THE CHARACTER JOURNEY

with guest Alicia Rasley

Janet here. I'm excited to have Alicia Rasley in Seekerville today. I've used her "The Story Within" workbook to help plot my stories. Today Alicia will be talking about the Character Journey as an effective way to plot. Here's Alicia!

Thank you, Janet and Seekerville, for hosting me! I like to write and talk about writing, plotting, and character. My writing/editing blog Edittorrent has many posts about elements of writing—come visit!

Today, I’d like to talk about one powerful way to shape your plot—around the character journey. This will make you more productive because you will have this major plot theme in mind as you design scenes. How does this event further the character’s journey? will be the question you keep in mind as you plot the scenes!

If you think of the plot as the protagonist's journey, you can overcome a lot of the Fear of Plotting. So let’s talk about the journey, and then connect it to the parts of the plot. 

WHAT IS HIS/HER JOURNEY?  

Think of the plot as the journey of this character to a new place in life... to some growth or change or understanding. In most popular fiction, this journey will be towards something more positive-- she will be a better person in the end than she was in the beginning. (In a tragedy, it will be from good to bad, or bad to worse, as with Hamlet.) 

Through the events of the plot and her own choices, the character will have grown towards greater awareness or greater strength or a better relationship with her family-- something positive. (Of course, there will be some books where the "growth" will be negative-- she starts out innocent and becomes corrupt, for example.) Before this series of events happened, she couldn't become that "new self," but afterwards, through the changes she has had to make because of the plot, she has changed within. Oh, yeah, she's also solved that mystery or won that gold medal or lost the contest or got a new job... whatever the external change is you've got planned.

There's a continual in-and-out between external and internal here-- the external events cause internal changes, which allow her to grow in a way that makes it more likely she'll resolve the external conflict. So one thing you'll want to identify is what you think your protagonist's journey is towards-- how he needs to grow and change. If you write inspirational fiction, you are probably already doing this, because you believe in the power of spiritual and emotional change.

Here are some generic journeys.  

Some Protagonist Journeys:  

Mystery to truth  

Fear to courage  

Doubt to decision (Hamlet)

 Revenge to justice  

Sin to redemption  

Isolation to alliance  

Denial of fate to acceptance of fate (Oedipus)  

Ambition to destruction (Macbeth)  

Exile to home (Odyssey)  

Delusion to realization  

Self-delusion to self-knowledge  

Deception to truth

Innocence to corruption  

Naivete to disillusion

Naivete to intelligence  

Smugness to humility (King Lear)  

Alienation to reconciliation  

Guilt to amends  

Shame to self-acceptance  

Self-deception to self-awareness  

Obsession to balance  

Here are some more detailed examples of actual protagonist journeys:

John starts out wanting revenge against the man who killed his father. The plot journey teaches him, however, that the situation was far more complicated than he imagined, and that vengeance might only destroy his own soul. So he ends up, instead of killing the man, turning him into the police. He travels from revenge to justice.   

Charity needs to be needed in the beginning of the book. That's how she knows she's loved, because her loved ones need her. She has to learn that she can be loved for who she is and not just what she does. So her journey is from giving-for-love to giving-into-love.   

Plotting the Three Acts through the Character Journey

Most stories break into three sections or “acts”:

1. Set up
2. Rising Action
3. Climax and Resolution

In my historical mystery, Natasha starts out avoiding the past, and ends up accepting the past. Of course, other things happen (she falls in love with a “frenemy” and together they solve a murder), but the major emotional change that allows everything else is from her avoidance of the past to her acceptance of the past.

Here’s how that plays out in the events of the plot:

Act 1: The past confronts Natasha, when a Russian servant from her childhood arrives at the inn. She avoids him.

Act 2: The past rises up: The servant is murdered that night, and Natasha is the most likely suspect, as she is the only other Russian person at the inn.

Act 3: In order to solve the murder, Natasha must finally relive and describe the traumatic event when she last saw the servant, during Napoleon’s invasion of their home country.

See how the beginning and end of the journey can be spread across the three acts of the plot.

In Act 1, the starting point of the journey is shown when Natasha specifically avoids the past in the form of the old servant.

            Note: The reader can’t guess the starting point of the journey without a bit of help from you! So look at your first or second scene. Can you show the character at the starting place somehow?

            Example: To show a character starting at “lack of trust,” you could have Tom in the first scene following the security guard around and making sure that the locks are indeed all locked. Then in the inciting incident, he could suspect that Sadie is lying when she warns him to stay home from work Tuesday.

           

In Act 2, the consequences of this starting point cause something to happen (usually in the external plot). This something is usually negative in some way, because, of course, we generally don’t change unless we have to! Natasha’s refusal to explain about her past leads to her being suspected in the murder.

            Note: Act 2 is about rising action or rising conflict, so the change event should be strong enough to force a perhaps-recalcitrant character into making a choice or action, not necessarily the right one—rising conflict can come from the character making a stubbornly wrong choice, like Natasha refusing to remember her past.

            Examples: What rising conflict could come from Tom’s refusal to trust?

Because he refuses to trust Sadie’s warning, he is captured by the bad guys.

External plot and internal plot are most effective when braided together

In Act 3, through the dark moment and the climax events, the character is confronted with the need to take the step that resolves some problem, and also completes the character journey. So Natasha finally reveals what happened that long-ago day in Russia, and in letting herself remember the past, she is able finally to figure out why this man from her past ended up murdered.  

            Note: Remember that the external plot (like the mystery) and the emotion/internal plot (the character journey) are most effective when they’re braided together. So see if you can make the events take her towards her destination, and her journey’s completion helping resolve the external plot.

            Example:  How can completing the character journey connect to the climax—the solution to the external plot?

When Tom sees Sadie with the kidnappers, he thinks at first that he was right all along—she’s untrustworthy. But then when she whispers she’s here to help him, he lets himself trust—and she helps him escape.

So let’s try that with your own story:

Journeys imply conflict and movement

Your protagonist is on a journey. The plot is the vehicle that gets him/her there. Now it’s your turn!  Look back up at that list of protagonist journeys. There are MANY more out there-- this is just a sample of sort of umbrella journey categories. You can make up your own! Notice that the journeys imply conflict and movement of some kind.  

Brainstorm from these questions:

1. So where does your character start, and where does he/she end up? 

2. What internal resonance does this have-- how does the journey change who this person is?

3. List a few steps your protagonist will have to take to complete this journey:

How is the starting point shown in Act 1?

In Act 2, what event(s) force the character into rising conflict around this journey issue?

In Act 3, how does the completion of the journey help this character resolve the external problem (and/or vice versa, how does resolving the external problem help the character complete the journey)?

      4. Any other thoughts or questions about your character’s journey?

So how does this work in your plot? If you think about your character’s journey, you’ll see ways to make this journey affect the external plot (the mystery or competition or whatever). Obviously, when the central character starts to change, how he acts and reacts will change too.

Want to brainstorm your character’s journey? Great! I want to create a free class in ways to plot with character and characterize through plot. (Yes, I know I need a catchier tag!) If you’d like to learn more about your own character’s journey, maybe help me explore different facets of this topic, visit me here at my new character journey blog. I’ll have a starting post, and you can comment to that, asking about your own story or telling your character’s “From-to” path, and maybe I can discuss that and make a post about it!

The giveaway for today is my book, Power of Point of View.  Comment to be entered into the giveaway!

Alicia Rasley loves to read, write, and talk about writing. Her plot book The Story Within explores the many ways character and plot can interact to create deeper and more meaningful stories.

In her own writing, Alicia has journeyed from Regencies to family sagas, and back again! Visit her website at www.aliciarasleybooks.com, and her writing blog at www.edittorrent.blogspot.com.

Sign up for my email newsletter for new Regency releases and get a free novella! http://books.noisetrade.com/aliciarasley/the-wilder-heart

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Biography

Alicia Rasley lives in Regency England-- well, no. She just writes about it! She lives in the American Midwest, surrounded by books about Regency England. Her Regency romances have won several awards, including the prestigious RITA for Best Regency Romance. She has also written women's fiction, mystery, and non-fiction books. She teaches writing online and at a state university, hoping to instill the love of commas into today's college students.

She lives in Indiana with her husband Jeff, a philanthropist/writer who does development work to benefit a remote Nepal village destroyed by the recent earthquakes. They have two grown sons, one an artillery officer, the other a technical supervisor for a reality TV company.

Amazon author page:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeffRasleyAndMidsummerBooks

                https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alicia-Rasley-author/718519868222011

Twitter: @aliciaregency

Books website. www.aliciarasleybooks.com

Pretty England pictures at Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/knowledgecapt/england-favorite-villages/

Edittorrent blog: http://www.edittorrent.blogspot.com.

- Craft of writing articles archived at www.sff.net/people/alicia/archive

Janet again. I'm serving corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast as I haven't had my fill of corned beef. For those of you who have there's an assortment of danish, along with tea, coffee and fresh berries. Leave a comment for Alicia's giveaway or for a chance to win a copy of my January release The Bounty Hunter's Redemption. 

 
     

Top Five Mistakes Authors Make in Proposals by Alicia Rasley

Let me start off with a dirty little secret: When you submit a proposal to editors or agents, you can't assume they'll read past the first page. I know, I know. It's not fair, etc. But let’s get real. They're really busy, and they have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of submissions a year. And their primary task in sorting through that slushpile is to reject most of the submissions so that they can go back to their real work (with the manuscripts they've already accepted).

Your job in submitting the proposal is to keep from giving them a reason to reject you quickly. You want the editor or agent to read through the whole proposal and ask for more, right? (Proposal for fiction is usually: Cover letter, short synopsis, first three chapters, but it's actually whatever they ask for in their guidelines.)

So here are the Top Five Mistakes that you might want to avoid:


1. Typos, especially in the query letter, and mechanical errors in the first page of the synopsis and chapters. I can hear you groaning. You KNOW this, right? You don't need to be told, right? Then why, I ask you, do I see so many submissions and contest entries with the sort of errors that make me cringe? I know, I know, those careless clueless submitters are not you. Agreed. But we don't know what we don't know, so if you're getting very quick rejections, you might go over your proposal word by word to make sure that you haven't got "Big Name Publishing Comporation" in the address heading of your coverpage, or "Napolean" seventeen times in your Napoleonic-era spy story. Typos jump right out and attack the eyes of editors and agents, and you don't want to cause that kind of anguish.

Typos aren't the only mechanical errors that make an editor or agent send a quick no. I've started keeping a list of what we call "the marks of the amateur," which clue us in quickly to the "not ready for primetimeness" of this submitter. That's mean, isn't it? But it's reality. So if you don't want to be typed as an amateur, it might help to find out what makes an editor brand a submission as from a newbie. For me, it's dialogue punctuation. I figure that if you've been reading for twenty or thirty years and have never noticed that there's a comma between the "she said" and the quotation mark, you probably aren't all that receptive to learning.

For a friend of mine who has served her time as an agent's assistant (facing hundreds of manuscripts, 99.9% of which she was supposed to divert – read "reject"-- before they got to the agent), the primary "mark of an amateur" comes when the author uses the character name in every sentence. "There's a reason they invented pronouns!" she points out. Her boss is famous for her sensitive "ear" for the melody and rhythm of prose, and nothing is as discordant as a constant repetition of a name.

Probably all editors and agents have their own "marks", whether they share them or not. How do you find out what they are? Well, first I'd suggest asking the editor or agent. They all have blogs these days. Send a question (anonymous if you think best) which says, "What mechanical error in a submission clues you in that this isn't an accomplished stylist?"

A few typos, even a couple grammar errors, will probably get by. But don't count on it. Just remember that an editor especially has to look forward to editing this book, and if there's a recurrent error in the first few pages, she's got to consider how much time it will take to fix every single dialogue passage, or switch out 90% of the hero's name checks with "he and him and his." You don't want the editor's dominant impression upon reading your proposal to be, "Life is too short."


2. The second mistake to avoid is coming across as crazy or obsessed, especially in the cover letter but also in the synopsis. While not every writer is crazy, I suspect just about every crazy person wants to be a writer, and their submissions slush up slushpiles. Most will get dinged because of mistake #1, but if they happen to be a very controlled obsessive, they might do everything right mechanically. Still the obsession will generally leak through in the cover letter, and if you're not crazy, you don't want to have the editor taking your impassioned and yet well-reasoned defense of the metric system as a signal that you are a crank.

Just remember that your cover letter is about your story, and your story is about the characters and what happens to them. Whatever obsession you have might have fueled the writing, and that's good. But keep the focus on the story, not your pet project.


This is about the story. This isn't about your life or your passion or your obsession. Of course, what has made you you will come out in your voice, story choice, and characters, but let those do the talking for you.


3. A confusing and/or boring synopsis. Well, first, let me say that you don't know whether the editor or agent will read your synopsis first or your chapters first. There isn't any rule. I tend to scan the synopsis quickly, just to make sure it's the sort of book my publisher will publish. If it's not, I'll send a quick rejection saying just that.

(Don't bother to send it if it's not the sort of thing this publisher publishes. I don't care if it's the second coming of Harry Potter—if we don't publish children's books, we're not likely to change our whole business and marketing plan for your book. Or maybe we will, but trust me, I'm not the one you need to talk to if you want that. WAY above my paygrade. Go over my head and right to the publisher—that's an actual position at most, uh, publishers. :)

Anyway, usually if I don't think much of the synopsis itself, I still will read the chapters. Plenty of great book writers are bad synopsis writers. However, a bad synopsis could derail your proposal because the editor doesn't make it to your book. So don't assume that the editor or agent will set aside an incoherent synopsis and judge just on the chapters. Make the synopsis as good as you can, given the length requirements.

Oh, right, mistakes to avoid. Well, the mistake is thinking that the synopsis is a summary of the PLOT. It should in fact be a summary of the STORY. What's the difference? Well, what's the difference between this:

Sheet music for Ave Maria

and this:

Pavarotti singing Ave Maria

The story is more than what happens. It's the journey of the characters, the emotion they experience, the theme and voice. All that should show up in your synopsis in some way. If this is a funny story, the synopsis should have humor. If the characters go through psychological agony, the synopsis should explore a bit of that.

I am aware, having written many of these damned things, that a synopsis is hard to get right. But having read even more of these damned things, I can tell you this: You will NOT write a good synopsis if you start with plot. I can just about guarantee this. The simplest plot sounds convoluted and tedious when you tell event and then event and then event. And if you have a truly complex plot? Well, I am going to get lost once you decide your job here is to give me a detailed map of the labyrinth.

So you might be asking, what do you write about if not what happens? You write about the situation (the small southern town "invaded" by freedom-riders in 1963) and you write about the characters (the African-American girl who has to integrate the high school, the politely racist shopowner who finds himself throwing rocks at her the first day of school, the college student from the North who joined the freedom-ride because he wanted to impress a liberal girlfriend).

You write about how things change, and yes, you'll probably talk some about the plot events because they show the changing. But if you start your writing with the plot events, you'll never get beyond that, and your synopsis will likely be as excruciating to read as it was to write. "This happened, then that happened"—that's the worst model for a synopsis, and yet most of them start there. Don't. Don't try to revise a bad synopsis. Start over, and this time, tell us about the characters and the situation and what is wrong and what changes and why.


4. And then in the opening of the first chapter, the most common big mistake is a lack of focus that results in confusion. I've read a lot of first pages where I'm exhausted just from trying to keep track of the names of nine characters and make sense of the situation, the people, the setting, the action, and the thoughts.

Look, the purpose of the first paragraph isn't too tell everything needed to understand the book. It's just to get us to read the second paragraph. :) But we probably won't read on if the first paragraph reads like this:

Aaron Cathcart ran his hand through his sweaty hair, gazed up at the Porter mansion on the hill, where it sat foreboding and grim against a dark sky, and began trudging up the gravel driveway towards the marble front steps. Along the way he passed a jasmine bush, and the pungent smell assaulted his nose. On either side of the door were footmen in the blue and purple Porter livery, and as he approached, they moved in unison to open the great oak doors so he could enter the hall.

Reading that, I've learned exactly one important thing—a character's name. Sure, I know there's a mansion, and it apparently belongs to the Porters, and they're rich enough to afford footmen. But I don't care, because I don't know if they matter to Aaron or if he just wants to use the phone to call the auto club.

Two things to remember about your opening: First, think of the opening as posing a question somehow that will tempt the reader into reading more. For example, the opening to Shirley Jackson's famous short story "The Lottery" poses the question, "What is this lottery they're gathering for?"

So the opening to Aaron's story could pose the question, "What's he afraid he'll find here?" or "Why is he entering the house of his enemy?"

But the question has to be relevant to the story. Think about what question you want the reader to ask, and see if you can set that question up with the first few paragraphs.

Second, focus the opening. You simply can't get everything in there, the setting, the characters, the situation, the backstory, and you end up leaving out important stuff like the conflict. Don't even try to be comprehensive here, or you'll just confuse. Think about one thing you want to introduce. But make it important. Think about starting with the character in some conflict.

Aaron Cathcart stared up at the Porter mansion on the hill. That was the last place he wanted to go, and the Porters were the last people he wanted to ask for help. And if it wasn't for the lady unconscious in his stalled car, he'd walk the two miles to the next town. But he had no choice, if he was going to save her life.

Conflict!

Or maybe you want to start with character:

Aaron Cathcart never asked for help. Nope, not now, not ever. He could take care of himself. That's what he had in place of religion, a stony self-sufficiency. And this afternoon, if he had any choice in the matter, he'd walk away, down the hill and away from his stalled car. But he didn't have any choice, because he didn't have the right to let the lady die for his principles.

Or you could start with setting:

The Porter mansion stood grim on a barren hill, the ugliest site in this pretty county. It had a sort of grotesque pride up there, surrounded by a gravel drive and a flat expanse of lawn, the gray tiles of the roof blank against the dark sky. No one could want to be there, and yet the Porter family had lived there for decades, when they could surely afford something else.

But focus on something. Don't try to get everything into the first paragraph. After all, the whole point is to get the reader to read the second paragraph, where presumably will be other important information happening.


5. Limping to a conclusion. Usually in a proposal you send the first three chapters of the book. Agents especially are known to vary this—they might ask for the first chapter or the first fifty pages. At any rate, too many submitters are sending in proposals where the very last sentence or word don’t do anything to inspire the agent to ask for more. You don’t want your proposal to limp to a conclusion!

Again, think about your purpose in submitting this proposal—it’s to get the agent or editor to ask to see the whole book. So that last bit they read is your last chance to make them want more. They probably won’t want more if you:

• End in the middle of a line just because that’s the end of the fifty pages.

• End on a boring note, like “She took a shower and went to bed.”

• End on a resolution, like “He smiled, realizing that he’d finally won.”

First thing to recognize is—they might determine what a proposal is, but you’re the one who determines what that is FOR YOU. If she says she wants three chapters, you don’t actually have to stop exactly at the point before “Chapter Four.” You can manipulate a bit here. Let’s say that the first two chapters are long and action-packed, and the third is more clean-up and transition to the turning point in Chapter Four. Well, you can take those two chapters and make them three! Just divide them differently. For most of us, chapter divisions are fairly arbitrary—a chapter might be three scenes, might be two—and you can divide them differently to make more or fewer chapters.
Second trick—if you’re given a page limit, you can make tiny changes to get more into that 50 pages (or fewer). If you generally use Courier 12, try Times New Roman 12, which is about 15% smaller but is still 12 point, don’t ask me why. So that will give you 3-4 more pages to work with. Yes, all the agents know this, but unless they specifically say “no TNR,” go for it.

Of course, that’s only useful if those 3-4 extra pages are going to be a nice come-on. That’s the third trick. Whatever you need to do to make this work, end the proposal on something intriguing, something that captures the reader’s attention. A cliffhanger works here for high-action books, but a quieter book might need a mere suggestion of conflict or irresolution, something that makes the editor look around for the next page, and, not finding it, send you a request for the complete manuscript. Often this requires another sentence or paragraph at the end of a seeming resolution.

Like take that one above:
He smiled, realizing that he’d finally won. But as he was leaving the room, he looked back at Mary. Wait a minute. If he’d been the one to win, why was she the one laughing triumphantly?

So don’t limp to a conclusion of your proposal. Make sure the end of the chapters is an invitation to read on. A hint of conflict, an irresolution, will help encourage the editor or agent to ask for the rest.



Bio:
Alicia Rasley is an award-winning author, a nationally known writing teacher, and an acquiring editor for a small fiction press. She blogs about writing and editing at www.edittorrent.blogspot.com, and her many fiction articles are archived at www.rasley.com. Her book The Power of Point of View and her plotting guidebook The Story Within, are both available on her website. Her latest novel, The Year She Fell, is a new release from Bell Bridge Books.


The book trailer for The Year She Fell can be viewed here.





Alicia has generously offered to give away a copy of The Power Of Point of View: Make Your Story Come to Life.

The Power of Point of View explores the complex but essential subject of character Point of View in an interactive and non-judgmental fashion. It's for you if you want more than just "first-person/third person", and if you're tired of rules and are ready to make your own decisions about POV in your own story.


Winner announced in the Weekend Edition

Janet's Writing Process, Warning: Not for the faint of heart

I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hear about how I write books. The process varies, is ugly and too often throws me into self-doubt and torment. But if you relate to that, perhaps it’ll help to know you’re not alone. Or, maybe reading my process will give you great satisfaction, knowing yours is neater and far more productive. In that case, grab this chance to feel smug. They don't come often.

What I write: Inspirational historical romances for my wonderful publisher Steeple Hill Love Inspired Historical.

Where I write: I write at my computer, a desk top, in my office on a balcony overlooking our living room with a great view of the outside world. I used to write in a bedroom, staring at a blank wall. Both work. I often forget to look at much more than my screen anyhow. I even have a Post-It note on my monitor to remind me to blink. But when I get up to replenish my water or for a stretch, I may see a blue heron and stop and admire him. Now geese.... Well, I won't insult our Canadian friends. I don't write away from home. I can barely type on a laptop. To use one I have to attach a full-sized keyboard. I'm sure I'd be banned from coffee shops so I don't go there except to meet my critique partner.

I take hard copy and craft books to more comfortable spots in the house to read. This room right off my office is furnished with my great-grandparents' wicker furniture and my mother-in-law's two dolls and some ladyhead vases, all the girly stuff I love.

When I write: I write for the length of time it takes to reach my daily word count. If I don’t make my goal, I catch up on Saturday. Saturday is the day, if we're home, that I do writing-related jobs like promotion. I try to take Sundays off except when deadlines loom. I don’t write on vacations. Again that laptop thing. But I read and revise manuscripts when I'm away. I love doing this stuff in a car. Need I say I'm not driving? LOL

How I write: I get the germ of an idea for my story. Germs are catchy. I catch mine from historical nuggets. Well, usually. An article on the orphan train phenomenon was the germ for the first two books, Courting Miss Adelaide and Courting the Doctor’s Daughter. A curiosity about mail-order brides led to research that planted the seed for The Substitute Bride. A story idea may come from or be enriched by historic social issues like suffrage, as seen in Courting Miss Adelaide. Or as in my March 2011 novel, Wanted: A Family, an interest in how society viewed unwed mothers years ago as compared to today.

But just having a slice of history or a look at mores doesn’t get me far. Next I play the “What If?” game. I look for something big, something universal that readers care about and can identify with even today. What if...a single woman saw the orphan train as her only way to mother a child? What if...the father of an adopted child in your care showed up in town? Taking a slightly different angle: What circumstances would make a woman desperate enough to marry a stranger? What happens when Christians rank sin?

Once I’ve got a feel for the direction of my story, I decide on my setting, not difficult since I write small-town stories set in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Sounds easy and up till now it is.

The planning stage: After this, I name my characters and decide on their goals, their motivation and take a stab at their conflicts. I don’t have much success with character sheets. I can’t seem to think about my story or my characters in the early phase without writing. Internal conflicts are fun. I love making up all the experiences (back story) that would give a character a false sense of self or an inability to move on with their lives. External conflicts are hard for me, especially book-length conflicts. I often stumble at this point. When I do, I brainstorm with Seekers or my critique partners, or think about tried and true conflicts like two dogs with one bone that will make the characters change and grow. And that will impact the reader, perhaps even make her change and grow too.

Usually the inciting incident comes to me, kind of out of the blue. I have never been given a story as some authors state, but I do get a snippet of an incident that kick-starts the story and brings the hero and heroine together. Examples of the inciting incident that brought the hero and heroine together: In Courting Miss Adelaide, Adelaide asks for an orphan. The hero is on the selection committee. In Courting the Doctor’s Daughter, Mary distrusts patent medicines. The hero is peddling his remedy. I try to charge the inciting incident with emotion or conflict. The character's goal in the inciting incident is rarely the characters’ book-length goal but needs to hook the reader.

The book-length goal comes next or perhaps I have it all along. No absolutes in my process. Callie’s goal in my March 2011 release, Wanted: A Family is to make her house safe so she can house unwed mothers, but the goal expands to working to change community judgment of these young women.

At the point where I have a book-length goal and characters, I run a blurb of the story idea past my editor in an e-mail. I learned the value of doing this when I wrote a proposal that my editor rejected.

Once I get approval, usually in a day or two, I write or continue writing the first three chapters and synopsis. Getting the book into a synopsis before I write the story is really hard for me—deciding the turning points, setbacks, black moment and climax of the story, all the things I must give my editor before we go to contract. I’m not sure I fit into either a Seat of the Pants or plotter category.

During the synopsis phase, I feel like a wanderer lost in the wilderness without a compass. Yes, I have lots resources, craft books and techniques that help. One of my favorite craft tools is Alicia Rasley’s The Story Within Guidebook that’s interactive exercises help to trigger ideas. But I still flounder around until I get a sense of the book. I also do research to make sure what I want to have happen in my story is historically feasible. It's upsetting to find out it isn't, but far better now than later. I told you this was ugly.

Once the proposal is accepted and a deadline set, I divide the number of words I have to write by the time allotted me, writing five days a week. My goal is to have the story written with a month or maybe two to revise so I shorten my deadline to accomplish that. As the deadline approaches, I’m at my desk 24/7. I want to learn to write faster to avoid this pressure as its draining.

Writing the book: I have some scenes I know I want to write that involve major events, but I try to make sure that scenes spring from the characters. To do that, I give the point of view character a goal in the scene that stems from events in the previous scene and relates to the book-length goal. Boy that's a mouthful. I hope that makes sense. At the end of the scene, the character either fails to get the goal or getting it makes things worse in some way. Now this has again really hard for me. As the author, I’m tempted to have my own goal for the scene, but I’m learning that can make the writing episodic or if there's no goal, I can end up with a tea scene, which may show characterization, let’s say, but nothing happens to forward the plot. If you want to read more in Seekerville that I wrote about writing scenes based on the character’s goal, go here. When I get stuck, I reread the book from the beginning. I cannot write a rough draft all the way through to save me. I know I should, but I am too anal to ignore stuff that bothers me. This doesn’t mean that when I finish a manuscript that it's ready. It still needs loads of polishing.

Revising: After the bulk of the book is written, I read it all the way through and jot notes to myself on what to fix. If I’m pressed for time, I read on the computer though hard copy is the best way to catch errors. I look at word choice--try to use stronger words and get rid of repetitive words. I look for ways to up conflict, add emotion and sexual tension. I try to enrich senses/setting. I rewrite to get rid of passive voice and telling. I look to see if I can bring the beginning and the ending full circle--tie it together some way. The list is long.

The story rarely ends up as the synopsis promised. Thankfully it usually has more depth, more issues that arise and hopefully more surprises for the reader.

Did you notice I didn't once mention a spreadsheet, Pam and Myra? LOL Yep, we're all different. If you managed to hang in through all that, leave a comment for a chance to win a $20 Starbucks gift card. I’d love to hear how you write. Hey, I'm looking for tips to make my process easier. Bottom line, writing isn’t easy. But a book finished is oh, so satisfying.

I brought veggie omelets, hot coffee and Lady Gray tea. We're eating on the patio so pull up a chair and let's talk writing.

Happy writing!

Janet