Cover of Darkness
I received my release date for book two of my romantic suspense series with The Wild Rose Press, titled Cover of Darkness. It will be available in print and digital versions February 26th, 2010, and features Bryn McAllister, who you met in Out of Her League. Here’s the blurb:
Targeted by a terrorist cell, Bryn McAllister survives a bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut only to be left to die in a desert cellar. When she is rescued by Navy SEAL Lieutenant Declan McCabe and his team, Bryn must rely on the handsome officer to get her to safety. But just when she thinks the nightmare is over, family friend and legendary CIA operative Luke Hutchinson recruits her and McCabe to help track down the terrorist mastermind responsible for the attack.
With Bryn determined to see the terrorist brought to justice, Dec joins up to protect her, prepared to do whatever it takes to keep her safe during their dangerous mission. Battling the explosive attraction between them, Dec fights to keep his distance from her so he can do his job and keep her alive. But when plans falls apart and Bryn is captured, he must make the agonizing choice between his duty as a SEAL and the life of the woman he loves.
This one’s a real edge-of-your-seater, I promise!
Kaylea 🙂
A Writer’s Garden
Here it is–my pride and joy. Oh, you thought I meant my kids? Well, that goes without saying, but this is my special place. It’s where I escape with my iPod and putter around, dreaming up storylines and thinking of my characters. When the weather’s nice, even in winter, you can usually find me on the back porch swing. Sometimes I sit out there and daydream and sometimes I’ll plug away on my laptop. Most often I’ll have at least one of my weasels sitting next to me. They like to help me with my stories, but usually their advice is to have Spiderman show up and get the bad guys with his webs. Not exactly the plot twists I’m looking for, but I appreciate their efforts.
When we bought our place I didn’t know squat about plants or gardening, but I learned fast and became a regular at our local nurseries. After a lot of trial and error, my garden began to take shape, and if it weren’t for the evil black vine weevils I’m constantly at war with, this place would be pretty close to my idea of heaven on earth. Enjoying my hard word relaxes me. I like to sit on the porch swing and listen to the silvery trickle of water in my fountain and the delicate music of the windchimes carried on the breeze. It’s like fairies are dancing in my yard. I breathe in the fragrance of fresh cut grass, the honey of sweet alyssum and the rich perfume of roses. Bliss. Especially if the boys are quiet :).
So now you’ve seen my little slice of paradise and can think of me on my back porch working on my next book. Cross your fingers that it’ll survive the flying soccer and baseballs that will abound for the next few years!
Do you have a special place that inspires you?
Weaving in Backstory
Something I’m often asked about by new writers is how to add backstory into a manuscript without slowing the pace too much. This is an important question, because done incorrectly, backstory can halt a story in its tracks and pull the reader out of the book.
First off, be sure the backstory you want to add is important enough to merit inclusion. It has to add details or information that can’t be conveyed naturally throughout the book, so give this a lot of thought. Many novice authors will make the mistake of “info dumping”, usually in the first chapter, or even the opening scene. Most times all the information can be cut during the editing phase and woven in throughout the story. If this can’t be done and the information is still necessary to the storyline, consider using it in either a prologue or flashback.
A prologue is generally shorter than a chapter, and always comes before the book begins. It sets up the story by showing the reader an important/life-changing event that occurred for a character before the main storyline begins. It may reveal certain motivations for a main character, or it may set up the suspense angle by leaving the reader wondering what happened, but it must set up some important element of the story. Otherwise, it doesn’t need to be there.
A flahsback is another way to add backstory, and used sparingly, will avoid slowing the pace. Often offset by itallics, these scenes are written in the present tense, but show something that happened in the past. This can be done in a dream sequence, or as a true flashback, when something triggers a strong memory in the character’s head. This can be very powerful, but again, it must be important enough to warrant inclusion, so use with discretion.
When you’re doing revisions, make sure you’re on the lookout for info dumps and see whether you can add in chunks throughout the story. If you can’t and the details are still necessary, see if you can use one of the above tools. Your work will be better off for it.
More plotting techniques
In my efforts to lay out the story for my next novel, I’ve been researching various plotting techniques used by other writers. I figure there has to be a better way than what I’m doing. As stated in a previous entry, I am not a pantser, at least not until the final stages of drafting. In fact, the thought of starting a novel without knowing where I’m going next is enough to make my eye twitch. To me, that’s like hopping in a car and driving off into the sunset without any desination in mind. Just take off and go until you run out of gas. Not the way I like to travel! I like the MapQuest way, where you have a clear beginning and end destination in mind, then you find the most direct route there and prebook your hotel before you even think about packing. For me, writing a book is a lot like that.
Since this is the fifth and final book in this series, I already know all my characters inside and out. Bonus for me, right? Yeah, but they’ve also been through so much already that I have to be careful to put them into new and even more perilous situations to keep my storyline fresh and interesting. After looking around at various methods online I’ve decided I already use a combination of the most popular, and that’s worked fine up until now, with one major exception.
Drum roll…
The sagging middle. All writers out there know exactly what I’m talking about. Oh, the horror! You’ve got your incredible beginning, the blackest moment known to the literary world and the most astounding conclusion for the book all figured out, and then–
You have no idea how to fill in the middle. I mean, like, none. Man, that sucks.
Classically, this is where all writers struggle. They start out strong out of the gate, then fall halfway to the finish line. Some struggle to their feet and carry on even though each step is painful and grueling, but some give up and lay there until someone brings a stretcher to drag them off the track because the finish line is too damn far away. Unreachable. And while they’re being hauled away they wonder, “Why did I ever think I could write a novel?”.
Sometimes a writer will question their ability to make the story work long enough to reach the finish they’d been so excited about initially. If this describes your situation, take heart! You can fix it. The answer that works for me? More plotting. Now, to find a system that works and appeals to you.
There’s the famous Snowflake method, by Randy Ingermanson. He starts with a high concept pitch, where the story is boiled down into one tight sentence. That’s your starting point. He then expands on this to add the high plot points, and then branches into character development where the author explores the goals, motivations and conflicts facing each major character. It’s all very neat and scientific, but a whole lot of work!
Personally, I want something short and concrete before I start the first draft. I like to write out everything important in a pretty notebook I buy for each book I’m working on. At night I keep it next to my bed in case I wake up with something brilliant in mind (at least, it seems brilliant to me at that time of the morning), and I carry it in my purse in case inspiration strikes while I’m out doing errands. I do a character sketch outlining background, goals, motivation and conflicts for each major POV character. I don’t go into so much detail for the minor characters, but feel free if it helps you get to know them better. Try an interview if this is too sterile for you. Find out what makes them tick, their darkest secrets, what habits they have, etc.
Once that’s done, I already know what each major character wants, why they want it, and why they can’t have it (goal, motivation and conflict–cool, huh?). By the way, conflict drives the plot. No conflict, no novel. Readers don’t want to be bored, and neither do agents and editors. So whatever twists and turns your storyline takes from page one to The End, you’d better have unresolved conflict along the way. And lots of it.
Begin with an opening that introduces the major conflict for at least one of your major characters. If you can make it matter to more than one, so much the better. Then you need to figure out the major crisis points in the book, and how you want things to wind up. Once all that’s done, you have the most critical parts of the book laid out already. Now, all you have to do is flesh out the scenes in between to fill in the blanks. Easy, right?
Not so much. There’s still that darned saggy baggy middle to contend with. Trust me, it can stop a writer dead in their tracks and keep them mired down for weeks. Months, even. Not good! So, back to the drawing board. Tackle it on your own if you want, but don’t feel bad if you need help. Talk to someone in your writing group. Find a critique partner. Bug your spouse, or your mom, or your best friend, and get some ideas going.
Try to identify why you’ve stalled and why the middle is so lacklustre. I bet you’ll find there’s not enough conflict going on at that point. So? Make something exciting happen. Introduce another subplot. Throw in a twist, or even two or three. Do something! Once you do, the story will begin to flow again. Really, I swear! And always remember you can change it later if something even better comes to mind. Just make sure that whatever conflicts you have, don’t resolve them too soon or it could be a really short book. Us authors still have that pesky thing called a word count hanging over our heads.
With all this in mind, I wanted to see if there was a boiled down, nitty-gritty kind of plotting system out there. Like magic, I stumbled across a concise story line layout designed by Lynn Viehl.
Wow! How come I didn’t think of this? She lays everything out in an organized way that really appeals to my Capricorn, control freak nature, and streamlines my process. I daresay it will even help me stave off that dreaded sagging middle. Hallelujah! I’m revved and ready to rock.
So now you have a few other ideas to kick around when you’re in the early stages of tackling a novel. I hope at least one will be of help to you. To all you pantsers out there, my hat is off to you. I will never understand how you guys can create a novel out of thin air, but that’s just me. To each their own, I guess.
Happy plotting!