To
celebrate The Love List releasing I thought I’d share a list of my writing
process.
1. I
always start out with a scene which pops into my head and just refuses to let
go so that I end up mulling over “what if” scenarios as the characters start
telling me things about themselves. I tend to write a loose outline because I
like to leave myself a little wiggle-room for the plot to breathe and take
unexpected turns. The first scene to pop into my head for The Love List ended
up being the very beginning of the story. I kept seeing this usually
completely-in-control business-woman panicking as she waved her hand about with
one of her favourite shoes accidentally superglued to it right before the
biggest presentation of her life!
2. I’m
definitely learning I’m part plotter—part pantser when it comes to preparing to
write a book. Some books I end up needing to plan to the nth degree and some
seem to simply unfold. I really wanted readers picking up The Love List to be
able to read it as a standalone or as part of the series that starts with Her
Best Laid Plans, so as well as my usual plotting I also
made sure I created full character bios for anyone introduced in the first book
to help me keep them behaving truthfully in the next books.
3. After
I’ve done a loose outline, next comes the choosing of the notebook! Finding the
right one is a ritual that requires considerable thought and… a lovely shopping
trip. The notebook must be both beautiful and practical and contain four
sections for: Characterisation, Research, Plotting Journal and Edits. I take
this notebook everywhere with me when I’m writing the book and by the time I
press “send” on the manuscript, it has about three different colours of ink in
it, neat writing, illegible writing and postit notes stuck in it and to it
which never seem to mean a thing to me when I get around to reading them!
4. I
use my plotting journal section to write the number of words I’ve written that
day, a VERY loose plan for what I want to write the next day and any light-bulb
moments that come to me that feed into the main characters’ motivation. Yes – I
really do use an actual “lightbulb” symbol!!!
5. The
plotting CHART aka huge bulletin board (!) makes an appearance when I’m about a
third of the way through the first draft and need to have a bit of a think to
make sure all the different threads that are starting to come together get tied
up and I don’t leave any loose ends. The act of stringing a quite unnecessary
but beautiful amount of ribbon on it pinpointing major plot turns along with
the tremendous number of photos of my characters, locations I’ve used, and lots
of index cards with plot points written in my illegible writing, usually helps
unravel any knots I’m worried about. I actually have two bulletin boards and I
use both sides so that I don’t have to remove the chart until the book is
released.
At the end of it all—somehow—through much pondering,
problem-solving, writing, charting, spreadsheeting, procrastinating, angsting
and yet more writing, my book is born, written, edited and released!
Blurb:
The Love List
Falling in love is just not on Nora King’s To Do
List…
Neither is accidentally super-gluing her shoe to her
hand right before the biggest presentation of her life! With all the hard work
she’d put into securing the family business after her father’s death, Nora has
no choice but to accept help from a knight in shining armour.
Disaster relief worker Ethan Love is still haunted
by his last deployment, and desperate for distraction. He’s in town to ask Nora
for a major favour, and swooping in to save her presentation is a sure way to
get her on side.
As Ethan sticks around and helps Nora through her
grief, her barriers tumble down…but will she dare to swap her To Do lists for a
How to Fall in Love list?
Buy
Links:
Excerpt:
Nora’s eyes thundered. ‘This is why you really helped me
yesterday. So you could gain leverage. You scratched my back so I should
scratch yours?’
Ethan hardly ever responded to anger
but he was damned if he was going to sit here and let her get away with casting
him as some sort of villain. ‘Is that really why you think I helped you?’ he
asked slowly.
He watched the way she had her hands
on the table, curled around her glass like a lifeline, and his own hand, as if
drawn by magnet, moved to within touching distance of hers.
‘You sure you’re determined to ignore
what’s also going on here?’ he asked, making his voice quiet. Intimate.
Her eyes flicked to his and then
flicked sharply away again. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘Oh, you definitely do, but let’s see
what happens if I decide to call your bluff.’
Bio:
Eve Devon
My name’s Eve Devon and I write
sexy heroes, sassy heroines and happy ever afters…
I kind of secretly believe it’s
not too late for me to train as a professional dancer, MMA expert, or get asked
to be Angelina Jolie’s body-double. I know. This is why writing fiction is for
me!
Growing up in locations like Botswana and Venezuela
gave me quite the taste for adventure and my love for romances began when my
mother shoved one into my hands in a desperate attempt to keep me quiet during
TV coverage of the Wimbledon tennis finals.
When I wasn’t consuming books by the bucketload, I
could be found pretending to be a damsel in distress or running around solving
mysteries and writing down my adventures. As a teenager, I wrote countless
episodes of TV detective dramas so the hero and heroine would end up together
every week. As an adult, I worked in a library to conveniently continue
consuming books by the bucketload, until realising I was destined to write
contemporary romance and romantic suspense myself. I live in leafy Surrey in
the UK, a book-devouring, slightly melodramatic, romance-writing sassy heroine
with my very own sexy hero husband!
Where
you can find me:
1 comment:
What a great post! Eve - thanks for sharing your process. It sounds like a doable method for myself. As I'm working with my first full length novel, I find myself a little overwhelmed. In a way, my process falls close to what you describe, just a little out of order, which 'you guess right' has produced somewhat of a mess. :) The notebook ritual sounds like a wonderful addition. My papers and notes are 'well' everywhere. Thanks again for sharing.
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