Fiction Friday: A Series of Unfortunate Events

One of the things that’s different about writing in a series, versus writing a standalone book, is that the world-building requires a lot more planning. It’s kind of like playing chess. They say that chess masters, for each potential move, project out the next five possible moves before choosing one. That’s probably why I don’t play chess.

To be perfectly honest, my brain is not the least bit strategic. Back in my days of working as an IT manager at a Fortune 1000 corporation, they used to hold these planning sessions where people would sit around for days, blue-skying about all the things the company might want to do, and jawing on and on about all the potential outcomes for each scenario.

Those sessions made me want to stick a fork in my eye.

I would come up with any excuse I could (the shipping system is down! the file system  is full!) to get out of there. I was good tactically–you figure out what you want to do and I can make that happen–but I stunk at long-term strategy.

It was when I was finishing up  Book 2 in my Touched by a Demon series that I realized this may be a problem in my new career as a novelist, too. In Book 2, Keeffe, my protagonist, has Lilith, her antagonist and she demon, sign a contract in blood. Keeffe’s demon boyfriend later tells her she’s brilliant, that contracts signed in blood are the only kind that are enforceable in Hell.

Okay, that sounds reasonable.

Except it made me realize that Dara, the protagonist in the first book, signs a contract with Satan, but there’s no mention of blood. Since the first book hasn’t been published yet, I was able to go back and add that in.

But now I’m a little concerned.

I’m planning at least seven books in this series, one for each of the Seven Deadly Sins. What happens, down the road, when I have three books out in the world and I want to expand on the world I’ve built in some unforeseen way?

Before I publish the first one, I think I’m going to need to give some strategic thought to the entire series.

Could someone hand me a fork, please?

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Fiction Friday: Getting to Know You

In mid-February I started work on the third book in my Touched by a Demon trilogy, The Demon Wore Stilettos. I’ve been looking forward to this one, because the she-demon Lilith, who has been a minor character in the previous two books, finally gets to take center stage.

I’ve had this book in the back of my mind for a while, so I knew the general premise: Megan Kincaid, a recent MFA graduate, sells her soul to Satan in exchange for making the New York Times bestseller list.

I also knew I wanted to make this a second-chance-at-love story, so I wanted Megan to have an old love she would team with to escape Satan’s clutches.

And that was all I knew.

The first question I needed to answer about this character was: what made her so ambitious she would sell her soul for success? So I googled, “What makes people ambitious?”

Reading through the various things that came back (Quora is awesome for providing lists of possibilities for questions like this), I created this list:

1. Lack of paternal love/approval
2. Impoverished childhood
3. Sibling rivalry
4. Immigrant background
5. Needs to prove something to someone
6. Needs money for something specific
7. Frustrated by lack of opportunity
8. Because they’re brave enough to challenge themselves to achieve beyond their background
9. Desire to prove themselves worthy; for example, an adopted child
10. Desire to prove others wrong

I let all this roll around in the back of my head for a couple of days before choosing No. 9. Megan, I decided, was adopted. Since all my demon books have an inspirational element, she was adopted by an older couple, a minister and his wife. Reverend Paul Kincaid and his wife Edna were wonderful people, but the church community constantly reminded Megan how fortunate she was and how she needed to repay the Reverend and his wife by being successful. Megan is determined to do just that.

But this didn’t feel like enough to justify selling your soul to the devil–especially if you were brought up Lutheran. I decided to give Megan a younger sister, Kendra, whose reaction to the good people in the congregation was the opposite of Megan’s. Kendra, instead, went the way of their drug-addicted mother. At seventeen, she gave birth to a son with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Just as Megan was preparing to graduate from Columbia with her MFA, (and a carload of student debt), little sister got caught dealing drugs. Rev. Paul and Sister Edna had already spent everything they had and mortgaged their house, dealing with Kendra’s past issues.

Then Lilith showed up, offering to publish Megan’s MFA project and make it a bestseller. The chance for Megan to bail out her sister and pay for a good treatment program, while also achieving her dreams and showing the community the Kincaids were right to take a chance on her, was too much to resist. She signed.

Because she was smart, though, she had her boyfriend, a third-year law student, review the contract. He suggested she ask for not just one, but seven bestsellers. He also made an amendment to one of the exit clauses.

The boilerplate contract stated that if the signer performs an act  of complete altruism, they're off the hook. This is a fake out, though, because any act that gets the signer out of the contract, by definition, is not completely altruistic. James amended that clause to say that the fact that the act frees the signer from the contract cannot be taken into consideration in determining its altruism. 

As the book opens, Megan has already turned in her seventh and final manuscript to her editor. In two weeks it will be released and will almost certainly hit the NYT bestseller list. On that day, Satan will collect her soul. 

Okay, gentle readers–what are your thoughts?. If it doesn’t work for some reason, I’d rather know now!

Fiction Friday: Interview with Stacy McKitrick

Stacy was the treasurer of my local RWA chapter, Central Ohio Fiction Writers, for the past two years before handing the account books over to me. We carpool for the seventy-
odd miles to our monthly chapter meeting, so I’ve gotten to know her a bit. She is, without question, one of the most joyful writers I’ve ever known. Her characters live and breathe for her–and she adores every breath they take, even when they’re not behaving well.

Question 1: A love of the Twilight series led you to write your first novel. What was it about those books that fired your imagination, and how is that reflected in your work?

Yes, I absolutely loved Twilight, and it introduced me to paranormal romance. As a fan of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, I never even thought vampires could be good. But what really fired my imagination was wondering what Edward was thinking the whole time! I wanted his POV soooooo badly. So I think that’s what got me to writing my first book. And it’s why I always have at least two POVs (the heroine AND hero). I don’t want to frustrate MY readers.

Question 2: You’ve had traditionally published books, with Kensington, and you’ve self-published. Contrast your experiences with each type of publication.

I don’t know if I would have self-pubbed without the experience of being traditionally published first. Lyrical Press and Kensington taught me so much and I believe they made me a better writer. After publishing with them, I knew what needed to be done to be published (although it still took my husband’s offer of help to format to take that self-pub leap). So if I had to do it all over again, I would still go the traditional route first. Because to me it was the same as going to college and earning that degree.

Question 3: You served in the Armed Forces when you were young. Does any of that experience show up in your books?

I joined the Army when I was 17 (although I didn’t start serving until I was 18). Why did I join? Because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I couldn’t see going to college (felt it would have been a waste of money then) and I certainly didn’t want to stay at home. People think I’m brave; I thought I was a coward. Haha! As for the experience showing up in my books? I don’t know. All my life experiences are probably in there. I served during peace time (76-81), and it was a job like any other (except they made me exercise!). Pretty boring. Well… except for meeting my husband and living in Alaska. Those were pretty great.

Stacy McKitrick fell in love with paranormal romance, decided to write her own, and found her passion in life. She used to work in accounting, now she spends her time with vampires and ghosts, and is the author of the Bitten by Love and the Ghostly Encounter series. Born in California, she currently resides in Ohio with her husband. You can learn more about Stacy at her website www.stacymckitrick.com.

February Progress Report

February’s goals:

1. Finish Book 2, The Demon’s in the Details, and send it out to my beta readers.

Status: Book completed. Due to some changing priorities around when my editor wanted to see the manuscript, I was only able to get it in front of one beta reader, who is reading it now.

2. Get a proof copy of the cover.

Status: Completed–and I love it. I’ll be sharing it here at when we get a little closer to the release date, September 1.

3. Send Book 1, The Demon Always Wins, to my copy editor.

Status: Sent and returned with 2500 recommended changes.

Yes, you read that right–two thousand five hundred edits. They fall into several broad categories:

• Missing commas
• Improper capitalization (in both directions)
• Improper hyphenating of words (and failure to hyphenate)
• Use of pronouns vs. proper names (e.g. “She” vs. “Dara”). One of the techniques for deepening point-of-view is to stick with the third person pronoun as much as possible, but if you have two people of the same gender in a scene, this can create reader confusion. So I”m going through and deciding, in each of the cases Arran marked, whether I need to call out the character by name. Mostly, I’ve decided I do.
• Using an em-dash (—) instead of four period for dialogue (internal or external) that dies away before the character completes their sentence. There are only a handful of these, but I like the idea of having a style rule to follow.
• Inserting the word “that” into a sentence. Example: Kelsey filled her cup so quickly she slopped coffee on the counter. This is an area where my copy editor and I disagree. I think “that” is a dead word that is unnecessary most of the time, so I rejected most of those edits.

4. Brainstorm the acts, turning points and scenes for Book 3, The Demon Wore Stilettos.

Sunset at the Salt Marsh

Status: In mid-February, I was invited to join a writer’s retreat down on Kiawah Island for a week. It was in the upper 70’s/low 80’s and sunny every day in that part of South Carolina, while it rained non-stop in Ohio while I was gone. That makes the trip a win regardless of what I got done.

Right?

The other writers at the retreat were terrific about helping me brainstorm, so I made some solid progress. I’m still a little iffy on everything after the first act, but I do have a solid understanding of my characters and their motivations. So, as usual, I’m behind but satisfied with my progress.

Goals for March:

1. Get The Demon’s in the Details through developmental edit.
2. Get a draft of the cover for The Demon’s in the Details.
3. Complete the scene list for The Demon Wore Stilettos.
4. Complete 15,000 words on The Demon Wore Stilettos.

Fiction Friday: Interview with Ana Morgan

Stormy Hawkins

Today we’re talking to Ana Morgan, author of the historical western romance, Stormy Hawkins. 

Ana and I bonded over our mutual love of Anne of Green Gables and the commonality that we both relocated to Minnesota from points south. I’ve long since moved back to my home state of Ohio, but Ana adapted to rural life and stayed. She says she’s rewarded every time she looks out her log cabin window and sees only squirrels and trees—and when  her daughter comes home from Brooklyn with friends, clamoring for a home-grown meal.

Q1: Your debut novel, Stormy Hawkins, the first of your Prairie Hearts series, is set in the Dakota Territory, in 1887.  What is it about that time and place that interests you?

I live on an organic farm in west central Minnesota, so eastern South Dakota is “in the neighborhood.” When we moved here, I was a city girl. I had to learn to milk cows, gather eggs, grow a garden, can produce—all sorts of homesteading skills that the locals took for granted. When I set out to write Stormy Hawkins, I embraced the advice that it’s smart to write about what you know.

Q2: You published your first novel with Soul Mate Publishing. What made you choose to go traditional, and what can you tell us about your experiences with this publisher?

After several rejections, I was gearing up to self-publish. Then Stormy Hawkins finaled in two contests. Two editors requested fulls. I submitted to both. Soul Mate Publishing offered a contract first.

My experience has been wonderful. My editor was smart, thorough, and responsive. The cover artist “nailed” my cover. Every deadline set by the publisher has been honored to the day. I’ve been invited to write two more books in the series. I’m writing book two now.

Q3: I read on your website that you relocated from a southern California city to rural Minnesota. I also relocated to Minnesota, but to the Twin Cities, from Cincinnati, years ago. That was a big adjustment. Tell us about your experience. What was the biggest culture shock?

I think the rural-ness was the biggest shock. We settled three hours northwest of the Twin Cities in January, 1972. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to buy essentials like tampons and bananas.

Things were not as bad as I anticipated. The one grocery store in town was open seven days a week.

The hardware store had blank ‘counter checks’ that you signed and wrote your bank account number in the memo line. The residents of another nearby town spoke primarily Finnish. A farmer’s wife showed us how to hand milk the Jersey cow we bought at the sale barn. Though I cringed when I saw pickups parked next to fish houses on the frozen lakes, I quickly embraced the local mantra: Always be ready to help, but don’t interfere until help is needed.

When she was small, Ana Morgan’s dream was to know something about everything. She has studiously waitressed, driven a school bus, run craft service on indie film sets, wandered through European castles, wired a house, married a Marine, canned vegetables, and studied the stars. She knows how to change a flat tire but prefers gallant, handsome strangers who strip off their jackets and spin the lug nuts for her.

Ana embarked on her writing career by crafting succinct cooking directions for her Secret Garden soup mixes—and graduated to lyrical essays about living on a small organic farm for her CSA’s weekly newsletter. Eventually she realized she wanted to write what she loved to read—sensual romance novels.