Questionable: What’s This Book About?

After I said I was cutting back the political plot in Nita to focus on the romance, Nicole asked, “Does that mean you’re losing the entirety of the political intrigue? From what I remember reading, that was a big part of the plot in the beginning.”

I tried to answer this in the comments, but it’s complicated, so here’s a longer answer.

The most important question to ask in rewrites is “What is this book about?” Not in discovery, not while you’re doing your first draft, but when you have the entire book and you’re ready to get into the real work, rewriting, then you say, “Okay, where’s the juice in this story?” For Nita’s book, I had two options:

There’s a political struggle in Hell and it’s playing out on an island in New Jersey; Nita Dodd’s job is to protect her island from the fall-out of that struggle, and in the process she falls in love with the target of the conspiracy, the next Devil, which complicates things. (This is the Cthulhu plot.)Nita Dodd meets the Devil’s heir and falls in love with him, a romance that’s complicated because there are political interests in Hell that are trying to take him down and her with him. (This is the romance plot.)

Those are two very different books. I cannot write both of them. Therefore, I need to pick a lane. And for me, that lane will usually (not always) be romance. So behind door number two is this plot:

Nita meets Nick, suspects him, is attracted to him, investigates, finds out he’s real and so is the supernatural when he sacrifices something he needs to save her life .Nita gets to know Nick, realizes he’s a fixer/saver like her and that he’s having an identity crisis like her, and joins forces with him to save the island from the Bad Guys. Then something devastating happens (spoilers).Nita and Nick have to rebuild their relationship from scratch three times, growing closer each time, while under pressure from the Bad Guys. They finally get the relationship right, and Nick is kidnapped to Hell.Nita goes to Hell to save him (literally harrowing Hell); the two of them work to bring down the Bad Guys, save each other, and finally commit to a permanent relationship.

So how is that different from the political plot since the Bad Guys are the political plotters? It’s all about Nita and Nick. You can’t tell the political story without Nita and Nick, but they don’t have to be the protagonists; Lily could tell that story really well, Max would be a great narrator for that story, Belia would be fantastic as a protagonist in that story. But if you want to tell the love story, then you’re stuck with Nita and Nick (which is fine by me). Another difference: The Max/Button love story would be a footnote if that in the political story; it really has no impact on it. But as a romantic subplot in the Nick/Nita romance, it acts as an echo while providing Nita with a new ally in Button and Nick with a new ally in Max.

So my lane is definitely the Nick and Nita love story, and all the writing I did about the political stuff was essentially pre-writing so I could understand what was going on behind them while they kissed. None of it is wasted, I can just cut it now that I understand what’s going on.

Short answer: The Devil in Nita Dodd is a romance with political complications because that’s the best story I can tell with these characters and these events.

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