Pinning down the Plot and Threads

 One of the things I do before I get into the final work of the novel is "going through my plot and making sure all my plot points are right, that I have unity, that I have characters properly placed in the narrative, that the threads are in the right places to cross and meet, that I have the right amount of tension vs the amount of interiority and character building."

 I really write character driven novels since I came out of the romance genre. I was one of the first historical romance writers to use a lot of fantasy and paranormal elements in my fiction. I love the fantasy genre but I tend to like writers like Patricia McKillip, Naomi Novik, Alix Harrow, Robin McKinley, Susanna Clarke, and Erin Morgenstern. Angela Carter is an influence. I really don't write trail rides anymore.

The challenge I faced with this story was how to write a big story, with characters that had huge backstories, and do it small. Why? Because this is a character driven story and I am not an epic fantasy writer. Plus I hate flashbacks. Just writing versions of this book and throwing them away taught me what I could not do. And maybe how to write the closest version to what I imagined in my mind. I had to let go of a lot of things and yes, people. I had to learn how to write differently than any other previous book I had written or worked on. 

It's been a wonderful challenge for me. When I start working really hard on it in a few weeks, I am going to be updating a little here and for the most part, disappearing. I don't know right now how to write this novel and the next one while doing social media. I just don't.

I've had to think about writing in ways I never thought about it throughout the years. I've had to read many novels and other books. I've had to do lots of research for this novel, too, because the heart of it is true to the setting, the legal laws, and much of the folklore and magic systems that make the foundation of my own mythology. It's full of literary allusions and that sort of thing, too.

Well, I finished the song list, which is also a plot list, but nobody knows how that works but me. But you can see how I manipulated Syd Fields. Laughing. Everything is really balanced out. I am sure to change things as I build the new parts but hey, it's got a strong set of bones to work with and I'm settled.

I am reading both Dracula and The Sound and the Fury now. I am going to try to do some Dracula and reading updates soon. I am still going through writing papers. I need to type in timelines, too, as well as finish my calendars. I have changed the year 3 times, and some of the things are historical. Time is an important element of this novel, so is memory. I can honestly say this is the best heroine I have ever written. I write boys and men well, but I have had weaker heroines. I believe this is due to my personal life. My best friend in high school was a bisexual boy. I gave birth to boys, I tutored mostly boys. And when I studied history, it was mostly about war and warriors and soldiers. It's crazy to think I was a feminist all my life and what some of my friends called radical. But I grew up in a very conservative place and I was very progressive so I did not really meet a lot of girls I liked or could identify with growing up. Only my mother. Laughing. Most of my research books and reading for the last ten years has been making up time with women. I read mostly women now. And have spent a lot of time on the law concerning women and then other gender studies. It has made me a better writer. I do have two sisters, but their world view and mine are not the same at all. My older sister is terribly sweet but we don't see the big picture the same or even read the same books anymore. Once upon a time we did. But I outgrew those authors long ago.