When a Story Comes Together
Before I get to my post today, I wanted to share some wonderful news. Her Dear & Loving Husband is now officially an award-winning novel. James and Sarah have won the Coffee Pot Book Club Book Award for highly recommended novels. Cool, right?
And now, on to the show.
I love it when a story comes together. The story for The Duchess of Idaho finally revealed itself last week, and I’m currently a Very Happy Camper.
It’s funny how our writing process can change over the years. When I first started writing fiction many moons ago I was a complete plotter. I had to figure out the outline of my work in progress from beginning to end, and then, and only then, would I begin my first draft. What I came to realize, though, is that needing an absolute grip on the plot before I started writing meant that I often wouldn’t begin my first draft for months after I had decided that this novel was something I was willing to dedicate blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention time, to finish. As a result, I ended up writing more slowly than I might have otherwise. That’s not a complaint, by the way. As writers, we write at the speed we write, no faster and no slower. For some of us, that means we publish several books a year, and for others of us that means we publish one book a year, and still others might release a book every couple of years.
Late in 2020, I decided that I wanted to publish Christmas at Hembry Castle just to prove to myself that I could put a book out more quickly than I thought I could. I had a head start since I knew the Hembry world (this was the second book in the series) and I knew the characters. What I didn’t know was the plot. All I had was a vague sense that I wanted C@HC to be a tribute to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. To that end, I just started writing. This was the first time I began a story as a “pantster,” flying by the seat of my pants instead of having the plot set out step by step.
As I was writing C@HC, and as the story started coming together, I realized that I could discover the plot organically while working my way through my shitty first draft at the same time. What a revelation. I decided to see if it would work again with The Duchess of Idaho, and I’m pleased to see that it did. Again, I had a vague sense of the story. I knew it would revolve around Grace Wentworth, James and Sarah’s daughter from the Loving Husband Series, and I knew a few odds and ends about what happened to Grace. I didn’t know specifics, but I started writing anyway.
I feel more productive with the “pantster” style of writing because I get two things done at the same time—plotting out the story and writing the shitty first draft. Before, I labored over the outline for months and then I’d write the shitty first draft, which also took months to complete. Now I have the general plan for The Duchess of Idaho after about two months (I started the first draft in January). For me, that’s crazy fast. Plus, my first draft is nearly done, and that’s always the most painful part of writing a novel—at least it is for me.
A few more weeks and my first draft will be done. I’ll set it aside for a bit, give it some baking time, and then I’ll head into what is always the best part of writing fiction for me—shaping the story into its final form.
