Keeping a Huge Cast Straight with Guest Debra Clopton

Hi! Debra Clopton here, so excited about being in Seekerville!


 My latest book, Her Homecoming Cowboy an August release from Love Inspired is on shelves now. Bull rider Colt Holden is my most tortured hero ever. And he needs a reason to smile. Click here for an interview with Colt.

 Since it is the 21st book in my ongoing Mule Hollow series Tina invited me to talk a little about “my people” and how in world I keep them all straight? Keep them straight--ha! There is no keeping these fun, God-loving folks straight—they do whatever they want to do! Oh, wait, Tina meant there are so many of them how do I keep them straight as in keep up with them? Ha, that’s just as tough because after 21 books there’s a bunch of folks wandering around Mule Hollow. It can make this ole gal crazy! But, thank goodness I have my ways and I’ll tell how I do it?

But first, she also asked me if I set out to create a huge series when I wrote that first book The Trouble with Lacy Brown back in 2003?

The answer to the second question is NO! For starters, I have to thank my wonderful readers who grabbed hold of Mule Hollow from the beginning and held on! Their loyalty gave me the opportunity to write this many. Big {{HUGS}} if any of you are reading this!!!

Okay onward: I didn’t have a clue Mule Hollow would go past 3 books. But I hoped for a 5 book series. Also, I didn’t know if I had it in me to stick with the same characters past 5 books without me getting bored with the characters—or them having nothing left to say to me. As you can see “my people” are long winded—they don’t know how to stop talking! Fact is they are planning their next escapades before I end the current books!

So what did I know when I started:

• I had a plan and knew I wanted to set it up for success.

•  I wanted to create a place a community with in my books that would make people smile, enjoy themselves with good friends and hopefully desire a closer relationship with God when they closed the book. 

• Writing the first book, The Trouble With Lacy Brown I wanted Lacy Brown to be a larger than life character who loved the Lord with all her heart. I wanted readers to love her, because I did plan that she would be in every Mule Hollow book. Her vision would drive the books and her appearance would be essential to connecting them.

To make the community I needed the right characters. They would be my nucleus characters who would appear in each book.

• Lacy Brown 

• The Mule Hollow Matchmaking Posse were born; Norma Sue, Esther Mae and Adela the 3 older ladies who had a vision to save their town by exploiting the one commodity they had: lonesome cowboys. 

• Add to Sam’s Dinner and Sam the owner, as Lacy would say he is as small and wrinkled as a raisin. 

• Then there are my two hard-of-hearing old dudes, Applegate Thornton and Stanley Orr who play checkers every day at the diner and get into all kinds of stuff.

I had a blast creating these folks—or they had a blast taking over my mind might be a better way of putting it. Add that up and its 7 characters plus my hero and heroine who must show up in every book.

Then there are secondary nucleus characters who show up a lot:

• Samantha, my matchmaking donkey who had a starring role in book 2 And Baby Makes Five. Samantha has to make an appearance every so often to keep readers happy since she is a reader favorite. Then Sheri, Lacy’s best friend and sidekick, there is Pete from Pete’s Feed and Seed who doesn’t have to be in every book but he’s a big part of the community. And the ladies from No Place Like Home, the local women’s shelter. 

• Then there is the problem of letting heroes and heroines from past books come back and say hi to the readers. 

So you see “my people” have grown bigger than a 5 generation family reunion!

How do you keep a large and growing cast straight? Who gets in the book and who doesn’t without bogging the stories down with tons of character backstory? This is what I do. 


First: Your nucleus characters get in because they make the community. They are essential to the stories because the readers know them as friends and want to catch up with what they are up to as much as they want to read about the new romance. But, remember it is your Hero’s and Heroine’s story and you must focus on their romance and use your nucleus characters to enhance their love story. 


Second: You have to choose between the rest of the group. They don’t all get into current books—(if I hadn’t figured this out Mule Hollow would not have worked. Can you imagine if I had all 20 of my previous couples from the other books showing up in Her Homecoming Cowboy!) There wouldn’t have been any new plot because of wading through backstories. My plots would drag—and I don’t like anything to drag or get boring! I’m in the entertaining business first and foremost cuz if readers get bored they don’t make it to the end and get the message.

So what do you do when you have all these other characters wanting to make an appearance?


I incorporate them into the story in small ways. For instance my hero from Her Baby Dreams is Dan Dawson. He’s a cattle hauler. (a tall dark and handsome cattle hauler) So is Jess Holden my hero from Her Lone Star Cowboy (tall dark and handsome too). Let’s say in my current book my hero needs cattle hauled across Texas, they call Dan or Jess. We’ll use Dan for now. When Dan drives up with the cattle and hops from his truck grinning and being the happy-go-lucky cowboy that he is, I don’t have to give an elaborate backstory of him. I let the reader experience him by actions or conversation with the current hero. 

Maybe the hero asks about his wife, the baby—but that’s it, no paragraph recap of Dan’s love story. The readers who have read Dan’s story just got to say hello to him in this small cameo that he has made. But the reader who is coming into the series at say, book 10, and didn’t read book 4 (Her Baby Dreams- Dan’s starring role), this reader is just seeing a nice cowboy hauling some cattle for the character of the current book. Likewise, if heroine needs a dress she goes to Ashby’s Treasures, the local dress store and there’s Ashby. The diehard readers get to say hi while a new reader meets this sweet helpful store owner.

NOW THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS, sometimes when a previous characters background is essential to the story I do tell it. But there has to be a reason why I take the readers into this backstory. As with my current book the 3rd book of the Mule Hollow Homecoming trilogy. These brothers share a past that affects each of the stories and so their backgrounds are essential to the stories. Same with the Men of Mule Hollow series those 4 books start with the setup in Her Lone Star Cinderella and reoccurs throughout the other 3 books.

And there you go! That is how I keep up with all the craziness. Doing it this way has worked for me and Mule Hollow. It allows me to have new fresh plots that aren’t bogged down and I try to make it so readers never know who they are going to get to see (say hi to) when they pick a book up. It works well, giving me a host of characters to enhance the new stories. Mule Hollow folks have become like family to me and I think to readers too.

Now what? I’ve just completed the first book in my new series The Sunrise Ranch series. Once again there is a cast of characters who I’ve had a blast creating and can’t wait for readers to get to know. Her Unforgettable Cowboy will be out March of 2013. Set on a 10,000 acre working cattle ranch owned by the Randolph McDermott and his 3 sons. It is also a boy’s ranch, home to 16 abandoned or neglected boys ages 8 to 18. Set near the fictional, small town of Dew Drop with its own cast of characters.  This series starts with a fairly big cast—so here I go again! I don’t know how many books will be in the series but there are lots of cowboys who’ll be lookin’ for love. If I can just keep them all straight! I hope to see you all there.




Please visit my website http://www.debraclopton.com and join my monthly contest—which signs you up for my newsletter. Lots of new things coming. Plus a 1800’s novella from Thomas Nelson Publishing in the Bride for All Seasons anthology coming summer of 2013 



More about Debra:  

 Debra Clopton sold her first book The Trouble with Lacy Brown in 2003, which was a Golden Heart finalist and was published in 2005. She is an award winning, multi-published novelist—her most recent award a finalist in the 2012 Gayle Wilson Award for Excellence for Her Rodeo Cowboy, book one of the Men of Mule Hollow series.

 A three-time Carol Award finalist, Debra lives in the country near the small Texas town of Madisonville with her husband, Chuck Parks, and her two teenage stepsons. Her two adult sons, her lovely daughter-in-law and beautiful granddaughter have recently moved across country—it’s been a bit of a shock for her to adjust to not having them close. 

Though she has numerous awards her greatest awards are her family and she feels blessed to have a career that enables her to visit them often—have computer, will travel! Along with her writing Debra helps her husband teach the youth at their local Cowboy Church. Debra loves to read, travel and spend time with her family. She is the author of the acclaimed Mule Hollow series through Love Inspired, the place readers tell her they wish was real. She is currently working on her 24th book—a novella for Thomas Nelson. 

 

Today our most generous guest  is giving away THREE COPIES of Her Homecoming Cowboy!

Here's a sneak peek.



After losing his mother, Annie Ridgeway's sweet six-year-old nephew thinks he's an orphan. Turns out the father he never knew is bull rider Colt Holden—the boy's hero. Before bringing them together as father and son, Annie has to make sure Colt is as good a man as he is a cowboy. When she arrives in Mule Hollow, she finds the handsome, honorable man guarding his burdened heart against caring for anyone or anything. Will a little boy's devotion be the fighting chance they all need?



Winner announced in the Weekend Edition! So be sure to say hi, and let's chat about continuing series,characters, cowboys and how you keep it all straight.