God Bless the Broken Road that led me straight to a book - 3 Tips to Walking the Broken Road

I’m writing a novella collection with three other authors.

No, it’s more than that. I’m writing THREE novella collections with two different sets of three ladies.

I hope as I've gone through this process I've learned a few things and guess what lucky group (of Seekervillagers) get to hear about it?

Four authors trying to decide what to write is fun...but it’s also complicated.

The first novella collection is: A Bride for All Seasons, releasing mid-June and TODAY is the first ever in the known universe giveaway of A Bride for All Seasons. The three authors involved with me are Robin Lee Hatcher, Margaret Brownley and Debra Clopton. Brainstorming these books has been about the most fun brainstorming experience of my life.

I like brainstorming. I like how one idea inspires another and jumps to another until in the end you may have something so completely different than you started with that you’re not even sure how you got there.

In brainstorming A Bride for All Seasons, Margaret Brownley had an idea in her ‘maybe someday’ file about the owner of The Hitching Post Mail Order Bride Catalogue . Melvin Hitchcock reads letters from those looking to get hitched and knows he can do better. So a few quick additions or subtractions from the letters and he can match up almost anyone.

Unfortunately this leads to:
1. A heroine who travels halfway across the country to meet her fiancé, who’s dead.
2. A fervent Christian showing up to meet a man who specifically requested no ‘Bible thumpers’.
3. A woman showing up in a rough and tumble mining town with her two children in tow, to meet a man who never wants kids.
4. And a tough little Irishwoman marrying a man who specifically told her he was dying and only wanted to marry to find a mother for his children…except that part of the letter got thrown out.

Once Margaret tossed her idea into the hat we made three firm decisions

1.  The books need to be very loosely connected.  The more slight the connections, the less we had to know about each other’s books. The only connection is Hitch, who gets about a page in each of our books at the beginning to work his mischief. We had to know his name and maybe how he looked and his meddling proclivities, but that was all. We were free to write.

2.   Despite the books being so loosely tied, we needed a theme beyond ‘Mail Order Bride’ and we decided to each pick a season of the year. I’m winter. The books in this collection are:  Then Came Spring by Margaret Brownley, An Ever-After Summer by Debra Clopton, Autumn’s Angel by Robin Lee Hatcher and Winter Wedding Bells by Mary Connealy. The books are spread all over the country in the year 1870.

3.   Let one author take the lead and do most of the communicating with the publisher. We aren’t hard and fast with this, and maybe one would be in charge for a while and, if a deadline looms, let someone else deal with things. A Bride for All Seasons is published by Thomas Nelson and Robin and Margaret are both with them for their longer books, so those two took turns asking questions or being on the receiving end of most information we needed. Thomas Nelson was great to work with and they absolutely would talk with each of us individually and as a group. I’ve gone to them when I had a question or idea, but mostly we let one author ask the questions, then pass the info along to the rest of us.

My second novella collection is A Match Made in Texas, coming in January from Bethany House with Karen Witemeyer, Carol Cox, Regina Jennings and me, then a third with Robin, Margaret and Debra again, in summer 2014. The novella with Karen, Carol and Regina was a little different. I love what we wrote but we set the books with a starting-off point in the same town.

This took more work than we anticipated. All sort of things really mattered. There was  a sewing circle in this small town and it was the center of the women’s activities. It was only obvious that each book should refer to that circle and if one of our heroines wasn’t involved in it, since nearly everyone was, there needed to be a good reason. We needed a layout for the town. A name for Main Street businesses if a character in our books entered the General Store or the bank.

My heroine is a school teacher, so where is the school house? Where is the church. We created a map to layout the town using an Excel spread sheet. Mostly this wasn’t really important information, but still it was necessary.

In a couple of the books it didn’t matter at all because they begin with the heroine out of town or leaving town. But still, once I knew the name of the General Store, and that the bank was almost directly across the street from it, I needed to let my co-authors know. A good example of the trouble we had, that was fixed through solid editing from Bethany House, was weather. This was near Amarillo, Texas. I had a really cold weather scene. Someone else had a winter scene that wasn’t quite so bitterly cold. Guess who thinks winter in Texas is colder than anyone else? Me! I had to re-write a scene that was centered around the cold weather.

We got the second Novella written. And we had fun doing it. A Match Made in Texas contains: A Cowboy Unmatched by Karen Witemeyer, An Unforeseen Match by Regina Jennings, No Match for Love by Carol Cox and Meeting Her Match by Mary Connealy

If we intertwine the books too closely, we need to hammer out details and go back and forth a lot more. I like that they intertwine but it’s a more difficult way to write a collection.

LEAVE A COMMENT TO GET YOUR NAME IN THE DRAWING FOR A BRIDE FOR ALL A SEASONS. Let's talk about series and/or collections. Either ones you've written yourself or with others. And also series/collections you've read. Do you like them closely connected? What works for you and what doesn't? What's your favorite series, either regular length or novella length?

A little bit about A Bride for All Seasons coming June 18th and available now for preorder:

It All Started with an Ad in a Mail Order Bride Catalogue…Melvin Hitchcock of the Hitching Post Mail Order Bride Catalog isn’t dishonest—not exactly. If he tweaks his clients’ applications a bit, it’s because he’s looking out for their best interests.

A Bride for All Seasons--Four Hitching Post prospects in the year 1870, each one eager for second chances . . . and hungry for happiness. Year in, year out, they’ll learn that love often comes in unexpected packages.

And Then Came Spring by Margaret Brownley

Mary-Jo has been unlucky all her life. But who would guess she’d travel halfway across the country to meet her match . . . only to find him dead!

An Ever-After Summer by Debra Clopton

Ellie had no idea she’s not what Matthew ordered. And what’s wrong with being a “Bible thumper” anyway? She’s determined to show him she’s tougher than she looks—and just the girl he needs.

Autumn’s Angel by Robin Lee Hatcher

Luvena would be perfect for Clay if she didn’t come with kids. But kids are a deal breaker, especially in a rough-and-trouble mining town. The trouble is, there’s no money to send them back. . . 

Winter Wedding Bells by Mary Connealy

David’s convinced he’s not long for the world. He needs someone to mother his boys when he’s gone—nothing more. Can plucky Irish Megan convince him to work at living instead of dying?

http://www.maryconnealy.com/