Tristen & Waverly: An Update
Ever since Sweet Destruction came out, I get asked at least 5 times a day about Tristen & Waverly and when their story is coming. I thought I could answer a little bit about my writing process with this book and give you an update on what’s happening with it at the same time.
The Process:
I get an idea. Sometimes it’s a scene, a character, or an entire storyline. For Tristen & Waverly, I had no idea where I was going with their story when I wrote the first two. I figured something would come to me, and thankfully it did. Even better, some of the scenes I wrote in Beautiful Carnage and Sweet Destruction played right into where their story’s going to go, and when you read it you’ll look back and be like WHOAAA. Or, at least, I hope you will.
I stew on it for a little bit. Write down everything that comes to me in notes all over the place. Some are on my iPad, some on Google Keep at random, and some on random sticky notes that I’ll definitely lose and have to try and hunt down. I basically write on whatever’s closest, and I’ll be honest, it’s a bit of a mess. But, once I feel like I’ve gone as far as I can on my own, I gather everything in one place and organize it somewhere, usually in Trello or a Word doc.
I get to know the characters. I have a character exercises sheet I made in Word that’s filled with open-ended questions I’ve pulled from different places. It’s 6 pages long before I ever write a word in it, and by the time I’m done, it’s usually anywhere from 15,000-25,000 words in the character’s voice. When I’m done, I know all about their backstory, their hopes and dreams, how they feel about a whole bunch of different things, and then basic stuff like their birthday and favorite food. It ends up being about a 35 to 50-page file on every single main character I write. I also find that as I go through this process, some plot ideas will inadvertently pop out and I’ll end up sticking them in my notes.
I call my developmental editor. At this point, I usually have some basic idea of the things I want to have happen in the plot (usually bigger picture stuff, but sometimes just that one REALLY IMPORTANT scene), but I need help fleshing out the more minor details or putting things into order. Sometimes she plays devil’s advocate and tells me my character is going to come across as TSTL (too stupid to live) if I write something a certain way. I’ve learned that I get too in my head with my stories and I have a hard time spotting that stuff for myself. In my head, a story makes perfect sense playing out a certain way, but without knowing all the things I have in my head, it doesn’t come across the right way. I do four calls with her per book and each one lasts an hour where we hammer out the details. There’s lots of between calls work, too. She sends me notes after each call with all the questions we’ve come up with and I spend time between calls figuring out answers to those questions. This is the point I’m at with Tristen & Waverly’s book at the moment. I’ve got one more call with her tomorrow and then I’ll put everything into a timeline/outline and at that point…
I start writing. I have no idea how long this is going to take when I start. It can take me 6 weeks or 8 months. Just depends on the couple and how I’m feeling about them. How their story feels in my gut. If something doesn’t feel right, I get stuck and it’s a whole thing. I’m trying to avoid that this time by just hammering out everything as I go. I’m a clean writer which means by the time I’m done writing, there’s not a lot to change. I write in a linear way which means I start writing at the beginning of the story and finish at the end.
I review alpha/beta notes. I prefer to have alpha readers (even though I call them beta readers) because I like them to read along as I write. So, when I finish a chapter, it goes into a Google Doc that’s assigned to each alpha reader and they leave me notes and comments as I go. I don’t usually review these until I’m done writing because I don’t want them to affect my process or the way the story’s coming out of my head the first time, but when I’m done I review every comment carefully and adjust what needs adjusting in my draft.
I send the manuscript to my editor. When all the notes have been adjusted and I’ve made all the changes, I send off the manuscript to my copy/line editor. She’s different than the developmental editor because she checks spelling, grammar, consistencies (like if a heroine’s hands are tied behind her back but then she has her hands tangled in the hero’s hair, which was definitely a thing that happened in the early versions of Sweet Destruction). She also checks timeline consistencies (which I can tell you right now are going to be an issue in Perfect Nightmare… ).
We go through rounds of edits. She sends the book back to me, I make changes, send it back to her, rinse and repeat.
The final version of the manuscript goes to the formatter and my job is (mostly) done… for a while. Once the manuscript is polished, I format the Word doc as if getting it ready for paperback, and then I send it off to my formatter. She takes a couple of weeks and formats the eBook and paperback files for me. Once these are back (in an ideal world where I’m not running up against a deadline…) they go to ARC readers and get uploaded to the ‘Zon for release.
And that’s it! On to the next book.
There you have it! Phew, I’m exhausted just writing it all out, but as you can see, a lot goes into writing a book. This doesn’t even include all the research along the way. But, I love it and wouldn’t want to do anything else. I’ll update more when I actually start writing Perfect Nightmare with how far into the manuscript I am and as I get closer to being done, with an estimated release date.