relationship”). I also knew that it would be set in Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands. Not because I couldn’t wait to set a book there, but because—and I’ve done this a few times before—I’d gone there on a photography trip and writing a book expands that photography trip into a research trip.
I opened a Word document and stared at the blank page for a while. All I knew at this point was I had an investigator who had to get to Copenhagen. I came up with this:
The vibration of Logan Bolt’s cell phone gave him a welcome excuse for a break from his run. He debated waiting until he’d finished—only two miles to go—but the ringtone said the call was from Ryan Harper. His boss at Blackthorne, Inc. Logan slowed to a jog, then a walk, then extricated the phone from the belt at his waist.
Not much, but I had a character who was interrupted by a call from his boss. Usually not a good thing.
And then the questions, the whys and what ifs began.
Often, I’d write the questions on paper, where I could draw circles and arrows and a paragraph about each one, but this time, I opened another document and jotted things down there. It looked like this:
Hero:
Investigator, Logan Bolt
Not covert ops. Security and Investigations
Boss – Ryan Harper
Limited language experience. Born in the US
Why in Copenhagen? Connection?
Lots of bicycles
Little mermaid statue
Castles/history
R&R after injury on op? Mental fatigue?
Visiting relatives/friends?
Grandmother dying? Sister? Grandmother used in Cruising Undercover.
Where are his parents?
Blackthorne mission?
Find and bring back daughter of political bigwig? Industrialist?
Father? Mother? Alive? Dead?
Siblings?
Heroine:
Madison Bright Westfield
She holds secret? Someone wants it?
Running away?
Kidnapped?
Tracked to Copenhagen or Faroes? Schengen area; passports not needed to get from one to another member country
No desire to support her father’s/family’s business(es). Diametrically opposed to what they stand for.
Changed her name to avoid connection?
Conservationist? Puffin tie-in?
Photography tie-in?
Has to get to Faroes. Why?
Mykines – puffins
Sudoroy – southernmost island. Ferry.
I started writing, answering some of these questions. I’d written five chapters before I realized I hadn’t put the heroine on the page yet, and since I write my romantic suspense books with alternating hero/heroine POV scenes, I gave myself a quick mental head slap and wrote her first scene. Where will it go? I’m not sure, but I think it might belong as Chapter 1. And I’ll need more scenes from her POV, which means I’m—gasp—writing out of order. I don’t do that. Until I do.
What about you, TKZers? Do you have a ‘tried and true’ method for writing, or does it change from book to book?
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When your dream assignment turns into more than you bargained for
Shalah Kennedy has dreams of becoming a senior travel advisor—one who actually gets to travel. Her big break comes when the agency’s “Golden Girl” is hospitalized and Shalah is sent on a Danube River cruise in her place. She’s the only advisor in the agency with a knowledge of photography, and she’s determined to get stunning images for the agency’s website.
Aleksy Jakes wants out. He’s been working for an unscrupulous taskmaster in Prague, and he’s had enough. When he spots one of his coworkers in a Prague hotel restaurant, he’s shocked to discover she’s not who he thought she was.
As Shalah and Aleksy cruise along the Danube, the simple excursion soon becomes an adventure neither of them imagined.
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Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
I have a friend who plots a story’s essence out in her head before she starts writing anything. That method never works for me.
My method varies from book to book but one thing is essential each time. I HAVE to sit down and write–whether that’s typing in a document or writing by longhand. Sometimes that’s by outlining, sometimes I just start jotting rambling thoughts to see where it goes and let the story flow.
I have tried the equivalent of the foam board–with poster board, or dry erase boards, or plastering sticky notes on a board. Those methods just don’t get things going for me. I have to write. You would think that visually scene or chapter blocking with a board or stickies would be EASIER, but not to me.
Can’t write a book without writing, can you, BK? 🙂
My “plotting board” turned into a “scene summary board” so I filled in the sections after I wrote the scenes.
With my–to borrow your phrase–mysteries with relationships–I generally know who the heroine/heroes are and what the crime is. A lot of my stories come from crime articles in the newspaper that set by imagination on fire. The one I just finished writing is about the daughter of a woman who bolted the day before her capital murder trial was supposed to start in a murder-for-hire in which her husband was the victim. Now 12 years later she’s been added to the Texas Most Wanted list. I immediately wanted to know where she’s been and what’s she been doing for more than a decade besides eluding law enforcement. And what impact did that have on her daughter (the woman actually had 4 daughters)? What’s she been doing besides feeling abandoned and alone? I’m an “organic writer” as Steven James has called it, so I started writing so I could find out. I meet my characters and figure out who the bad guy is and solve the crime much the same way my readers do–on the page. That’s what makes writing fun for me. Plotting, outlining, doing “interviews” with characters and anything involving structure is like homework that makes my eyes glaze over. My best advice to new writers is do what works for you!
I’ve had characters discover dead bodies, and I don’t know who they are or why someone wanted them dead. I figure I can discover that the way the cops do. I’m also an “organic” writer. I’ve had ideas that changed when I was looking for something else but came across something the piqued my interest.
And yes, you have to do what works, and realize it might not be the same way every time.
I’ve tried outlining, plot boarding, writing a synopsis… Most of it never works for me. Usually, I have to know what the crime is and why is it happening now? Why not six months ago or six years ago
I usually want to know a few things about my characters, like what happened in their past that wounded them, what do they have to overcome? What can they do at the end of the book that they cannot do it at the beginning. Like you and Kelley, then I just start writing.
I’ve done some books where I don’t know the crime, some where the characters reveal the bits I need for the story, and others where I have a pretty good idea of where everything is going. The only “constant” is that in my mysteries, the crime is solved, and in my romantic suspense, both the mystery/suspense/problems and the relationships come to a satisfying (I hope) resolution.
Great post, Terry.
With my mysteries, I know the killer’s identity and motive from the get-go, and usually come up with a list of suspects pretty quickly. Crucial clues take more time. I keep a novel journal and do brainstorming as I draft, and also while revising. Starting with book 2 I’ve begun mapping my sleuth’s “arc of suspicion, which I find very helpful.
With my first two library cozies, I wrote truncated first drafts of each book, and then filled in the blanks in revision, doing a lot looping from front to back while revising, to fix things. With this third mystery, I hit the 33K mark, in the middle of Act II (I use a four act structure) and realized I needed to work out a lot more details and do some important research.
Now that I have done both, I need to write a new high-level outline today and get back to the drafting. Even with my urban fantasies I was “iterating” new outlines in draft.
Regardless of genre, though, there’s always a point though where, once things have coalesced in my head, that I began drafting faster, and filling in scenes by discovery writing. That will be the case with the current mystery, too.
Thanks for sharing your process, Dale. It works for you, which is all that matters. In my mysteries, I usually get to a MMO grid after I have a bunch of characters who’ve shown up on the page.
My actual writing method has changed recently. I used to have to write from beginning to end, no exceptions, because I had no idea what kind of state my characters would be in by a certain chapter. Last year I began writing out of order, whatever scene was strongest for me, which eventually ended up me writing in order but that’s fine.
The thing I need every time, though, is to hold my idea in my head for a few months, or weeks depending on how fast it develops. I can’t write a thing during that time on it, and my head is so consumed by the idea I can barely get normal stuff done. All sorts of scenes come an go and rewrok themselves. It’s like primordial goo, or pregnancy, or however you want to describe it. Finally some scenes will become stable, and I’ll write a little bit, then more scenes become stable and I write more.
That’s my method.
It sounds like you’re doing what I call “Head Writing”. AZAli. Lots of ideas percolating, and the ‘what if’ and ‘why’ games begin. Thanks for sharing.
“I’m—gasp—writing out of order. I don’t do that. Until I do.” Hooray for that attitude, Terry. You recognize each book is different and sometimes you have to use different techniques.
I’m also an organic pantser. I didn’t write scenes out of order until my newest book. Then I did. Yes, that raised some timeline problems (oops, that’s can’t happen before this does), but that’s what rewriting is for.
Each book is an individual, like each child is an individual. Each has a different personality, encompassing varied needs, wants, strengths, and weaknesses. To me, writing each book the same way would be like trying to raise multiple children using the same formula. What works for one ain’t necessarily gonna work for another.
Yesterday someone asked me which of my books is my favorite. My stock answer: “That’s like asking which is my favorite child.” She laughed and understood.
“To me, writing each book the same way would be like trying to raise multiple children using the same formula.”
As the mother of twins, I hear you on that one, Debbie.
“Every Book Is Different” sums up my writing very well. Each book is an experiment for me. I usually know some important element of the story, but how it all gets put together is something of a “mystery.” 🙂
First book: I knew the opening scene and some of the characters and relationships I wanted to pursue, but didn’t know the villain or how it would develop.
Second book (2nd in series): I knew how the crime was going to be solved, but didn’t have much of the plot in place when I started.
Third book (3rd in series): I knew I wanted cryptic clues left somewhere on a university campus, and I wanted to add a couple of young girls to the story.
Fourth book (1st in new series): When my dev editor suggested I write a novel to follow up my short story Lady Pilot-in-Command, I put the two main characters in the cockpit of a Cessna on a cross country flight and watched to see where they would land.
One thing I have come to depend on is plotting using post-it notes on my three-door closet. For some reason, having a “life-size” storyboard is helpful for me.
I’ll have to consider using my office closet doors instead of my foam core, although I do like the mobility of my foam core boards should I get the urge to write downstairs instead of in my office. Doesn’t happen often, because I’m spoiled with my two monitors at my desk.
Most of my short books, those under or around 75,000 words, weren’t as carefully outlined beforehand because I had the whole plot in my head. Those around and above 100,000 words had much more detailed plot outlines as well as subplot outlines. I used index cards instead of story boards. This allowed me to figure out the main plot then insert elements of the subplots at their logical and pace points. I’d then write out a synopsis, figure out where the plot wasn’t working, then fix it.
I’ve used index cards for scene ideas. Deb Dixon said when she was starting a book, she’d take a stack of index cards to her rocking chair and write all the possible scenes she could think of on the cards.
Enjoyed following your writing process, Terry. I use a written outline with the opening, ending and the killer, and build the book from there. When I finish, there are many deviations from the original outline.
Know where you’re starting, where you have to end up, with detours along the way allowed. Sounds like a great system. Someday maybe I’ll be able to do that.