That's me over there, smacking my hand against my head with a, what were you thinking expression. (Although I hope I'm not as ugly-looking as ol' Homer.)Actually, I do this a lot. In the privacy of my home. Give myself a whack when I realize what I've done is the stupidest thing on the planet. Okay, maybe not stupid. More like...uninformed.
I've hit the zone. You know, the one, when you're writing, when nothing else matters. Kids can scream, food can burn, the TV can blare in the background and you hardly notice it. You don't care that you've just given the baby a cupcake at . . . 9:31 in the morning to shut him up. You don't care that the older Gremlins have turned on some kick-fighting, blood-letting cartoon you wouldn't in your right mind ever let them watch. You simply tune everything out and write. I liken it to the high a runner gets when they hit the groove (the one I rarely get to because I give up way too soon) - legs lengthen, breathing regulates, you pass that Mt. Rushmore wall of stone and you feel like you could go . . . forever. Man, it's a great feeling. The words literally fall right out of my fingers, move across the keys themselves and miraculously appear on the page as if my brain wasn't connected at all.
So what's so stupid about that? Here it is. The book I'm working on now is a book that's been churning in my head for eons. I'm not sure why it has to come out now, but I'm not questioning the zone. Go with the flow, let the characters guide you. That's my motto. The problem is, it's connected to a book I wrote a while back, one my agent is reading at this moment. Whether or not she likes the first book, and whether or not it sells is irrelevant to me at this point. I'm writing this book. This story has to be told and my characters have such a noose around my neck, I couldn't stop now even if I tried. The issue I have is when I wrote the first book way back when, there were secondary characters that were included in that book - that play a bigger role in this book - that weren't fully formed. Yeah, I know. I can hear Karen and Genene yelling, character charts! character charts! But they don't work for me. This character wasn't formed yet because he didn't have to be. At the time, he was a very minor secondary characters, lurking in the shadows who I knew one day would step out into the light, it just wasn't his time. In this book, though he's still a secondary character, he's suddenly twisting and turning and becoming something I hadn't seen before. That's the "doh" moment. I knew he had issues in book one - but I couldn't see them clearly. Now I do.
Of course, I'm lucky. The first book hasn't sold, hasn't been edited by my agent. It's very easy to go back and make the very minor changes to darken this particular character to the degree that needs darkening. An easy fix for me as an unpublished, but I can't stop thinking about how published authors handle this sort of thing.
I love connected books. Feed off them, really. That anticipation of yearning for the next release is a high I, though I grumble about it, love to experience. The book I'm working on now is part of a series, sort of. Connected characters in what could be 4-5 books if I ever got around to doing them all, although each book would be stand alone and could be read out of order. That's my goal, really. Not simply to sell, but to be able to sustain a series like that. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I just can't help but wonder how published authors do it. I mean, the desire to go back and change this character in the first book to match what I've discovered in book 2 is overwhelming, to say the least. What do you do when it's already printed and done and can't be changed?
Last fall when we were all at the beach, you might remember I was banging my head against a wall working on a proposal to send my agent. That, too, was a connected book idea - to the book my agent is still shopping around. My problem - as Lisa finally made me see - was that I was already working with a semi-formed character - one who'd had a very large secondary roll in the first book. I couldn't seem to twist him around to what I needed to go with the idea I'd come up with for the new book, and no matter what I did, he screamed, "No way!" I finally gave up and decided it wasn't time for him. Maybe he needed more time to fully form. Maybe the plot I thought was brilliant was really a POS. Maybe I just wasn't ready to write that book. I don't really know, but I do know working with semi-formed characters is much harder than starting fresh with someone new or even working with fully-formed characters.
This book, the one I'm working on now, isn't like that because the hero in this book - while a secondary character in the other one - has been fully formed in my mind for a long, long time. Probably long enough that I know him so well, I know what he has to do. As Alice told me yesterday when I mentioned this to her, "Some books almost write themselves. I think that's especially true when it's been simmering on a back burner for awhile."
I think I took a strange tangent here and got off topic, so I'll try to veer back. Do any of you write connected books? And if so, how do you keep your characters consistent from one book to the other, especially very minor ones who don't necessarily need to be fully formed from one book to the next?
16 comments:
ARGH!!! Don't you do this to me! LOL
I'm just about ready to start on the second Halsey brother book. And I am having the same kind of problems. Those who read the first book and asked about a second, loved the brother who is the hero of the next book. The reasons they loved him are his biggest downfalls in this next book. That in itself is making it hard to work out in my head. Yes, my head. I have only the first five pages written.
And as you know the first book is published, and I can't go back and change him even if I wanted to, which I don't. I like how he came across in the first book and it will make some great conflicts in the second. Luckily, I kept all the brothers a little vague in the first book, so I can branch out with them in their own books!
Oh, I want to be at the stage where my fingers are flying and the story is unfolding!!!!! I hate revisions!!!!!!!!!!!
Oops! Did I say that? ;)
Congrats on the flying fingers. I don't think I was any help,but, I feel your angst! LOL
Alice here---
Pages flowing from your fingers, brain on a roll, words tumbling onto the page, mind racing ahead, almost tele-porting the thoughts onto the screen....in the zone.
Ah, I remember that. Not with this book, not yet, but it could happen! Maybe the trouble is I haven't had this book simmering long enough.
You raise some interesting points about characters flitting between books. Like you, if I read a book with continuing characters, that author has me hooked, I will keep reading.
Since I write category, the secondary characters in my books are seldom more than talking shadows (you know, this is not really true, but I like the term so much I am going to indulge myself in a way I never could in a book and leave in an inaccuracy just because I like it!) unless they're a mentor or a villain or someone else not likely to get their own RS book down the line. And since each book is a love story, the main characters seldom reappear although I can think of ways that could be done that would be fun to try and no doubt has been tried by those before me.
I've written one set of connected books. I wrote them back to back and still I found myself wishing I had put more of each of them in the other one's book. That's not what you are talking about, though. You are talking about minor characters getting their own book somewhere down the line.
I would suppose that leaving as many ambiguities alive and lurking would be one way to fill in blanks later. Also, what you're doing by going back in and rewriting. I would also suppose that if this character has been portrayed as easy going in the first book, it's published and then that character wants his own book, you could explain away that easy going manner ("Gosh, Jed, I didn't know you were taking Prozac! You're so much edgier when you're off your medication...") in some way or another.
If you sell the idea of five connected books to a publisher, most likely they are going to want some kind of information about each book, and if you have any brains (or eyebrows) left, you will have decided which five characters are going to have their books and you are going to have written up some kind of character sketch for each of them so you can carry this off. No, stop panicking, this is not writing a synopsis, this is just knowing who your people are for continuity's sake.
I want my next three books to revolve around three different women coming together after the death of a fourth. That means I need to know the dynamics of each woman within the group. People are dear friends for reasons, so I need to know how they interact so I don't end up writing three books about basically the same character. Ew. Or writing books about three people no one would ever believe would be friends in real life.
I think you are worrying about something that will resolve itself in the process. I know it's a stretch for you to consider the thought you may be worrying about something, but there you go. And what you are learning now through this experience will help you know how to prepare for similar situations down the line.
Good luck merging Gremlins and Zones!
Alice
I think characters twisting around is part of the reason why many connected books often feature unexpected heros and heroines. I know Brockmann does this a lot--she'll bring someone very very minor to the forefront until the more major character is "ready" for their book. So it might not be that your character was TOO fully formed, but rather that that just wasn't HIS book. Since they were both in book 1, why not give them each books with OTHER people????? Whom you can twist and mutate as needed.
I seem to be better at getting ideas for one-off books than for getting ideas for series. Perhaps because my secondary characters are usually so zany. But, I would really really like to explore more connected ideas because I LOVE series books.
Hey, I love connected books! As a matter of fact, the two manuscripts I sold are connected to the manuscript I'm working on now.
However, I tend to come up with stories for secondary characters as I'm writing the first book they appear in. So though they aren't fully formed, I'm getting to know them pretty well.
And, as Alice said, a lot of this resolves itself in the process. As a secondary character, I try to give them strong motivation and maybe peel away one or two "layers of the onion," but not to the point where they take over the first book.
However, in their own book, I dig deeper and deeper into their motivation(s); into reasons the character might not even be aware of. And with their own story, they change and grow by the end of the book, so things that you may go "I wish I hadn't done that" could be one of the ways they change.
Does any of that make sense? But, yes, I'm glad my two sold manuscripts haven't been released yet so I can make minor edits to the secondary characters without so much twisting and turning in their own story!
Glad your story is flowing!
ROFL, Paty. I'm glad I'm not alone. ;) Good luck on the new book. I'm sure you'll make your hero work.
Alice, can I just say...I want to be you when I grow up. Periodically, I email my CP snippets of comments you leave on the blog. She always asks how on earth you got to be so wise and how the heck I found a friend with such great advice. (Apparantly I'm not the kind of person who draws wise friends????)
You're right, I'm stressing about something that isn't really a big deal. I think it stems from the fact I just finished reading the fourth book in a series and I'm amazed that four books in, the hero in this book, who was a secondary character in book one, stayed so true to who they were in the very beginning. As someone who doesn't even necessarily plot the FIRST book, I'm in awe of authors who can plot - at least characters - 3,4,5 books in advance. I want to be able to do that. So far, I'm not there.
Thanks for all your great words of wisdom. ;) And, like I told you before, I can't wait to read your book about the three girlfriends.
Wavy, great point. In the proposal I was trying to work at the beach, it WAS two characters from book one who were the main characters in that book two. In THIS book I'm working on here, not the case. The hero was a secondary character from the other book, but the heroine is totally new.
And I haven't read any Suzanne Brockmann books - I know, I know, crazy considering I write RS, huh? I need to put her on my authors TBR list. Which book do you recommend starting with?
Yes, Genene, totally makes sense. Is the hero of book three someone who was present in book one?
Sorry to chime in late. Busy week.
The first book I wrote, intending it to be a series. I still intend it to someday be that, have a good start on the second installment. But, since I havent' sold the first, I'm hesitant to spend a lot of time on the second right now. The main character is the same in both books, but yes, one of the secondaries steps into the light in a romantic way that was only hinted at in the first. We'll see how that turns out. Right now I have to finish the one I'm up to my elbows in, and getting closer...
Fifty-five new pages in the past two weeks and a bunch more revised, so feeling good.
Woo-hoo!
And yes, Eli. THE ZONE. I love the zone. Forget sex, chocolate, Men in Trees, just give me more of the zone.
I got a good taste of the zone last week, and a small taste this week. That's where my best stuff comes from. That magical place.
Not going there today. Going to the coast to have lunch. That's nice too.
Eli, if you want to read her ST RS in order, start with the Unsung Hero. But you can also read them out of order. I'll bring you Unsung Hero and Hot Target to borrow to the Meeting.
Everyone has had some great insights! And I think every writer at some stage in their writing have had a book that is a sequel or series, because we all writer secondary characters that have to tell their story! LOL
I'm not having any problems with the spirit trilogy because they are pretty much stand alone books, with only the spirits and the history of the Nez Perce being the connecting factors.
Great Blog, Eli! And helpful to me who seems to want to make every character I ever wrote have their own story! LOL
Way to go on the 55 pgs, Danita. WOWIE!!! You go, girl.
I can understand you waiting on book #2. If the books are so connected you have to read the first to know what's happening in the second, it makes total sense to wait to write the second until the first sells.
Great, Wavy. Thanks! I'd appreciate that. I'm always looking for something good to read. :)
Glad it was helpful to you, too, Paty. ;) This blog is great.
Eli,
I'm also bringing you the movie The Big Easy to borrow. It has the cop walking the line between good and bad. It's a great movie. I mentioned loaning it to you at the retreat, then forgot about it until the other day when I was digging through the movie cabinet.
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