Romance novel writing is hard work. Some romance writers outline their story in great detail before ever putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard in today’s high tech world. They know exactly where they’re going and exactly how to get there and exactly how long it will take them to get there. I envy them their orderly methods and minds.
I’m not one of those writers. This may surprise some of my friends. They think I’m something I’m not: organized. Over the years in my other life, I learned organizing techniques as a matter of survival – as in surviving my kids. It didn’t come easily or naturally or as quickly as the kids came, but it did come eventually. When you’re drowning, you either sink or learn to swim – fast!
I keep telling myself I can apply those same techniques to romance writing. I’ve studied Gustav Freytag. I’ve even drawn his little pyramid on a paper to keep me on track. There it is in front of me now: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Resolution, but I just can’t seem to get the hang of it.
I know that every scene must have a purpose; every dialog must move the story along, but what purpose and to where? Every time I think I know where my story is going to go, my characters take over and I’m left wondering where the hell we’re headed.
Take Guardian’s Grace for example. According to my original notes, Grace was supposed to meet Canaan by the end of Chapter 2. But oh no, Dov and Col had to stick their noses into the mix and I couldn’t find a way to make them go away! I wrote, rewrote and rewrote again and I simply could not make Canaan show up to rescue her. You meet him in Chapter 3 but Grace doesn’t meet him until Chapter 10! My characters stole the story.
It happens all the time. I have a folder of chapters that sounded wonderful when I wrote them. They would have fit perfectly with what I had planned, but my characters thought otherwise and those chapters are now consigned to the nobody-wants-me file.
The good news is that when I apply old Gustav’s pyramid to my finished work, it does fit the mold and you, gentle readers, keep buying my books for which I am extrememly grateful.
A Romance novel or any other kind of novel for that matter, is hard enough to write without saddling myself with artificial constraints. So I’m giving up on the organized outline or at least narrowing it down to two or three chapter at a time. I’ll let my characters do the plotting and I’ll stick to writing it down. That way I can be as surprised as they are when we finally reach the end. It may not be the proper way to write a romance, but it’s one that works for me.
Have a good one,
Jackie
