Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 70

A Post for New Writers: Starting With An Idea

Someone asked me if I would do some blog posts on writing. Since some people who read my books have told me they are either thinking of writing or are in the process of writing their own books, I though this topic might interest enough people to make it worth making a series of blog posts.

Photo Once Upon a Time Pen Ink – © Clarsen55 | Dreamstime.com

So you have an idea for a story.  Where do you go from there?

1.  Expand your idea to get a better feel for the story that is developing.

Start looking into possible scenarios that could develop in your story.  This is a brainstorming session.  Everything is on the table.  Ask lots of questions.  Let your imagination run wild.  If you write them all down, you won’t forget them later, but there are times when no pen is handy (like if you’re driving on the interstate).  So what I try to do in these situations is play the idea out as a movie in my mind to help me remember it.

Let’s say this is my idea: I want to write a story about a married couple who are seriously thinking about getting a divorce, but they hesitate to because of their daughter.

From there you brainstorm smaller ideas to go with this main one.  Like this: Perhaps, the husband is a work-a-holic, and the wife feels neglected.  Maybe she was tempted to cheat but didn’t, but maybe he believes she did.  (Why?  That would have to be developed in the story.)  So at the moment, they’re separated as they try to figure out what to do.

Okay, so you have a few ideas.  These ideas are not set in stone, and you don’t have to have all the answers to all your questions.  It’s actually good if you don’t because these ideas may change as you write the book.  What this does is gives you a brief sketch of what you’re working with.

2.  The next thing you want to do is pick a beginning point.

What will your opening scene be?  I suggest actually writing the beginning scene out.  It doesn’t have to be complete.  It doesn’t have to be completely fleshed out.  All you’re doing it getting an summary of what happens.  It should be at least a few hundred words long so you get a good grasp for it.

The reason for this summary is to help you set the tone for the rest of the book, and from it, you might come up with other ideas you hadn’t considered before.

For example, let’s use my idea.  I’ve decided the husband is going to be driving in the rain on a deserted winding road.  He has to periodically slow down because of the storm, and there is an occasional lightning bolt in the sky and thunder rumbling, which makes him jump.  He’s running late from a business meeting, but he is in a hurry. He’s on his way to pick up his daughter who has been staying at a friend’s house.  He will have her stay with him for the weekend.  He’s anxious because he’s running late, and he feels guilty, even though it wasn’t his fault the meeting ran late.   When he gets to the house, he doesn’t see any of the lights on, and it looks as if no one has lived in it for years.  He pulls out his phone to make sure he got the right address.  He did.  Since no other houses are on the road, he gets out of the car and ignores the rain as he goes to the front door.  He knocks on it, the door opens, and we fade out.  The next scene will be with the wife.  (Yep, I cut the scene off intentionally to make the reader want to keep reading to find out what will happen to him.)

3.  Now pick an ending.  This can be vague.

In romance, you know the ending.  The hero and heroine end up together.  This is a must for romance readers. If the story doesn’t have a happy ending, it’s a love story.  It is not a romance.  I specify this only because there seems to be some confusion among writers unfamiliar with the genre.  Do not classify your love story as a romance unless it has a happy ending where the hero and heroine end up together.  Anything else will piss off your audience.

In other genres, you can have a happy or sad ending.  There might even be some twist at the end that the reader doesn’t expect.

At this point, your ending might read something like this: The heroine finally has the long awaited baby.  Or this: our team of heroes defeat the bad guy and save the day.  Or maybe even this: I don’t know, but I want it to be a happy one.

Something should be in mind to give you a direction to aim for while you write the story.

***

Next time, I’ll continue on with taking your story idea and picking the appropriate genre for it.

Upcoming Posts for New Writers

Here’s the list of posts I’ve drafted so far.  If anyone can think of anything to add, please let me know.  These are for new writers, either never been published or new to publishing.  I am not going into marketing and book promotion.  This is more about writing the story.

I will start posting these later this week, and I’ll post one a week.

1.  Starting with an Idea

2.  Picking your Genre

3.  Backstory

3.  Point of View

4.  Characters are the Heart of the Story

5.  Your Setting (aka World) – The Character is Always Key

6.  If The Scene Doesn’t Add to the Story, Throw It Out

7.  What if You Get Stuck

8.  What to Do If You Don’t Know What Comes Next (this does piggyback off the one above)

9.  There is No Perfect Time to Write so Write Today

10.  What if You Never Finish a Story?

Updates On What I’m Doing

I’ve been pressing my nose to the grindstone (as they say), but I’m having a lot of fun so it feels like I’ve been playing. :)

1.  I got all the preorder links up on this page on this blog.

I am only able to offer preorders on iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.  Smashwords says you can add it to your library, but I don’t think that’s exactly the same thing as a preorder.  I’ve added books in preorder to my library over there, but I can’t remember if I got an email when the book went live or not.  So I’m not sure how it works over there.

2.  I will be doing a series of posts for beginning writers.

After posing a question on Facebook about what kind of posts people wanted to see on this blog, I found out one person is a new writer who would like some posts done on where to go with her idea.  Since I know some people who read my books (and this blog) are either thinking about or have started writing books, I thought I’d go ahead and work on some posts.  I have drafted three posts so far, but I want to go back over each post before I publish them on the blog.

To give you an idea of what I’m doing, the first post focuses on where to go from a single idea.  The second post will be about picking the correct genre for the idea.  The third is on the subject of backstory–why you should avoid it at the beginning of your story, how to hint at it to intrigue the reader, and what you should do instead of filling backstory into the beginning of the book.  The fourth post will be on staying in a character’s point of view.  I’ll see what else I can come up with, but in the meantime, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to comment.

I plan to start publishing these posts next week and will probably schedule one a week so it’s not so much information hitting all at once.

3.  Progress on My Writing and Publishing Schedule.

This is in the very final round of edits.  I am currently at chapter 13 in my final read through, and I’ll be getting it from the last editor soon.  I expect to have it turned into Smashwords around August 15 or 16.  I want to get it ready in plenty of time for the release date of September 28.

I have gone through the initial edits on this book and have sent the second draft to my awesome editing team.  Two of the three people have already turned it back to me, but I won’t be getting back to it until August 17.    This is set for release on October 12.

I’m over halfway through this book, and I’m pleasantly surprised by how well it’s going.  There were a few days where it was hard to decide what to do with this story.  I did tons of brainstorming.  But now I know where I’m going.  I expect to be done with the first draft around August 17-20.  My editing team will get a little breathing room on this one since it’s not due out until November 16.  I know they’re breathing a sigh of relief. :) I work my team hard. They really are an awesome group of ladies.

I plan to start this book on September 1.

A Royal Engagement Lesson #1: A Queen Should Be Graceful At All Times

ID 40319881 © Visivasnc | Dreamstime.com

 

From the diary of Ann Kerwin (heroine in A Royal Engagement):

Being the queen of an entire planet can’t be easy.  And what’s worse is that I’m not up to the challenge.  I know Hathor thinks I am, but he’s wrong.  I’ve seen queens on TV and in the movies, and they are always graceful.  Always.  But that is not me.  At all.  Case in point, the scene below where Hathor and I were in a cave that was really weird…

Ann looked down. The ground appeared to be made of steel, but it was hard to maintain balance on it since it felt like the material used in bouncy houses. She let go of Hathor and tried to take a step forward, but she landed flat on her behind. Her face warm, she glanced over at him, wondering if he would laugh, but he didn’t.

Extending his hand to her, he helped her up. As much as she wasn’t comfortable with a stranger putting his arms around her shoulders and supporting her as she fumbled across the floor like an idiot, she supposed it couldn’t be helped.

“Some queen I’m going to be,” she said as she stumbled again so that she was pressed right up against his side. “I can’t even walk without your help.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s the cave. Nothing in here will follow logic.”

            She continued down the passage with him, still losing her balance from time to time. It wasn’t her intention to prove how ungraceful she could be, but it seemed that she was proving it all the same.

***

Or the scene when Hathor and I were thrown into the Great Prison…

Ann barely had time to see what was behind the door when someone pushed her. Startled, she screamed as she slid down a metal slide. The thing seemed to go on forever, and there was nothing but darkness in front of her, which made the whole thing even creepier. But then she caught a glimmer of light up ahead. She didn’t have time to figure out where it led, though, because it seemed that as soon as she saw it, she landed—hard—on a steel floor.

            This time she didn’t land flat on her behind. No, this time she landed face first on the floor with her butt sticking right up in the air. Oh yeah. She was very much the queen no matter how she fell.

And that’s just two cases where I lacked grace under pressure.  *sighs*  Why was I chosen for this role?  I was much better off in college, even if the professor put me to sleep.

More lessons to come over the next few weeks.  In the meantime, the book will be available September 28.  I decided to give it another month to allow more time for me to work in writing His Convenient Wife between final edits.  (I’m currently halfway into His Convenient Wife.)

If you’d like to preorder A Royal Engagement, I now have the links where you can do so and will post those below:

iBooks

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

My Writing, Editing, and Publishing Schedule up to March 2015

Last week, I spent considerable time and attention to getting preorders established on iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  (This is not available for me on Amazon, Flipkart, or other sites.)  I’ll be posting links to preorders soon.

Below is the list of books coming out and when I’ll be working on them.  The most frequent question I get is what I’m working on (and when) and when the books will be available, so I wanted to get this list up on this blog. :)

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A Royal Engagement – To Be Published on September 28

Editing – Now

Polished Version Turned in by August 15

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Just Good Friends – To Be Published on October 12

First Draft Done

Editing – August 1-30

Polished Draft Turned in by August 31

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His Convenient Wife – To Be Published on November 16

Writing right now

First Draft Done – August 31

Editing – September 1-28

Polished Version Done – September 30

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Love Lessons With The Duke – To Be Published on January 3

Writing – September 1 – 21

First Draft Done by September 30

Editing – October 1 to October 31

Polished Version Done by November 15

***

A Groom’s Promise – an anthology (Publishing Date Unknown)*
Cover Coming Soon

Writing – October 1-20

First Draft Done by October 31

Editing – whenever Janet Syas Nitsick is done with her book

*Publication Depends on when this anthology is done and the publisher is ready to publish it.

***

Royal Hearts – To Be Published on March 21

Writing – November 1-20

First draft done by – December 1

Editing – January 1-31

Polished Version Done by February 15

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Shane’s Deal – Due out in February or March*
*Publisher Decides The Exact Date

Writing – December 1-20

First Draft Done by – December 31

Editing – January 1-30

***

To Be Determined

Not sure what is going on with this one, so I’m holding off on saying anything about it until I know.

Patty’s Gamble is Now in iBooks

I finally noticed Patty’s Gamble is on iBooks, so I’m posting the link below for those interested. :)

As a quick side note: I’ll be posting my publishing schedule from now to March 2015 in a couple of days.

Going to do a Preorder for a Couple of Future Books

I haven’t done a preorder since last year, but then I was thinking that there could be some situations where having a book on preorder might be a good idea.

And this is why:

1.  Some people don’t want to be on my email list for new releases.  With all the emails flooding someone’s inbox, one more can be a pain to sort through.  Also, it’d be easy to miss or end up in spam.

2.  Maybe someone doesn’t want to be notified when a historical western comes out because they only want to read contemporaries?  I write three sub-genres in romance, and not everyone wants to read all of them.

3.  Some people might change email address and won’t receive the new release email.

4.  Some people might prefer to get the book as soon as it’s out without waiting for me to find the book is available and go through the process of notifying everyone.  I try to be quick when I publish books, but sometimes I don’t get to it for a couple days (thanks to kids or something else popping up).

Okay, so given all these very good reasons, I thought I’d start offering some books as a preorder on iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords and see how things go.  I can’t offer it on Amazon or anywhere else at this point in time.

I want to make things as convenient and easy for you as I can, and I’m hoping this will be something that is useful.  At least, it’s worth a try to see how things go.  I’ll be posting links for the preorders soon.

Just Good Friends: First Draft Finished!

I just finished the first draft tonight, and like I am with all books, I’m really excited. :D

This didn’t go exactly the way I thought it would when I made the initial outline.  The basic premise stayed the same: two best friends pretend to be romantically interested in each other in order to get her parents to back off about her finding a husband.  But the way things played out didn’t really follow that outline.

There was a wrench my main characters threw my way that made me toss out 80% of the outline. (I can’t really say what in case I spoil the book.)  But what I can say is that there were a few times when I was worried my hero and heroine weren’t going to pull off the romance like they were supposed to.  Fortunately, they did in the end, but man, I had my doubts.  LOL  I am breathing a huge sigh of relief.

I spent most of my time writing by the seat of my pants and hoping everything would work out as I went along.  I just can’t do it.  I am not an outline type of writer.  I know some writers swear by this, but it doesn’t work for me.  And I’ve learned that until I’m at the 25,000 to 30,000 word point (which is about halfway) into a book, I can’t sprint it either.

I don’t know if I am scaring my editing team or not since I have another book done, but I wanted to warn them (since they read my blog posts) that I’ll be bugging them about going over this book in August.    I’ve been working these poor people hard this summer.  There was Patty’s Gamble, The Earl’s Secret Bargain, and A Royal Engagement.  And I’m about to come at them with this book.

The Earl’s Secret Bargain: Link to iBooks

I checked this morning and saw The Earl’s Secret Bargain was already up on iBooks at Apple, so I thought I’d post the link below. I don’t see Patty’s Gamble there yet, but I’ll keep an eye out for it.

The Earl's Secret Bargain - Ruth Ann Nordin">iBooks

The Earl’s Secret Bargain is Now Available!

Do you remember the conversation in His Reluctant Lady where Christopher is trying to prove to Agatha that he trusts her enough to tell her a secret?  In case you don’t, here’s a quick excerpt:

“All right,” he said, “I’ll concede to your challenge. You want to know something that only the gentlemen in White’s know? I’ll share a confidence with you. Lord Davenport has made a bet with Lord Pennella. The wager? The hand of Miss Giles. Whoever marries her first owes the loser his estate.”

Her jaw dropped and she made eye contact with him. “An entire estate for a marriage?”

“Now I don’t seem like such a bad gentleman, do I? I’d never make a wager on you.”

She couldn’t believe it. Poor Miss Giles. Agatha would hate it if someone made such a bet on her. Posting this in the Tittletattle would be a service to Miss Giles. She needed to know what Lords Davenport and Pennella were up to. Then she could send both earls off in disgust and find one who wouldn’t treat her no better than an object.

It was at that moment, I knew I’d be writing about Lord Davenport and Miss Giles.

And now their story is ready!

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

I’m not sure when it’ll be on other sites like Apple iBooks, Flipkart, Oyster, or Scribd. Those usually take longer.

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Also, at last check Patty’s Gamble is still not on Apple iBooks.  I will do a post when it is, and I’ll post when The Earl’s Secret Bargain is on Apple iBooks, too, since I know quite of a few of you read iBooks.