Stacey Rychener's Blog, page 2
July 14, 2011
The Process
How the book really began was because of a persistent case of insomnia. I was crazy busy and walking in my door every night at 9-10pm. Generally, I use reading to tire my eyes out so I can get some rest, but it wasn't working. I always been the type of person that it takes a lot for my brain to shut down and nothing was working. So I decided to try getting down on paper the idea that was kicking around in my head. Now, I write reports, grants, and various other things for a living, so the last thing that I wanted to do at the end of the day was write some more! But it worked, I wrote 2 pages a night from about 10 to midnight and about 5 pages on the weekend. And slowly but surely, Intrigue: The Night Muse Trilogy was born.
I literally made every mistake a first-time writer could make. I bookended my story--I wrote the beginning, middle, and end. Then, it was time to connect them. Unfortunately, I chose to connect the middle to the end first. This meant that when I connected the beginning to the middle that any story detail that I changed in the beginning--I had to jump forward to make it match the ending parts--this added about a month to the process. I also learned that you had to make your lead character sympathetic and flawed. You want more of the outcast than the prom queen. I also learned that my pivotal moment in my story arc came to late. All these things had to be dealt with.
Then came the never ending process of editing. My first issue was that the average YA book is about 75,000 words. The first draft was 125,000. I edited the manuscript myself the first 2xs. I shortened the text to about 110,000 with the first 2 edits. Then, I talked my friend into editing for me. I thought she would have very little to edit. She was fantabulous and gave me back a bleeding red ink manuscript back. Apparently, writing form 10-Midnight makes me prone to typos and lack of question marks. I had at least 10 full edits before I felt comfortable with handing over the final draft of 96,000 words.
I literally made every mistake a first-time writer could make. I bookended my story--I wrote the beginning, middle, and end. Then, it was time to connect them. Unfortunately, I chose to connect the middle to the end first. This meant that when I connected the beginning to the middle that any story detail that I changed in the beginning--I had to jump forward to make it match the ending parts--this added about a month to the process. I also learned that you had to make your lead character sympathetic and flawed. You want more of the outcast than the prom queen. I also learned that my pivotal moment in my story arc came to late. All these things had to be dealt with.
Then came the never ending process of editing. My first issue was that the average YA book is about 75,000 words. The first draft was 125,000. I edited the manuscript myself the first 2xs. I shortened the text to about 110,000 with the first 2 edits. Then, I talked my friend into editing for me. I thought she would have very little to edit. She was fantabulous and gave me back a bleeding red ink manuscript back. Apparently, writing form 10-Midnight makes me prone to typos and lack of question marks. I had at least 10 full edits before I felt comfortable with handing over the final draft of 96,000 words.
The Idea for the Night Muse Trilogy
I have always have been fascinated with Greek Mythology and fell in love with JW Waterhouse's painting of on those themes. I actually have several of his lithographs and the one I was going to base the book on was Circe. However, when I was outlining what I wanted the story to be her character didnt fit with the story. So I went in search of the immortal that would be the best fit for my heroine and Calliope was the perfect Muse--literally and figuratively.
I alway knew the story would take place in Detroit. I love looking into the history and architecture of the grand old building that were created at the turn of the last century. I stumbled across a website called The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit. It broke my heart looking at all the potential in those beautiful old building going to ruin--so I used their potential in a different way as a back drop to my book. In my world, I got to renovate some of those lovely old buildings and celebrate them for the beauty they once represented. I knew I wanted to use The Corner as a setting so I had to back date my story to before it was torn down because it was to become a key feature in the books.
I alway knew the story would take place in Detroit. I love looking into the history and architecture of the grand old building that were created at the turn of the last century. I stumbled across a website called The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit. It broke my heart looking at all the potential in those beautiful old building going to ruin--so I used their potential in a different way as a back drop to my book. In my world, I got to renovate some of those lovely old buildings and celebrate them for the beauty they once represented. I knew I wanted to use The Corner as a setting so I had to back date my story to before it was torn down because it was to become a key feature in the books.
