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Writer’s Life: When You Can’t Shut Your Brain Off

March 4, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

One of the things about being a writer that some people often overlook is how much time goes into revisions.

For me, I spend less than 25% of my writing time on the first draft. It’s probably closer to 10%.

revision4
I try to remember this.

Part of it is because I am a pantser. That means I do not do extensive plotting before I start writing. I do spend a lot of time thinking about my characters, their relationship, and their romance. But the actual progression of the story happens as I write. My characters tell it to me, and if I try to be an author-god, it gets bad quickly.

Because I am a pantser, I spend a lot of time revising. I have to go through and make sure the plot works. That characters are consistent throughout. That what happens in act three has the groundwork laid in act one.

Yes, this is a lot of work. But even though I tried again last year to plot out a novel, I made it less than ten thousand words in and was done. The story died. I did write three other first drafts during the year though. Without an outline. *sigh*

Yeah, I don’t like how my brain works either. But I have learned to accept it.

migraine
Well, mostly.

But this does make it difficult to sit back and simply enjoy other works of fiction. Whether an RPG, a movie, or a novel, that editor brain doesn’t seem to shut up.

Interestingly, I have different levels of editor brain depending on the medium.

For example, with video games, I am far more lenient. Yeah, the story is poorly written, the characters inconsistent, and the plot is hanging by a thread, but a lot of the game is the battle mechanics. If it’s a strategy game with cool characters, even inconsistent characters, I am pretty forgiving.

For books and movies, though, I am more merciless.

RomeoJulietNotRomance
Truth.

For example, Frozen II. if you have not watched it and are planning to, and don’t want spoilers, don’t read ahead. But I figure it’s out on DVD now, so it’s safe to talk about.

Yes, Frozen II was a visual spectacle. I give it that. The animation was amazing. The songs are still being sung in my house *grumble*. But the plot? The characters? *shakes head*

  • I really struggled with Elsa simply “freeing” the unknown magic simply because it called to her and might be as confused about its identity and where it belonged as she was. Throughout the story, she is a cautious character very concerned with ruling her people well.
  • Later, we have the trolls tell Anna to protect Elsa from the magic. It is alluring but dangerous. However, then the crux of the story is Elsa literally pushing Anna away and embracing this same magic?
  • Elsa literally dies at one point in the movie, and is magically resurrected. Not sure how…They did establish Olaf coming back with the water has memory, but that doesn’t explain Elsa

All in, while my family loved the movie, I had to suspend a lot of disbelief. Too much.

I am even worse with books because then there are no pretty visuals to distract me.

I try hard to turn off my brain and enjoy entertainment, but I think this difficulty is just what it’s like for a writer sometimes.

However, it also means when something is well, really well, you get that, too.

And then you try to figure out how they did it so you can do it, too.

 

 

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: brain, frozen, Pantser, plot, revision, revisions, Romance, Romance Novels, Romance Writer, video games, Writing

Book Review: Don’t Tell a Duke You Love Him

February 28, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

DontTellaDukeYouLoveHim
Pretty cover! Too bad the rest wasn’t as good.

I don’t leave book reviews on Amazon or Goodreads as I am an author myself and think I am sometimes too critical. But I will share my thoughts here. Partially because I feel it’s only fair to give an honest review, but more for myself. It really helps me focus on what I like and don’t like in a story.

I picked up this book as the author was new-to-me and a USA Today Bestselling author. I am actively looking for new authors that transport me new worlds. If they can do that, reading them will make my own work better.

There was so much promise in this book it broke my heart it didn’t fulfill it.

First, there were missing words and so many issues with commas it made my head hurt. I eventually forced myself to stop looking at punctuation. Not a great start.

The plot was weak but there. A snowstorm traps a duke with the lady that caught his eye and he’s trying to avoid. This is standard plot fare in some Regency, so okay.

What caused me so much pain were the characters. I wanted to love and adore the three sisters, yet, I struggled to tell the difference between the main character, Lily, and her sister, Camille. They seemed like all but the same person. The third sister, Adelaide, I liked her. A lot. She had the most personality of anyone in the story but was a bit character.

The hero was your standard brooding, unloved duke. He was literally a walking trope.

It also contained the standard love-at-first-sight trope with nothing really to back it up. The romance between the two characters is so superficial, and they are married in less than two days of knowing each other.

I wanted them to get together. I’m a romance reader. This is a given going into any book. But I never really felt anything for either character. I was never really pulling for them, but then it could be because they were all but together by page twenty.

The heroine’s mother comes off as horrible, but stupid, and makes a poor villain and no real impediment.

Despite the cover, there is really no heat at all. A few okay kisses, and one after-marriage scene at the end. Nothing for me to learn there.

The characters do get together. No, this isn’t a spoiler. It’s a romance novel. I expect it. But there is really no reason why they couldn’t be together at the half-way point in the book. I was actually surprised there were so many pages left when I hit this point. My guess is the remaining half is to round out page count as there is nothing at any point that really tests their love, and there is nothing to help them get over any emotional baggage they supposedly have.

It’s a light, easy read, but it didn’t grip me. Maybe because it is just a compilation of tropes without making any of them more. If I wouldn’t have been able to read it in one sitting, I would have put it down and never picked it back up again.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, characters, love, Motivation, plot, Romance, Romance Novel, Romance Novels, Romance Writer, tension

Perseverance vs Stubbornness

May 30, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

When does perseverance become stubbornness?

Said another way, when is sticking with an endeavor the wrong thing to do?

This is a tough question, but also an important one.

Many times, I feel like if things are too hard, we as a society quit. That if something doesn’t come to us right away, there are so many other things to distract us that we don’t have to fight for it.

Success

But some of us don’t know when to let go. Facebook has proven that to me.

There has to be a middle ground.

When I was in high school, I loved tennis. It was a fast sport, kept my attention as I chased the fuzzy yellow ball, and involved no physical contact. But I understood even then that no matter how many hours I put into the sport (and I put in quite a lot), I would never be as good as the best player on our team. In her freshman year, she was already #1 on the varsity team and ranked in the top players in the state.

I didn’t have the raw talent she did, and even with hours and hours of practice every day, I knew I’d never get a college scholarship playing tennis, much less go pro.

Perseverance2

I knew enough to let tennis go and focus on my studies. Not always an easy choice, particulatly with the emphasis on sports in high school, but the right one.

I faced a similar issue with deciding between perseverance and stubbornness on a story I recently started.

I’d based it loosely on Romeo and Juliet…

Except it was two kingdoms instead of two families

And Romeo was a responsible and war-hardened prince

And there was going to be a happily-ever-after.

Okay, so nothing like Romeo and Juliet.

RomeoJulietNotRomance.png
Still not sure why people think it is a romance.

I had characters in mind for the story and a rough idea of what would happen. This is normal for my pantser self. But more than that, my muse wasn’t just sitting on my shoulder, she was screaming in my ear.

The words flowed until somewhere around the five-thousand word mark, and then my muse turned silent. I plodded along a little more, then I went back and reread my work.

My war-hardened prince was distant and unresponsive.

My heroine waffled between the demure personality I had envisioned and the strong-willed woman she wanted to be.

My external-to-the-romance plot was held together with paperclips and sticky notes.

Yeah, it was a hot mess.

And I didn’t want to edit it. I didn’t want to fix it. And I was only 5,000 words in.

My thoughts kept drifting to the heroine’s older brother, thinking maybe I should tell his story first and come back to her.

This time, rather than jumping into the story, I mulled over his character. How his kingdom fits into my larger world. What the ramifications are of having been a pocket kingdom beholden to an undead abomination. How much the royal family would sacrifice to protect their people.

It helped me create a solid character.

CharactersPlot
Never really had a plot to begin with

His love interest started to take shape at that point. I tried several different characters, until I found one that worked.

As I’m still working through edits on other stories and not ready to start a new novel, I decided to take my new characters on role-playing test drives. Basically, bouncing them through different “what-ifs” to see how they work together.

In each different scenario, I had to do something to “break” the hero to get through the layers of propriety, duty, and honor that defines him.

But it defines him. I can’t break that and have still be him.

After four or five different scenarios, I finally came up with one I think works. Yes, it removes three characters I had thought were essential. (hint: they weren’t).

But it lets the hero be the man he is all the way through the story. No need to “break” who he is to get him to fall in love. And that feels right.

Now, to find the time to write this…

What this taught me was persistence is important, but so is knowing when to let go and try something else. I haven’t given up on my hero, but I did let myself give up on various things that didn’t work to find the one I think will give me the best story.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: Don't quit, Facebook, Happily-ever-after, Hero, heroine, Pantser, perseverance, plot, prince, Romance, stubborn, talent, tennis, War

Writing Process: To Love a Prince

September 20, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

I am a panster.

 

For those that haven’t heard this term before, it means I write books “by the seat of my pants” rather than plotting out my novels.

CharactersPlot
This can be a real issue for a pantser

My prep work involves knowing who the characters are, a little bit about them, and the high-level issues they’re facing. Combined with a huge dose of “I really want to write about them”.

There’s a lot of debate about pantsing versus plotting. Plotting is where you spend a lot more time outlining what’s going to happen and when.

I’ve tried plotting.

Many times.

And I have 4 novels with 10k-20k words in them that I’ll probably never complete. I’m not sure why plotting doesn’t work for me.

Maybe I feel like the story has already been told when I plot. Maybe I get bored writing it. Maybe I rush forward to write all the plot points and ignore the characters.

I’m not sure, but I do know it doesn’t work. For me.

Writing To Love a Prince really taught me this. I started this story three times. I have one 60k work that is not salvageable where Prince Eli was supposed to be the hero. Yeah. 60k. But it was awful.

And it wasn’t Eli.

I couldn’t make him weak. I couldn’t make him indecisive.  He needed to be in control, and if he wasn’t, he was going to fight like an injured bear to get back into control.

He also didn’t care much what society said about him. He was a Prince. Let them fear him. Despise him. But they would respect him or face his wrath.

ToLoveAPrinceSmall
The end result of listening.

Yeah. The first story I wrote with him being injured and nursed back to health failed spectacularly. The second story where he was stymied by social pressure made him raise a brow. He almost rolled his eyes at me, but he’s too dignified for that.

Sure, the stories were plotted, but they weren’t his story. So I let him tell his. I was very hesitant at how the story progressed, especially as it involved a slave and royal succession.

I also worried Auburn’s kindness would be perceived as weakness. I tried changing her, but it just didn’t work. She had to be who she was because Eli fell in love with her for that. In a world as conniving as the court he’d grown up in, Auburn was his beacon of light.

I tried plotting once or twice more after To Love a Prince, but those failed, too.

So now I write by the seat of my pants. Yes, it means a lot more revisions. But I love writing that first draft! Seeing the characters revealed, their love grow, and see them overcome whatever I throw at them..

That is why I write.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: Character, characters, Pantser, plot, Romance Writer, To Love a Prince, Writing

Book Review: Uprooted

May 10, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

Book: Uprooted

Author: Namoi Novik

Recommendation: Do not start this book until you have a whole day to devote to finishing it

Uprooted.png
Uprooted

 

This book was recommended to me as a fantasy romance. It is NOT. It is still a fabulous book.

It’s so amazing, I stayed up until 3am trying to finish it. I couldn’t. I barely slept as the characters danced through my dreams, and once I woke up Saturday morning, I sat down and finished it.

There’s a grown-up in me somewhere, but she hides when I sink into a book this good.

The book is intense. The author hooks you in the beginning and never once gives you a spot to put a bookmark. It’s a heck of a ride.

 

Characters

I love the characters. They are rich and varied. The story is told in first person, and you really get a feel for the heroine. She’s not always brave, or beautiful, or cultured. I love that. She isn’t perfect. No one in the story is.

  • The prince slays a chimera, acts like an entitled jerk, and yet is still the 8 year-old-boy who lost his mother and is willing to sacrifice anything to get her back.
  • The powerful wizard who can’t connect to anyone or anything.
  • The best friend who was supposed to be perfect but then isn’t chosen and both resents not being chosen and is relieved she isn’t.

There is so much here it’s amazing. People are flawed, and those flaws have prices to themselves and those around them.

The only part I disliked was the some side characters I wanted to see live died. This is not a romance novel, but it’s not Game of Thrones, either.

 

Plot

The plot is intense. It grips you in the beginning, and what I thought was going to be the climactic rescue ends up being just another plot point about a quarter of the way through the story. Seriously intense.

But you get your ending, and it’s a good one.

 

 World Building

Truly spectacular. This is one of the strongest points of the book, and it has so many of them. Enough of the familiar mixed with the new that she creates something fresh but still wholly relatable.

 

Are there any bad things about the book? The only downside for me was I was looking for a comfortable fantasy romance. Instead, I got sucked into a hard core fantasy novel with all of the sadness and pain that they’re known to inflict on their characters.

There’s a reason I’m a romance reader and writer! I like the other stuff, and this was truly spectacular, but I felt so wrung out when it was over that I decided to clean the house! You know how much I love doing that.

If true fantasy is your genre, I’d say pick it up and give it a read. Days later, the plot and characters are still teasing around in my head so much they’re making my own writing difficult. I truly loved the story. It is powerful, riveting, and moving. But it also take a lot out of you.

 

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, characters, fantasy, intense, plot, World building

Book Review: A Talent for Trickery

April 26, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

Book: A Talent for Trickery

Author: Alissa Johnson

Recommendation: Solid Read

TalentTrickery
Fun, sassy book

I was looking for a fun book to pass a cold and rainy evening. This book checked a lot of boxes for me, and it didn’t disappoint in the execution.

Characters

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters.

Owen, the hero, was a white knight. He was not your typical alpha male, always knowing best. He stumbled, made mistakes, but at his core, he was always good and trying to do what was best. He was competent, smart, but not invincible. You also understood why he struggled not to always take charge.

Lottie, the heroine, was smart and savvy. She had a hard upbringing with a criminal father involving his children in his schemes. She’s come a long way, but trust doesn’t come easily for her. I also loved her relationship with her siblings

All of the supporting characters are excellent. Owen’s two men I’m sure will feature in future stories. Esther, Lottie’s sister, is a complex and developed character. More than that, the author focuses on the sisters’ relationship. How they argue, keep secrets, and try to protect each other. Esther is not just tacked on for a bridge into a sequel. No fighting over a man, either, thank goodness!

I really enjoyed the playful banter as well. The characters laughed and teased, even in some of the tense scenes as Lottie comes to terms with her past (as real people do).

Plot

The romantic plot was solid. Lottie might have forgiven the hero over past wrongs a tad easily, but I also applaud the author for not dragging it out interminably. And the reasoning behind the forgiveness did not require me to suspend disbelief.

This is a mystery romance, and the mystery seemed solid to me. I was surprised by the villain at the the end, but not unduly so, and all of the clues leading up to it kept me turning the pages.

Steamy Scenes

This was by far the weakest bit. There was one, it wasn’t bad, but it was pretty forgettable.

 

All in, well worth the read. It gave me the happily-ever-after I demand, and it was sweet without sending me into sugar shock. I liked the characters, and it featured a white knight hero. All in, a good read.

 

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, characters, Hero, heroine, Knight, Mystery, plot, steamy scenes, White Knight

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