Plotting

I’ve written eleven books, and in that time, I’ve had a different method for plotting every single one of them. As a writer, I struggle a ton with perfectionism and I also have what I’m guessing is a raging case of undiagnosed ADHD on top of a type-A personality that drives even me crazy.

So, what does that mean for my writing methods? Welllll…. so much work goes into a book before I even begin, but the process has never felt quite right. It’s why I’ve used a different method every single time I’ve started a book.

Now that I’m moving on to Bound Souls and also Twisted Little Games and a new series I’m working on, I’ve actually stumbled onto a couple of methods I’ve used that I am absolutely loving.

Now, when I tell you that every other method I’ve tried has sucked, I’m not exaggerating. It’s sucked my writing mojo right out of me. I’m in this weird place where I need to plot in order to write because I’m not a pantser (someone who can literally fly by the seat of their pants in writing). If I sit down to a blank screen with no idea where I’m going, I’ll get nothing done and get massively frustrated, too.

So, I’d do some semblance of gathering my chaotic thoughts into a plot and then start writing. But this time… I figured out how to organize.

So, here’s what I do now:

1. I do a series of writing exercises as my character to get a better sense of who they are, where they come from, what’s important to them, what they want, what they can’t stand, etc. It’s 99 questions and really intense (aka takes a long time).

2. Every single scene idea, no matter how small, gets written down on a blank index card and tossed aside.

3. I do this over and over until my brain is dry.

4. Then, I transfer those ideas to sticky notes.

5. Finally, I put them in timeline order from start to finish for the book.

6. Then, I look to see where there are gaps. If it seems like something jumps randomly from one scene to the next, then I know I need something in between.

Check it out:

I like to use Finger Paint paper because it’s big and the notes stick on it again and again. I draw a line down the middle so I keep the timeline linear.

Scenes I decide not to use get left behind.

Now, for the character work I’ve started doing (this new series is the first that I’ve done the character work this way. In past blog posts, I’ve shown the old way I’d do things with a whole workup of the characters, but this new way allows me to really get into the character’s head like never before.), here’s a sneak peek of a new character I’m working on and the kind of writing prompts I’m going through for him:

Don’t mind typos, etc. This is not edited in any way and is supposed to be sort of a free for all writing exercise.

I’ll be talking more about this series in the future, but for now, you can see how really digging into a character’s head can be beneficial. I’m excited to see how it changes my writing moving forward (hopefully for the better!).

Progress Update

I thought it’d be fun to update you along the journey of writing my current books. So, what am I actively writing?

Chased:

I’m currently writing chapter four of Chased. It’s a Ronin POV chapter. When I wrote Captive, the chapters ran roughly 4,000 words each. So far, this book’s chapters are even longer at about 5,000 words each which are massive. Unfortunately for me, the harder I try to make them smaller the bigger they get, so I’m just going with the flow and letting them be whatever they need to.

I’m really excited about this book because it’s going to have even more action and be faster paced than the last one, too. I really should’ve finished chapter four yesterday, but my writing mojo wasn’t where it needed to be, so today I’ll be getting that done and moving on to Montana’s POV in chapter five.

Crossed Souls:

I’m still on chapter one for this book writing-wise. It’s from the FMC’s POV and Montana is such a dynamic character that I’m finding it hard to swap between the two of them because this FMC comes off as sort of boring in comparison.

The problem is I don’t want to make this FMC too similar to Montana and I have yet to really find the FMC’s voice. Because of that, I’ve stepped back from writing it for a couple of days to try and get a better hold on her personality. There was also a major piece of her background I was missing and didn’t realize it until I was actively writing.

Now, I’ve got all of that figured out so I feel pretty good about jumping back in and finishing the first chapter. My other issue is I hit all my plotted scene bullet points for chapter one and it’s only, like, 1700 words which is way too short to be a decent chapter, but I’m hoping with the bit of backstory I need to add in that it’ll plump it up to around 2500.

Takeaways:

I knew writing two books would be a challenge, but I really thought the tough part would be continuing to write after I hit my limit on one book. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to that point yet, but I’m hopeful with the character stuff I figured out this week, I’ll be able to see how it all goes.

Writing two very distinct characters is hard. I want them to be unique and distinct and switching between the two is seriously difficult. But, I always like a challenge, so I’m not going to give up. I’ll post another update next week and let you know how it’s going.

Two-Timing

Well, it’s official: I’ve lost my mind.

Yup, I’m about to dive into writing two books at the same time.

I mentioned it in one of my recent blog posts, but even then I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to do it. Now, it’s official because I’ve fully plotted both stories and have the set up all finished.

I’ve talked before about how I plot my stories, but the part that comes after plotting is what I’m going to talk about today. Once I do my general plot, I dig down into the details—both of which I’ve gone into before. I do that part by hand so once that’s done, I enter it all back into my plotting program.

Finally, I go into Google Drive. This is where I store everything for writing my books. I create a Google Docs file for every chapter and then I name them and format them for my editor (this is a new development since I started with her for Captive, but she’s amazing!). So, everything’s written in Times New Roman because that’s just how I roll.

(Quick side note: I read a study once that said people who write in Comic Sans are more productive, but fuuuuck that. Comic Sans makes me want to rip my eyeballs out of my skull).

After the files are all formatted, I copy over all my scene details from my plotting program into the appropriate chapter. It looks like this when it’s all done and ready for me to write:

Once that’s done, I’m all set to write and I don’t stop until I’m done. I set myself daily goals (I’ve talked about it before, but in case you missed it, I aim to write 4,000 words a day in 500-word blocks) and I have a writing partner who keeps me accountable.

So, now that you’ve had a peek behind the curtain, I’m gonna change the subject real quick. See, I’m honestly HORRIBLE at keeping writing news to myself. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and promise books that end up not working out, but now that I’ve got everything set up and am ready to actually dive into these stories later today, I feel confident sharing just a little hint of what’s coming in that top secret project I’ve been talking about.

So, now you have a title for book one: Crossed Souls.

It’s not up for pre-order, but here’s a sneak peek of the story aesthetic and maybe a couple of plot hints.

There’s no release date or pre-order or anything yet, but do you have any guesses what the story might be about? Leave ‘em in the comments!

Plotting... to Take Over the World?

…cue maniacal laughter.

I’ve probably talked about it before, but there are two types of writers (and potentially more in the form of hybrids of the two types but we’ll ignore them for now): Plotters and Pantsers.

Now, “Pantsers” are the type of people who fly by the seat of their pants. Get it? Ha. Ha.

Anyway, they don’t plot. They just sit down and write and basically magic comes out (if it works like it’s supposed to).

While I’m pretty scattered and disorganized in every other aspect of my life, I can’t stand being that way when it comes to my writing. I have to plot until there’s nothing left to do but write or I feel like I’m going to go crazy.

Or sit in a corner and cry… not that that’s ever happened or anything.

Ahem.

So, with every book in the Shadow Phoenix series, I did my plotting a little bit differently trying to figure out what worked best for me and what level of planning I actually needed to do in order to pull off the story.

As it turns out, I didn’t find the answer until I wrote “Captive,” and the answer is I need to plot EVERYTHING.

Every. Damn. Thing.

But it worked so well, that when I slacked off on my writing for Captive after telling myself I got off to a fast start and could take a few weeks off there in the middle, I was able to write, like, sixty thousand words in two weeks because of my plotting skillz.

Now that I’m about to dive into Chased, I’m not even trying to change up my plotting style at all (which is a relief to not have to think about what needs tweaking), and as of yesterday, the first step of the full plot is done. Behold:

This is a glimpse into what my plotting looks like for the book. (For those of you who also write, I use Plottr in dark mode because dark mode is liiiife). I separate the characters by color, and then I use one keyword to describe whatever scene is going to happen. I always aim for 4 scenes per chapter, but as I write, if a scene runs long I occasionally have to cut a future one down the line or expand it out into a whole new chapter.

Thankfully, that only happened twice during Captive and I was able to just cut the scenes rather than expand. Once I’m done with the keywords and a few minor details to describe each scene, I print it out and go through it scene by scene adding as much detail as I possibly can so that when I write, I can transfer over the scene notes and go from there.

It may sound complicated, but ideally it takes me less than a week (Captive took me three solid days) to do all the prep work on a book and then I can dive in and start writing. I’m really excited to give you Chased, and now that this step is finished, I can move on to the final plotting (details!) and then get writing. Let me tell you, this book is going to get your heart racing in more ways than one and I can’t wait to get started.

10 Things No One Told Me About Writing Romance

My romance writing journey started out in the world of fanfic. I’ve always been into romance novels, ever since I was a teenager and stumbled onto the “gothic horror romance” that was V.C. Andrews. And boy were they right about the horror part. YIKES.

Anywho, almost two years ago now I got into that mobile story app called Choices. It sucked me in, I joined a book club, joined Tumblr and the rest is history. I never actually considered writing my own stories or books until I was having one of my existential crises and wondering what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I of course turned to Google. A couple of career aptitude tests later, and the answer was so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t ever seen it before.

A writer.

After that, I decided what the hell? Let’s do this thing!

The thing is… I had never written anything more than blog posts or non-fiction articles or essays in school. I still don’t know the exact sentence structure stuff about how many verbs or adverbs or nouns or anything you need in a sentence. For me, writing has just come pretty naturally.

BUT… there’s a lot more to writing (and marketing!) a book than I ever realized. So, here’s what no one told me before I started and what I wish I’d known going in:

1. Writing sex scenes is crazy hard. (See my blog post here.)

2. There will be days where you want to tell the story, but can’t find the words to do it.

3. Some people may hate the stuff what makes your characters who they are. Those people can go fuck themselves.

4. Writing formally (like in essay form or for school stuff) is WAY different than writing romance. Conversations should sound natural which means using words like “I’m” instead of “I am” or “won’t” instead of “will not.”

5. You’ll spend more time searching for stock photos that fit your marketing and social media needs than anything else—including writing the book. (WHY IS THIS SO HARD?).

6. It’s impossible to do everything you need to write, edit, design, and market your book on your own. You don’t necessarily need to hire help, but making friends you can trade services with or leaning new skills yourself will be necessary to your success.

7. Plan all your books to be part of a series. Unless you’re a super well-known author, standalone non-series books don’t make much money and aren’t really worth the time to advertise them, at least not in the romance genre.

8. You can write in past or present tense, first or third person. But you should always write in dual points of view (POV). Personally, I can’t stand third person, single POV books. Fun fact: Finding Zen was originally written in third person and I hated it so much I had to go back and re-write the whole thing. If you’re going to write a story, though, write it how you like to read or in the way that feels best to tell the story.

9. Once you start writing your first book, a zillion other ideas will pop into your head for spin offs and characters that need their own books. Write that shit down and keep it in a Google Doc you can add to whenever you need to.

10. This shit is addictive! Writing one book quickly turned into two, three, four… you get the picture. I don’t ever want to stop!

There you have it! There are tons more I could go into detail-wise, but suffice it to say I’m addicted to romance (writing AND reading!) Who are your favorite romance authors? Have you ever thought about giving writing a go? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Let's Talk About S-E-X... Scenes

I was an avid romance reader long before I decided to try my hand at writing. I’m also slightly obsessed with Hallmark Christmas movies when that time of the year rolls around. And what’s the difference between contemporary romance and those sweet Hallmark vids?

Sex.

Graphic, hot, and awkward as fuck to write sex.

When I decided to write Zen, I knew it had to have sex scenes in it. I don’t write erotica, but to me, adult relationships include sex. They just do. And I’m not one to tiptoe around stuff like that. It’s why I don’t read sweet romance ever. Hallmark movies are as close as I get.

So, how do I write mine?

You know when you see something awkward or scary and you cover your eyes with your fingers but then part them slightly to look through because you can’t not look? That’s pretty much how I write my sex scenes. I’m being super voyeuristic by peeping in on someone else’s sex life, even if they’re people I invent so I try to shove that down and get through it as quickly as humanly possible.

Typically the first version of my scenes is horrifically robotic or repetitive. How many times can you say the words dick, cock, or pussy in one scene? I first try to think about the location I want it to happen in and then I go from there. Places like the bathroom in an airplane, the back of a car, the kitchen floor… whatever fits the couple.

Then I write the first version of the scene out as fast as I can to just get it all out there. Then, I cringe suuuuuper hard as I go back and read through and make sure I don’t accidentally throw in any words that make me shudder (like folds…. blech). Once that’s done, I add in the flowery stuff. The emotion, the chills down the spine, the electric sparks. Stuff like that.

Finally, I end up with something passable, generally speaking. I don’t know if there will ever be a day when sex scenes are my strength, but I like the challenge of them.

Fun fact: In Maddox’s book, I wrote all four sex scenes in one day because I wanted to get them out of the way.

Typically, I’m a linear writer which means I write from the beginning of the story to the end in order. Doing Maddox and Ryan’s scenes that way threw off my whole process so in Jericho I’m going back to my uncomfy roots and just nailing (HA) the scenes as they come (HAHA).

Soooo… there you have it. All things sex in a nice unsexy way. Are there any words that make you cringe when you read them (moist, anyone?)? Leave me a comment and let me know!