Crossed Souls Rewrites: Progress Update

I’ve been working my way through Crossed Souls and tweaking the story to correct some things I should’ve put in the first time around. Currently, I’ve added about 7,000 words to the story and I’m working on chapter nine.

It’s been fun going back through the start of this book and punching up Willa’s character. I actually yesterday was working on chapter nine and realized that I totally forgot about the list I made of things to look out for and fix in this book.

So, I had to go search it out. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a serious problem with collecting notebooks. I have so many and they are everywhere. My husband has honestly given up the fight against the stacks I keep of them, and I try to keep them confined to a couple of areas only. See? Compromise.

Anyway, I had to go dig through all the notebooks because I was *pretty sure* I’d written the list in an actual physical notebook and not, like, a word doc or google doc or something. Eventually, I found it and when I deciphered my handwriting, I noticed there were a couple of things on there that I hadn’t already corrected.

So, I had to go back to chapter five and fix some Willa stuff. There were complaints about her character falling flat when she meets her Guardians, and I definitely don’t want that for her, so I’m working really hard to make sure she keeps her personality throughout.

I also had to write in a whole new scene between Gramps and one of the guys which was fun and I think explains some stuff that was left out before that’ll help the story make more sense.

This week, I’m hoping to make big progress but I always feel like that whole “my eyes are bigger than my stomach” thing when you’re really hungry and load up your plate and then can only eat half. That’s how I look at my rewrites. I always start out like, “Okay, I can do this. I can get the next… 15? Yeah, let’s go with 15 chapters done this week and then it’ll be ready to go.” And then the week comes and goes and I’ve done three chapters and beat myself up over it.

Still, I would really love to get this finished so I can start writing Bound Souls. I’ll update next week and let you know how it goes!

Character Flaws

When I start brainstorming a series, that can look different every time. For Crossed Souls, it started with the characters—Willa specifically. I saw her initially as a sort of cupid-like character who was destined to help people find love while also being a person who couldn’t find it herself. She’d never known what being in love felt like, and was a really lonely person.

So many of the reverse harems I read involve a female main character who’s badass almost right from the beginning. That’s not who Willa is, though. She’s just not. She’s been beaten down by life, and instead of rising to the occasion, she’s been defeated and is sort of just trying to get through her days and appreciate the things she does have and the people who are in her life.

Unfortunately, this means that sometimes life just happens to her. She doesn’t know how to handle it when life throws her a massive curveball she didn’t expect. Because she’s naïve and been sheltered her whole life, she doesn’t always make great decisions. In the first book of the Twisted Soul Magic series, this means that sometimes she’s a pushover. She lets her guys make decisions and goes along with them because she’s just trying to learn how this new world works before she jumps in.

She’s cautious and inadvertently reckless at the same time because she doesn’t have all the information. She’s doing her best, but sometimes her best is frustrating because she doesn’t seem to get it.

Trust me when I say this is all part of the plan. Yes, I’ve got a plan for Willa and how she’s going to grow throughout the series. She won’t always be the clueless and frustrating heroine she is in book one. If she were, that would make for a shitty series, right? But… if she doesn’t start somewhere low, how can she have the journey that will make you root for her to have happiness and everything perfect by the end of the series?

You’d get just as bored if she was a badass from the beginning and stayed a badass throughout. So, while I know book one might’ve been frustrating, I promise things will get much, much better as the series goes on.

What Am I Thinking?

My mind was blown about two years ago when I discovered Lauren Landish and read a few of her books. They were so different than all the other romance novels I’d read in the past and I loved them so much. They were like a breath of fresh air.

And what made them different?

The couples never had that icky moment where they split up over a little misunderstanding or a lie or something one of them didn’t tell the other. That moment (the black moment) where a couple splits up only to be brought back together again never sat right with me.

Why?

Because it’s predictable. It’s something every book does, and I hate it. It’s why I rarely read contemporary romance anymore, because it’s predictable to me. As soon as I read her books (before I wrote my own), I vowed I would only write books like that—the kind that didn’t have the same kind of black moment as all the others.

That’s not to say that my books don’t have those moments. There always have to be stakes. There has to be that moment where you’re like, “Oh, shit. How are they going to deal with this?” I just prefer mine to come from outside forces.

Once my couple is a couple, they’re going to stay that way. It may take some time for them to get there, or it may happen quickly. It may be unconventional or a trope you’ve read a hundred times. But no matter how it happens, my couples are rock solid once they declare themselves together.

Us vs. The World.

That’s how I write my stories. I go in every time with that in mind above all else, and then I figure out how to make it work. Once I’m done with the SP series, I’m going to start working on the Elite Order series. It’ll be my first attempt at writing reverse harem and I am beyond excited about it.

Have you ever read reverse harem? Do you like that traditional “black” moment in traditional contemporary books or do you, like me, feel like something different is refreshing? Leave me a comment and let me know!

What I Read This Weekend

Reign by Siobahn Davis

This is the third book in the Sainthood - Boys of Lowell High series and I felt like I’d been waiting for it for forever. I absolutely adore this series. It’s a dark high school bully reverse harem series with a strong-as-hell heroine who can definitely hold her own. But her guys? They make her stronger and the five of them together make a formidable team.

I don’t want to give too much away with this book, because it is a trilogy after all, but I highly (HIGHLY!) recommend you start with book one and just enjoy the ride. I generally don’t re-read books, but this is a series I have a feeling I’m going to be coming back to again and again.

The guys are hot alphas, the girl is no weakling, and the situations are heart pounding with twists and turns you won’t expect. If you give it a read, come back and let me know what you thought!

It was a busy weekend of writing and revision around here, so I only got through the one book and part of another (which is the final book in another RH series I’ve been reading and waiting for), but if you read something you loved this weekend, let me know because I need some new recs!