Good morning, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week. We’ve got a cold running through the house, but gratefully we’re nearing the end of it.
Today I’m going to tell you all a little something about how I write. There are lots of organizational systems out there that are meant to help authors, but I’m very much stuck in my ways. I am a notebook kind of girl.
The first thing I do when plotting a novel is: I write my ideas down. I have a whole section of my notebooks reserved for future plot ideas. And they’re generally quite vague in details, just a sentence or two. For example: for my second novel my line was “Previously best friends, he is spy wanting to protect her, she feels abandoned, villains threaten her and force him to keep her save.” Then the more I think about the plot, the more details I put in. I find photos for inspiration, think of names, and then I begin to write character outlines.
My character outlines are generally a page long and consist of my hero and heroine’s age, appearance, habits, background, family, scent, sounds, likes, and dislikes, etc.
From there, I begin writing a general plot outline so that I know where the story is going to take me. This is never a ‘set-in-stone’ outline; I find that mine changes quite a bit when my characters take form… they like to lead me in different directions unexpectedly.
Because my hero and heroine change my plot so frequently, once I write a much more detailed plot outline, I can only write one to two pages in advance. Only once I have typed the pages will I know for certain where to go next. For that reason I type and write notes alternately.
Once I have my detailed plot notes I sit down to type. During the week I have difficulty finding time, as with four children, my days are filled. My eldest is in Kindergarten, so my days aren’t as hectic as they once were, but with trips to and from school with my other three children, I am still quite busy. Thankfully, my husband has been so good to me and gives me time on the weekends to dedicate to writing. That is when I hide away in my office, curl up with a blanket and my laptop and get to working!
I think that is enough about my writing for today. If you have any questions about my process, please feel free to comment! I would be pleased to answer any questions you have.
Stay tuned for another blog about how I write focusing on research and the ever-challenging historical timeline!
Thank you all for reading! Have a great Wednesday!
Cheri Champagne's Blog 