“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.

Join the IWSG monthly blog hop!

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.

Where was I headed? Image courtesy of Pexels on Pixabay.

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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