Rachel Aaron's Blog, page 34

How I Plot A Novel in 5 Steps

By popular request (ok, 1 person, but they're populace, so that makes it popular, right?) I've put together a step by step process for how I go from "Hey I should write a novel" to "Ok, let's get writing!" Though I managed to get things grouped into steps, what I've really done is labeled and applied order to the phases I go through as I work toward the point where I feel I know enough about a book to start writing. Some parts of my process may seem a bit obsessive, but the most important part of writing fast is knowing as much as you can about what you're writing before you write it, and that means lots and lots of planning.

Planning a novel takes me anywhere from a few days to weeks. Usually I plan while I'm working on other things, like editing, but I've also had whole weeks where I did nothing but put a story together. I should say that I plan far more novels than I actually end up writing. My computer is littered with the cast off husks of half started worlds. I consider this a normal part of the process. If you do it right, planning is where you uncover all the things that are wrong with that idea you thought was so amazing last week. Sometimes these faults are workable, other times it's better to just move on. Even so, it's way better to discover a novel isn't as strong as you thought at the planning stage instead of 3 chapters in. Not every idea deserves to be a novel.

Well, enough of that. You came to see how I plan novels. So, best as I can articulate something that changes for every book, here is my general process. I really hope everyone finds something useful they can take away to help organize and speed up their own writing system.



Disclaimer: Unlike my other posts, which I think will work for anyone, parts of this method are personal and might be right for your books. Feel free to cut, expand, or add steps to my process where ever you feel you should.


Step 0: Decide what book to write!
This is one of those decisions that seems obvious but can get you into a lot of trouble if you don't give it the respect it deserves. When you sit down to write a book, you are embarking upon a very large project. As such, the first question you should be asking yourself is "Is this actually the story I want to spend my time on?" You don't need to have the plot or characters set up at this stage, but you do need a certainty that the book idea floating in your head is something that will not only interest you for the time it takes to write, edit, and polish a manuscript, but will, once finished, do whatever it is you want your book to do (i.e., get an agent, please your editor, sell fantastically, etc.). Your time is precious, don't waste it on a project you're not excited about or doesn't work toward your goals.

While not actually part of the planning process, this step is really, really important. Don't skip it, and try a couple of projects on for size before settling down. Remember, you can always switch projects later, but invested time can never be recovered, so do yourself a favor and think things through before you spend weeks working on a world you're not actually interested in writing about.

Step 1: Get Down What You Already Know
Now that I've decided what novel I want to write, the first thing I do is write down everything I already know about the book. These are usually the ideas that exploded into my mind and made me want to write the story in the first place. Sometimes it's a character or situation, sometimes it's a magical system or a setting. Whatever it is, I write it down quickly and efficiently. I don't bother with details and I don't force myself to write past the initial flash of interest. This is just getting down the rough idea of what excites me the most about this book, what makes it special.

I use this step to codify and organize what I already know about my world, characters, and plot, which is usually very little. But, by putting this very little down, I have laid a basic framework and can now see the holes I need to fill in before any actual writing can begin.

Step 2: Lay Down The Basics
This is the part of the process where I figure out the bare bones of the three pillars of story - characters, plot, and setting. You know, that High School English stuff. Since I use Scrivener to write (amazing program), I just make a folder for each of these topics and throw everything remotely related underneath, but you don't have to do that. So long as you can keep your notes straight, any system will do.

Now, what bare bones am I talking about? Here's my list:

For Characters, I need: The Main Characters (usually 2-4), the Antagonists (usually at least 2), and the Power Players (as many as needed). The numbers are very subjective and change from book to book, but you get the idea. MCs and Antagonists are self explanatory, but Power Players are the people in the story who are not for the MCs or against them, but are never-the-less very important to the setting. These are the people who move and shake in the world. Think Etmon Banage in my Eli Monpress books or Dumbledore in Harry Potter. You know, the BIG names.
Now, I'm not doing detailed character sheets yet, I'm just getting down the basics - names, what they want, and the general sense I have of them as a character. Physical descriptions and histories come later. All I care about right now is how this person relates to the story. I've had character sheets that were nothing but a name and a one line description at this stage of things, and that's perfectly fine.

For Plot, I need: The end and the beginning, in that order. Figuring out the end of a book is my number 1 priority. After I've got my start point and my end point, I set down the major twists/scenes/climaxes I've already thought up. I don't worry about how all these thinks link together, or even if the events are in the right order.
This is also the point where I determine if this book is a stand alone novel or part of a series, and if it is a series, then I work out the end of the larger meta plot and where this current book's plot fits into the larger scheme.
Finally, I write a sort of manifesto about the kind of story I am trying to tell. Is this primarily an adventure story, a rebellion story, a love story? An adventure story can have a love plot and a love story can be an adventure, but it's important I decide early which story is going to be the primary tale. After all, a love story places the dramatic emphasis on different scenes than an adventure story does. The tone is different as well, so I need to know for sure right from the beginning what kind of story I'm writing as this decision will influence the style of the novel right from page one.

For Setting, I need: The magical system, if there is one. The basic political system. Where does this book take place and how does that relate to the rest of the world? What kind of a culture is this? What's the level of technology? Who has power in this world and why? How did the world get to its current state and why? If I'm writing a fantasy I'll do creation stories and work out the pantheon, for SciFi I figure out how humans got into space. This step changes wildly from book to book. I basically just write until I feel I've got a firm hold on what kind of world the action takes place in (though, again, I don't sweat the details yet).

This is the most important part: What we're doing here is the purest form of world building, and it should be enormously fun. If you are not having fun putting your world, characters, and plot together, you need to seriously reconsider if this is the book you should be writing.

Step 3: Filling In The Holes
By the time I move on to step 3, I've got all the basics down. I know how my novel starts and ends plus a few big scenes, I know who's in it and where it's taking place. Now comes the nitty gritty of making everything work together.

When I reach this step, the first thing I start filling in is the plot. Now, a book is way too huge to plot all at once, so rather than trying to just write out a plot, I break things down into small chunks. Thanks to the work I've already done, I know the story's beginning, so that's usually where I start. I go to the beginning, look at my world and my characters's motivations, and ask "what happens next?" And then I write that down. Once it's down, I ask again, and so bit by bit the plot fills in.

Of course, I always get stuck. Sometimes I just don't know what comes next. When this happens, I usually jump further down the line, either straight to the ending (which I already worked out, clever me!) or to one of the big scenes I was excited about. When I get to the big scenes, a battle, say, I look at my world and my characters and ask "how did this happen?" And then I go backwards until I either reach the place where I got stuck the first time or I get stuck again.

Sometimes, though, I get really stuck. Like, I have no idea how two scenes are connected, or how I can possibly get from the middle of the book to the end. When this happens it's very tempting to think the plot is completely borked, but here's a trade secret: there's no such thing as an unfixable plot. Often, you don't even have to figure out a clever solution, you just need to discover why something isn't working and the solution will simply appear. One of the earliest lessons I learned about writing was that, if I was stuck, it was because I didn't know something. When a plot won't move forward, it's because there's something you don't know. Figure out what that is and you can unstick even the most stubborn plot.

So, when I get seriously stuck, I let the plot go and start working out other things. This is where I fill out those character sheets you find on line. I work out the detailed history of my world and spend time with my characters, try to figure out what they're thinking. If that still isn't enough to get me moving again, I set down in ludicrous detail what's going on in the world at the moment where the plot is stuck. I especially map out exactly what the villains are doing, that alone is often enough to snap the plot back into place.

Learn from my Fail - Never get so wrapped up in pinning down particulars that you kill the novel for yourself. Long ago, before I'd actually finished a novel, I was working on a sweeping epic fantasy. Now, I'd read online that a writer should know her world inside and out, so I set to work Building My World (TM). I wrote and wrote and wrote for days, getting down all this absurdly detailed information that had nothing to do with my story, things like the political backdrop of wars that happened five hundred years before the plot and table manners in countries across the sea I was never going to visit. About half way through naming the different dead princes of the Empire that had fallen a thousand years ago, I threw away the novel in disgust. Now, if you like planning out your worlds to that level of detail, go for it, but there's absolutely such a thing as too much planning, and you can make yourself sick of your world before you've even started writing if you're not careful.

I know I've reached the end of step 3 when I can write out my whole plot, start to finish, with no blanks or skipped scenes. By this point, I've also gotten stuck enough that I've written detailed sheets for all my characters and major settings. If I have missed writing out the details for someone or someplace, I'll sometimes go back and fill them in, but not always. Usually, if I didn't need their information while I was writing out the plot, that's a sign that they weren't as important to the story as I thought.

Finally (and this is where things get a little hokey), I know I'm ready to move on to the last part of my planning when the feel of the book becomes tangible. All my books have a unique feel, almost like a taste in my mind that belongs to that book alone. I can't really describe it, but I never move on to the next step until I can feel the book clearly. I guess you could also call it the book's voice. This is about as "feel the muse" as I get.

Step 4: Building a Firm Foundation
This was the point where I used to just go ahead and dive into the novel, but now that I'm writing faster, I've discovered that taking a day to do one extra step of refinement can save you weeks of trouble down the line. At this stage I've got my plot, I know my characters, my world has its history, rules, and feel, so now it's time to start pouring the concrete details that will support my novel through the writing and edits to come.

In this step, I always:
Make a timeline. I didn't have time lines for the first 4 Eli novels and OMG did it bite me in the ass. Lesson finally learned, I now make timelines not just for the events of the novel itself, but the history before it as well. I especially make sure to note relative ages and how long everyone's known everyone else. Yes, it's annoying and nitpicky, but timelines have saved my bacon many, many times over, and I very, very much recommend making one. Trust me, you are not nearly as good at keeping track of things in your head as you think you are.Draw a map. Actually, I usually end up doing this back in step 2, but if I don't have a detailed map by now, I'll make one, usually several, of the world at large as well as all my important locations. I also write out short descriptions of each place. This helps me describe things consistently and removes the burden of making this shit up as I go along.Write out who knows what, when. This is usually just a paragraph where I look over the plot and jot down who discovers what when. This is to make sure I don't have Protagonist A making an argument (or worse, a plot decision) using information they wouldn't actually know yet. This is less of a resource and more of a double check on my plot.Make sure I memorize everyone's particulars. I need to know name spelling, physical description, motivations, and relative ages for all my major cast by heart. Can't have anyone's name dropping vowels or eyes changing color, can we?Write out a scene list  This is where I take that plot I wrote out at the end of step three and break it into scenes and chapters. I've talked about what makes a scene before, so, using that criteria, I slice my plot into scenes and list them in a bulleted list. Once I have a list of scenes, I group them into chapters to make a nice little list. In my experience, a chapter usually consists of three scenes, though I've done as few as two and as many as five before. Chapter breaks should also take into account dramatic tension, so I try to take that into accout as well. For example, the first chapter of The Spirit Thief would look like this:Chapter 1Eli charms his way out of prisonThe king of Mellinor discovers Eli has escaped, is moved to safer quartersEli and Josef take advantage of the confusion and kidnap the king.Word Count estimation: Now that I've got a rough idea of my chapters, it's time to do an even rougher estimation of how long this book is going to be. I know from personal experience that my chapters tend to run between 5000 and 6000 words long. I don't know why, that's just what feels like a chapter to me, I guess. But this regularity is very handy when it comes time to estimate! By looking at the number of chapters I've cut my scenes into and multiplying that by my average chapter length, I know that a book with 15 chapters will most likely run 75k - 90k words long, or right smack dab in the sweet spot of publishable book length. Of course, this is just an estimation, but doing a check like this is also a really good early warning signal. If, for example, I've lined up all my scenes and found that I have 30 chapters worth of plot, then I know I probably need to cut something to avoid ending up with an 180k unpublishable monster. Trust me, it is SO MUCH EASIER to cut scenes at this stage than to cut them after you've written them. Even if you don't know your average chapter length yet, chances are your chapters won't be shorter than 5k. Counting them up and multiplying to get an idea of how big your book is is a great way to avoid painful cutting later down the line.Do a boredom check. Once I've broken my novel into scenes and chapters (and cut and reworked the plot if the book was too long), it's time for the final and most important plot test: the boredom check. What I do here is I think through my plot, imagining the story in my head as thought it were a movie. There's no sound, no dialogue, I just go through the story scene by scene in my head, testing the story's flow. All the while, I'm on the look out for slow spots. Does the action lag anywhere? Are there any sections I can't visualize or scenes I skip over? If so, I go back to those points and figure out why. See, when you cruise through your plot like this, you're seeing your story with your reader mind and not your writer mind. Your writer mind might consider a scene necessary for plot reasons, but if your reader mind is bored you'll skip right over it and move on to the good stuff. This is BAD. I don't want my readers to be bored by or skip over anything I write. Plus, I don't want to waste my time writing boring crap, no matter how nicely it fits into the plot. This is all part of "be excited about everything you write." If a scene is boring, I rip it out and redo it. Ripping up a finished plot can feel really scary, but just remember: there's always more than one way to solve any problem, and a boring scene can always be replaced by an interesting one, usually by raising the stakes or upping the tension. This step may seem unnecessary, especially since you've been over your plot 10000 times by now, but take thirty minutes and do it anyway. A boredom check is your final defense against having to rewrite stupid scenes later. If you take the time and make sure every scene is golden right from the start, you'll save yourself wasted work and heartache later.

Step 5: Start Writing!By this point I'm usually chomping at the bit to get writing. I know my world, I know my characters, I know exactly what's going to happen and why, and I know the climax I'm working toward. I know everything I need, all that's left is to put the words down. 
Of course, no matter how well you plan your novel, it's important to remember that no one has all their great ideas at one time. Chances are the plot will change as you write. Characters will mature and deepen, you'll discover plot holes you never thought about, and ideas you thought were amazing will start to look played and stupid. All of this is part of the natural writing process. Never be afraid to let go of your plans and just roll with things. After all, the real purpose of planning is the acquisition of knowledge. If that knowledge inspires you to make a better decision for the book later down the line, then go with it. Never let your planning hold you back.
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And that, more or less, is my system, I hope you can find something in there to help you with your own writing process. Again, I can't stress how much planning has improved both my writing and my writing experience. I have never had as much fun writing a book, or had my books come out better, than when I'm working from a plan. If you're the kind of writer who writes by the seat of their pants and is afraid strict planning will ruin the fun of writing for you, my only suggestion is to try it, just once. You might be surprised. 
Again, hope this helps someone. As always, thank you for reading! And if you have your own novel planning process, leave a comment below. I'd love to hear about it!

Rachel on the (Internet) Radio!

I joined Justin and Terry of The Dead Robot's Society podcast to talk about my books, my road to publication, and how the hell I write so many words every day. It was a really, really fun interview, and the show itself is a barrel of good times all on its own. So if you're at all interested in writing or the publishing world, why don't you check it out!

Here's the direct link to my episode, my interview is in the second part of the show. Enjoy!

The Lord of Storms!

To thank all my fans for being so amazingly awesome (and to get myself some really amazing art), I've begun commissioning artists to make me pictures of my characters! First up, The Lord of Storms by Noiry! Link goes to the picture on her amazing DeviantArt gallery, but she also has nice work on her portfolio site so please go check her out. In the meanwhile, enjoy!



What can I say, the Lord of Storms is a ham and cheese sandwich! <3

The Lord of Storms is the head of the League of Storms, and a very bad ass fellow. He first appears (briefly) in The Spirit Thief and then more fully in the The Spirit Rebellion and The Spirit Eater. But he REALLY comes into his own in Spirit's End, the fifth and final Eli novel. Trust me, once you read book 5, you will know why he was the first character I commissioned!

More art will be following all the way through next year, so keep checking back :D. I'll also be revamping my site, and one of the new additions will be an art gallery. Should be awesome!

<3 Rachel

12 days of glory

I've talked about my process for fast writing before, the combination of knowledge, time, and excitement that let me take my word count from 2-3k a day to over 10k per day. However, every time I get on the subject of writing fast, I always have to add the caveat that these numbers were achieved on the final two books of a five book series, usually toward the end of the book. For me, the end of a book always goes faster than the beginning or the middle. I find it much easier to write with the momentum of a grand finale pulling me forward. Also, I was writing well known characters in a well established world.


Because of these factors, it was hard for me to tell if my insane numbers were really coming from my system or from the books themselves. Had I really turned myself into some sort of super writer, or was I just caught up in the end of a story I'd wanted to tell for years? Was Eli doing this, or was I? So long as I was working on Eli books, there was no way to tell. The real test would only come when I sat down to write a new book in a new world. If I could keep pulling crazy numbers there, with no Eli or Josef or Nico to prop me up, then I'd know for sure that my increased productivity came from me. Last month, with the final Eli book turned in, I took the plunge. This is how it turned out, taken straight from the writing worksheet I keep on my title page:


Plotting started: July 17, 2011
Plotting finished: July 20, 2011
Novel started: July 21, 2011
Novel ended: August 1, 2011


You're reading that right. I plotted the whole book, start to finish (as well as outlines for two sequels), in three days. And then I wrote the book in 12. Actually, that's not even right. Check out my progress table:
p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }
Date Time Written Word Count Words Per Hour Location 7/21/2011 9:00 - 12:30 (3.5) 3680 1051 Home 7/21/2011 1:30 - 6:00 (4.5) 5125 1138 JJ's 7/21 7:30 - 10:00 (2.5) 3877 (11882) 1550 Home (night) 7/22 1:30 - 6:30 (5) 6004 1200 JJ's 7/24 - 7/25 (perspective switch) 7/26 8:20 - 10:20 (2) 1925 962 Home 7/26 1:20 - 6:00 (4.5) 2194 487 JJ's 7/26 9:00 - 10:00 (1) 1076 (5195) 1076 Home (night) 7/27 8:00 - 11:00 (3) 2527 842 Home 7/27 1:00 - 6:00 (5) 7215 (9742) 1443 JJ's 7/28 1:00 - 6:00 (5) 6372 1062 JJ's 7/29 8:30 - 11:30 (3) 3836 1278 Home 7/29 12:30 - 6:00 (5.5) 7701 (11537) 1400 JJ's 7/30 5:00 - 8:30 (3.5) 3373 963 JJ's 7/31 4:30 - 8:30 (4) 4509 1127 JJ's 8/1 8:00 - 11:30 (2.5) 4069 1627 Home 8/1 1:00 - 6:20 (5.3) 7203 (11272) 1359 JJ's

One of the things I talk about in the fast writing post is the importance of keeping records. There are many different ways of recording your writing, but this is how I keep track of mine. As you can see, I actually wrote the book in 9 days, because I took the 23rd off and spent the 24th - 25th going back and switching the first five chapters from third person to first, which I count as editing, not writing. But even if we go ahead and count those two days, it still means I wrote a novel, a brand new novel with a world and characters I'd never sat down to really flesh out before the 17th, in 11 days. 

Sorry Eli, looks like you can't claim credit this time.

But how did I do it? Beyond what I talked about in my fast writing post? 

Well, first, I wrote a lot. As you can see from the table above, I spent between 6 and 9 hours a day at the keyboard writing pulling between 800 and 1600 words an hour. This sort of writing is not without its cost, I think my baby and husband have forgotten my face and let's not even talk about the state of my house or the pile of mail that's threatening to crush my dining table. This is not the sort of crazy writing project you can embark on unless you're a pro writer between books with a very forgiving family. If I'd taken things a little easier I would have had a life and still finished the novel in 20 days, which is perfectly acceptable, but this time around I was trying to see just how fast I could go. For science!

Second, I always knew exactly where I was going. This was how I kept up the high words per hour rate. Much of the dithering in writing comes from uncertainty. What do I want from this scene? What happens next? Remove the uncertainty and most other problems sort themselves out.

Third, I was really, really, REALLY excited to write this book. It's my first love story, and I've been gushy over my main couple for nearly 8 years. I always swore I would write their story someday, and finally getting the chance to do it was like pulling up a chair to the delicious cake buffet.

So there it is, time, knowledge, and excitement coming together to make a crazy writing alchemy of fantastic word counts. These last two weeks have been the most intensely fun experience of my writing career (at least so far as the actual writing part is concerned). I loved working like this. I literally bounced out of bed with joy in the mornings because I knew I'd get to write that day. When I was writing it was like I was taken away with the story, and when I'd finally drag myself from the keyboard, I felt like I could conquer the world. Going so fast was more like reading than writing, only I was in charge of everything that was going on. It was the ultimate power trip, and I'm frankly sort of worried I liked it too much. Not that worried, though.

My work on this book is nowhere near done. I have at least 3 edits ahead of me before the novel is even ready to go to my agent, much less make its way to editors. It might never sell at all, I might start all over, but wherever my novel's story ends, one thing is certain: I can reliably write 6-8k a day on any book in any world. And that, my friends, is awesome.

ask me a question, you'll get an answer with way too many !s

I'm participating in FanLit Asks!

This month's question: Which speculative fiction character created by another author are you kicking yourself for not dreaming up first?

You can see my answer (plus answers from totally amazing people like Gail Carriger, Seanan McGuire, Jesse Bullington, and L. E. Modesitt, Jr.) here.

In other news, I've seen the finished painting for the 4th Eli novel, Spirit's War, and it is awesome! I'll be posting it as soon as design finishes the cover design. I can't wait to show you! It really is amazing.

<3 Rachel

Writing Post Round-Up

In honor of Camp NaNoWriMo (and for general organization), I thought I'd do a round-up of all my scattered writing posts plus. I've written a lot about writing (since, you know, I think about it a lot), not all of which I think is true anymore, so I'm only linking the posts I still believe in. If you're a writer, whether you're participating in this month's writing challenge or not, I really hope you find something useful in these.

Story Crafting, World Building, and Character
The Three Hooks - how to write better scenes that move your book forward
The Knife Test - testing your characters
Dissecting the Devil - writing a good villain

Productivity and Writing in General
How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day - supercharge your word count
There Are No Writing Police - advice on the internet about ignoring internet advice. Meta!

That's all I could find for the moment. Again, these are just my posts. I am nowhere near to being the be all end all expert on writing. If you have a favorite writing post (or writing link that helped you of any kind) link it in the comments and I'll add it to the list!

Signing reminder and a nerdy anime rec

Don't forget I'm going to be in SC this weekend for the Fantastical Mystery Tour mega signing event! It's going to be amazing, so stop by if you're in the area! I'll sign literally anything you put in front of me - your book, your child, your check, anything!

In other, completely unrelated news, my husband and I have been watching this very cool anime called Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magik, or Puella Magi Madoka Magica. On the surface it looks like a very typical anime magical girl show. I actually almost skipped it completely, but then I watched the first episode.


Guys... Sailor Moon this ain't.


Madoka Magica is the most creepy, edge of your seat show I've watched in a long time. It's the dark side of magical girls, and its got style to burn. The art design on the sets and backgrounds is amazing, so amazing that the characters look almost comically cartoony standing inside them. But none of that matters. The show's pacing is a freaking textbook of tension building. I have never watched a show with such a looming sense of dread and real concern for the characters. I literally have no idea what's going to happen from one episode to the next, and I watch each one with delicious anticipation.


In short, the show is amazing and you should totally watch it if you get the chance. It will takes your expectations of what a magical girl show should be and then makes you eat them.


Also, the music is fantastic. Go watch!

There Are No Writing Police

It's no secret that I enjoy lurking on writing message boards. First, I like being around that much excitement and creativity. It's just a good vibe, especially when I'm feeling down about my own work. Second, sometimes you find amazing gems... and I will leave the definition of gem up to your imagination. ;)

But sometimes (ok, most of the time), reading these boards makes me angry, especially the forums where people talk about publication, specifically whether or not something is "allowed." For example, a post asking whether or not it's ok to combine subgenres, (eg, an epic fantasy with superhero elements or a steampunk vampire romance (note to self, write steampunk vampire romance)), or if editors will automatically reject a werewolf book, or if you're allowed to put horror elements in your Regency, etc. And then people will post back and forth with the various pros and cons of whatever the question was, but by this point my husband is usually prying the keyboard out of my hands before I turn into a flaming troll.

So, in the interest of not being a troll on a forum, I will post my trollage here. Everyone, repeat after me:

THERE ARE NO WRITING POLICE

If you are a writer, and you have a novel you are excited about writing... write it. Don't go on message boards and ask random internet denizens whether or not something is allowed. Or, if you're a feedback junkie and you just can't keep yourself from posting, whatever you do, do NOT go pulling things you like out of your novel because someone on the internet told you "that won't sell" or "you can't do that."

Who is the writer here? YOU ARE. Whose book is it? YOUR BOOK. There are no writing police. No one is going to arrest you if you write a teen vampire novel post Twilight. No one is going to send you off to an island to live a wretched life of worm eating and regret because you DARED to bring urban fantasy elements into a space opera. If you have a book that you want to write, then just write the damn thing. Don't worry about selling it, that comes later. Worry about making your book work, worry about how you're order the scenes to create tension, worry about if your character's actions are actually in character. Worry about your grammar. DON'T worry about which of your stylistic choices some potential future editor will use to reject you, and for the love of little puppies don't worry about trends. Trying to catching a trend is like trying to catch a falling knife - dangerous, foolhardy, and often ending in tears, usually yours.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't pay attention to what's getting published, but what I am saying is you should never sacrifice the elements that make your novel exciting to you because you think those elements will hurt your sales... especially if you haven't even finished the novel yet and all sales are still hypothetical.

Until your novel starts getting actual rejections from people whose job it is to know what sells in publishing, never change anything in your book unless you're doing it to make the book better. If your YA features fairies, vampires, and selkies and you decide halfway through that the vampires are over complicating your plot, that is an appropriate time to cut the bloodsuckers. If you decide to cut your vampires because you read on some internet forum that "vampires are lame," then you are betraying yourself and your work.

If you're like pretty much every other author in the world, then you became a writer because you had stories you wanted to tell. Those are your stories, no one can tell them better than you can. So write your stories, and then edit your stories again and again until you have something you're proud of. Write stories that excite you, stories you can't wait to share with the world because they're just so amazing. Write stories that you throw away because you realize halfway through that your amazing idea wasn't actually so amazing. If you want to write Murder She Wrote in space with anime style mecha, go for it. There are no writing police. Nothing is off limits unless you do it badly. And if you must obsess over something, obsess over stuff like tension and pacing and creating believable characters. You know, the shit that matters.

It's your story, tell it like you want to. 

New Eli Cover!!

As promised, the new cover for the Eli Omnibus painted by the fantastic Sam Webber is here! Isn't it pretty?!


SO pretty! 
This will be the cover for the new 3 book omnibus edition of Spirit Thief, Spirit Rebellion, and Spirit Eater all wrapped together in one delicious package! The omnibus is scheduled to arrive February 2012. After that, the fourth book in the series, The Spirit War (All about Josef, plus lots of Eli!) comes out June of 2012. 
The Spirit War cover is being done by Sam Webber as well, and you can see in progress shots of the painting at Orbit's website. I'm REALLY excited about that cover. I shouldn't have favorites, but I think Spirit War is the best book I've ever written. There's all kinds of goodies, you guys are just going to love it. So yeah, very happy Rachel :D. 
I don't have an official date yet for Spirit's End, the fifth and final Eli book, but I'm editing it right now and will be turning it in to Orbit at the end of the month. I believe it's scheduled to come out very close to book 4, maybe July 2012? Anyway, soon, and we're on schedule, so you should have all the Eli you could want soon enough! In the meanwhile, drop over to Orbit's site and check out Lauren's visit to Sam's studio. If you ever wanted to see how a fantasy book cover is made, this is your chance. Fascinating stuff (and I'd say that even if it wasn't about my covers)! Enjoy!
- Rachel
ETA: The ever lovely Civilian Reader has nice things to say about the cover! Also, if you haven't read my interview there, totally go read it. It's probably the most intelligent I've ever sounded. If I die tomorrow, that's how I'd like to be remembered. Just carve the whole thing into the tombstone in 5 pt font and we're good to go!

If you're near Columbia, SC, you won't want to miss this

So, thanks to the wonderful prodding of Kalayna Price, I am participating in a MASSIVE fantasy book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Columbia on Saturday, July 9th. We're going to have door prizes and free books and a panel discussion and it's just going to be the best thing ever! Our authors include me, plus these other way more famous people:

Faith Hunter, author of the Jane Yellowrock seriesKalayna Price, author of the Alex Craft novels, starting with Grave WitchMisty Massey, author of Mad KestrelJohn Hartness, author of Hard Day's KnightI am so happy they pulled me out of my hermit hole to drive up for a signing. This will actually be my first signing (because of the aforementioned hermit hole), so if you want any Eli books signed, this will be the place! 
Here's the vital facebook link with all relevant info, and I really hope to see people there!
Also, no word on the new cover yet, but I swear it's coming! I'll post as soon as Orbit puts them up. Pretty Eli pictures are coming.