Archive | September 2024

Keeping the love alive

Sep30

Ari Wright has a new book coming out early November. She’s one of my favs, and even though I just devoured Book 3 or the MVP Series, I can’t wait for book 4. Although, of course I’m going to have to LOL.

It’s hard to write a series of books that both stand alone and give something a little extra to your faithful readers. I’m excited to find out how Ari pulls it off in Her Knotty List.

But we have until November to find that out (although the blurb gives us a hint) so let’s look at the last three and see how she did it.

In books 1 & 2 (Knot her Goal, Knot her Shot respectively) the female leads are really good friends and are in each book. They are both in book 3, but don’t know the female main character (and if I tell you more it’ll spoil book 3).

In all three of the books so far (#3 is Knot her Fight), the females have insecurity, or issues with feeling like they are worthy. To be fair, that might just be a people issue, but it resonates strongly for me. Even when things look up, sometimes it’s hard to remember it’s real life and you deserve good things.

Meg (Book 1) is a PR person, and happens to work on her packs  football team accounts. When she pops up in book 3, it’s believable because one of the male main characters is on that team. New readers will read it and move on. Personally I read it and went “Why’s Meg being so weird?” There was a reason, and when everything comes to light it makes sense. A little side wink to faithful readers, but not needed to get the plot or the hint. It will be fun to see if any of the previous characters make it into book 4 and how they end up in the book.

In all three of the current books, the female main characters have met their packs very different ways. A job interview, a matching service and a police station. Book 4 looks like it will be a wild meet up as well. A runaway bride? Yes, please!

There is a big difference between the first three books and the fourth. The pack isn’t formed when she meets them. This is going to be fun to read and must have been fun to write.

Some authors have a specific formula they follow religously when they write. And that’s fine — there are times when I know I need a hit of that formula and will seek out a new title by them.

But there are other authors, like Ari Wright, who take a formula and tweak it and tweak it until the book burns brightly on its own.

I can’t wait!

Writing Dilemma

Sep19

So here goes nothing. Writing style lol.

Question for my writerly friends : How far down a dark path can you take a character before they lose all hope of being redeemed within the story and/or with the characters in the story?

And I’m talking about abandonment of responsibility (in a relationship) and fraud level stuff. It’s itching at my brain right now, because I’m writing that character right now. Or rather, I’m writing the aftermath of his selfishness.

Or cowardice.

Or just taking wrong advice and running with it. Letting it compound and multiply, unaware of the ramifications because of course the person who gave the advice never told him of the ramifications. The potential fall out. He’s naive.

He’s a sheep.

I don’t know if I, as the writer of the story, can forgive him being a sheep. Not thinking it through.

I know within a story a bad hero can be redeemed. I’ve read it. I’ve written about it with my post of Ari Wright. This isn’t about realizing you’ve made a mistake and correcting it though.

It’s changing the very fabric of the way the man thinks and reacts to his own mistakes.

What thinkest thou?

Redeemable?

Disposable?

It just might be the flex my writing muscles need. To see if I can redeem this character that I, the writer, loath.

Or I might just kill him off.

Writing

Sep17

I have been writing again. Consistently for the past little bit, and I’m very, quietly excited about it. As well as reading an obscene amount of books. But here’s the thing about reading so much…

You learn what tickles your writing fancy. But it’s also how you learn to handle things like.. a huge info dump.  How to take a severely flawed character and make them likeable. Reading is how we learn the nuts and bolts of both the art and craft of our genres.

When I was a baby writer, I read and read, then when I went to write it came out a bit like what I’d just been reading. Blue Sword Duology, anyone? Those stories, short and otherwise, will never see the light of day and even though I might not make money from them they were valuable.

Their value was in the practice. The practice of sitting down and writing. The practice of dialog, plot, setting. Yes, I was following a formula laid down by someone else, but it worked. I learned.

And even when I couldn’t write I was still learning the art of story, just from the consumer’s perspective.

Right now I’m trying to figure out if one of my characters is a villain or a dumbass. And if he is a dumbass, can he be realistically redeemed?

If it was me? Hell no. But my other characters aren’t me. So now I’m trying to find empathy for a character who I not so proudly claim is a dumbass. I know what the confrontation is, the start of it. It’s a ways off, so I’m going back to some of my fav authors and seeing how they handled it.

Wish me luck!