“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
–William Shakespeare
Summer has reached peak ripeness, stretched taught with heat, heavy with juicy enjoyment, sweet with long, lazy days. It’s a pleasure tinged with sadness, too, because the end hovers just over the horizon. My teaching days are long behind me, but still I wince as those Back to School sale signs go up. Enjoy summer while it lasts, kiddos.
I’m thrilled to be one of your co-hosts for this month’s blog hop of the Insecure Writers Support Group. The IWSG provides a safe place for writers of all stripes to connect, kvetch, and learn from one another. Hop on over here to join the conversation. And be sure to visit your other co-hosts, Renee Scattergood, Jacqui Murray, Tamara Narayan, and LG Keltner!
August 7 question – Has your writing ever taken you by surprise? For example, a positive and belated response to a submission you’d forgotten about or an ending you never saw coming?
Oh, heck yeah. I’m a pantser trying hard to become a plotter. My characters are stubborn, opinionated, and loquacious. Despite my detailed outlines and character sketches, they repeatedly grab the steering wheel and yank the developing plot off course. Sometimes, these detours enrich the story. Often, they just make it longer and more convoluted.
In any case, I need to shorten the time it takes me to write the first draft of a novel. Toward that end, I’ve read lots of craft books and blogs, as well as taking many classes. Some favorites:
- Lisa Cron’s Story Genius. Her scene cards are super useful. I print the template and fill them out in pencil. Reducing each scene to its essence helps keep me on course—and makes deviations easier to spot.
- Damon Suede’s Verbalize, an excellent resource for nailing down each character’s motivation via identifying their “Void.” Great book. Buy this one now. Go ahead—I’ll wait. And if you ever get the chance to hear him speak, go.
- I know lots of writers swear by Save the Cat or some iteration of The Hero’s Journey. As a romance author whose characters aren’t defusing bombs, slaying vampires, battling intergalactic baddies, etc., I get more juice out of Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels, by Gwen Hayes.
My latest big surprise involves the main antagonist in my WIP. At first, she seemed a two-dimensional nasty person. Can’t have that—even the vilest villain thinks she’s the hero of the story. So I dug deeper into her motivations and found a tender, if dented, heart beating behind her armor. Surprise!
It’s great to have a forum like this in which I can talk about my characters as if they were real, without anyone suggesting medication (other than coffee or a stiff drink) or a restorative vacation in a mental health facility.
Damon Suede would remind me that characters aren’t real, they’re vehicles for delivering an emotional ride to the reader. He’s correct, of course, but during the drafting process, it can feel like they’re whispering in my ear, always full of surprises.
How about you? Have your characters surprised you during the first-draft phase? Is the story’s ending a mystery to you until you get there?
And thanks for sharing your favorite craft books/writing teachers.
P.S. Runaway Love Story, Book Two in the Book Nirvana series, steamy contemporary romance set in a bookshop in Eugene, Oregon, goes on sale for just 99 cents (ebook only) August 16th through September 6th.
Fierce passion or long-cherished dreams…she can’t hang onto both.
Chasing a big-city art gallery job, Laurel detours to Eugene, Oregon to help her spitfire great aunt into assisted living. While on a run, she’s harassed by a group of teens until a tall, broad-shouldered hottie rescues her by pretending to be her boyfriend–with a kiss that makes her wish it were true. But she’s only passing through.
High school history teacher Doug Garvey fears love just isn’t in the cards for him. If only he could find someone who’s real, someone interested in something beyond herself…maybe a new running partner who can keep up with his more carnal appetite. When sexy, straight-talking Laurel runs across his path, he dares to hope again.
Their fierce chemistry burns up the sheets—and the couch, the shower, the forest—but falling in love would ruin everything. Laurel can’t stay in Eugene, and he can’t leave. Doug’s only hope is to convince her the glittery life she’s after could blind her to the opportunities already in her path.
Reviewers say:
This is such a lovely, believable story with the characters masterfully drawn, dealing with their real-world problems and doubts instead of the ‘fluff’ that often permeates romance. In fact, the characterization is so excellent, and the scene-setting so vivid, I’d say this veers to being Women’s Fiction. Okay so, really HOT women’s fiction, because-those sex scenes!! *fans self*
The absolute standout feature, though, is the dialogue. There is not one instance where the dialogue becomes contrived or unnatural. In fact, I suspect the author must have eavesdropped and recorded conversations!
–Romance Author Laney Kaye
Told in her typical smexy and descriptive style, Stone weaves a story of two people with burning-up-the-sheets chemistry who need to figure out if they can compromise what they each want in order to find their HEA. Their road is rocky, emotional, and ultimately thought provoking, because each of them brings a lifetime of emotional baggage along for the ride. How they learn to deal with that – and if they learn to deal with it – is the crux of Stone’s story. And it’s a goodie!
–Romance Author Peggy Jaeger
Get your copy here: Amazon Barnes & Noble Apple Books
Image of Mosel River vineyards by Peter H from Pixabay
I like Lisa Cron’s scene cards too, but have not actually used them for a story yet, but I plan to.
I forgot to say thanks for co-hosting
One more thing. I own all the books you named that help you too. Surprised forgot about two of them.
Hi Sadira! Thank you for the resources you’ve listed and thanks for hosting the IWSG this month. I did a double take when I saw your heading, because mine’s the same – haha.
The reviews for your latest book are so good – congratulations. I would love to read it. Hopefully you have an e-book or a kindle version.
I wanted to add that it took a lot of sleuthing for me to find the comment form. I almost thought you didn’t want any comments.
Looking forward to reading your latest.
Thanks for the writing resources. Always looking for good craft books to check out. Thanks so much for co-hosting this month!
The same thing happened with my villain. I didn’t really know what the root of her motive was for a while. When it came to me, it made so much sense.
Thanks for co-hosting!
Congrats on the great reviews!
I had many a character just drive off a cliff with their own idea about how the direction the story should be moving. Sometimes useful, often not. It’ been a learning process, to say the least. I certainly hope my next first draft will move along a bit quicker than the first one did.
Thanks for co-hosting today!
I totally agree about the Story Genius Scene Cards! I used them during one NaNo and they were a huge help. I think I have Verbalize on my TBR list, too.
Thanks for co-hosting!
Well, this is the third blog I’ve tried to comment on, so hoping it works this time. And yes! I am completely with you on the story changing as I write it. But the thing about your villain is really cool. I love it when things like that happen!
Maybe outlining should start with a synopsis or a camp-fire story. Using only the most important plot points as stopovers. You’re a pantser, so filling in the rest should be easy.
Good luck.
Anna from elements of emaginette
Those pesky characters, always coming up with their own ideas, LOL! Thanks so much for co-hosting this month.
Love this line – “they repeatedly grab the steering wheel and yank the developing plot off course.” I’ve had that feeling at times. Thinking I knew where ‘I’ was going and the story said, ‘nope’. And coffee helps… Thanks
Thanks for co-hosting, Sadira. And thanks for visiting my blog. You wrote: My characters are stubborn, opinionated, and loquacious. OMG, we have the same characters. lol I could never be a total plotter. Forcing myself to be something I’m not is painful. Sure, I plot in my head. Sort of. But I love the surprises characters bring to the story.
Your blog post title caught me by surprise since it was essentially the same as mine. Really no surprise that someone else came up with that title though. I’ve come to associate the very word “surprise” with Gomer Pyle’s exclamation of “Surprise, Surprise!” It was the first thing that came to me.
Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out
I use a version of scene cards as a sort of midstream outlining when I get stuck. I pants until I hit a wall, then I use scene cards to analyze what’s already there and figure out my next steps. @samanthabwriter from
Balancing Act
First off, thanks for serving as a co-host this month. Busy, busy, busy, eh? I’m thrilled your book’s getting such great reviews. It definitely deserves them. (Talking about reviews, thanks so much for the awesome review you posted for my book recently. You rock!)
Isn’t it great getting to know your characters better, and then to be surprised by them? It’s like creating our own circle of friends and frienemys.
my characters are difficult people with problems. They are complex and they always surprise me in some kind of way. They do a great job of helping me discover what is inside of me.
Thank you so much for co-hosting.
Shalom aleichem,
Pat G @ EverythingMustChange
I disagree with the statement that characters are “vehicles for delivering an emotional ride to the reader.” For me, my characters are alive. They are my friends and my babies. When they become “vehicles,” my story dies, and I need a new story and new characters to get me going.
I know what it’s like when the plot deviates from your plans, and my characters play a large role in making that happen. Thanks for co-hosting!
I’ll have to check out those books!
I’ve reached a point where I just let my characters write the story… it’s their story anyway. I’m just the one telling it. 😉
Thanks for co-hosting with me this month!
Damon Suede is an excellent speaker and I also use Romancing the Beat. I’m a pantser trying to be a plotter too, mostly to speed up my first drafts like you.
Reading how your characters talk to you and steer the book in certain directions is intriguing to me and makes me want to try my hand at fiction one day. Things don’t work like that in memoir, so no surprises here! Thanks for co-hosting!
I’m a panster, too, so I’m always being surprised by my characters. It’s part of the fun for me.
Pantsing can be so fun. I’ve tried to plot, but it simply doesn’t work for me. Thanks for the book suggestions!