Recently, in one of the author Facebook groups I’m a part of, several authors raved about a particular craft book called Story Genius by Lisa Cron.
Now, I have a whole shelf-full of writing craft books, and I didn’t really think I needed any more. However, after hearing several of this group’s members chime in about how much they loved this particular book, and after hearing their stories about how the book put their current manuscripts back on-track, I was intrigued.
Intrigued enough that I actually bought the book that very day. (See, word-of-mouth really does work!)
I thought that maybe it would help me work through the troubles I was having at the time with Bones in Blackbird, book 3 of The Legacy of Lucky Logan series. Now, this series has been BY FAR to date the easiest books to write I’ve ever written. However, in the past few months, book 3 has been giving me some trouble.
Which would frustrate me to no end, considering how EASILY book 1 and book 2 flowed out. I hardly had to think about those. They just mostly worked out all on their own, with hardly any input from me.
But book 3… well. Book 3 has been a bit of a problem child. And for awhile, I couldn’t figure out why. I tried to push on through. I thought I was just balking because I didn’t know what would happen next. Even though I’ve been Writing Into the Dark for all these books, and rarely knew what happened next, and it had never been a problem before.
But maybe now I was just starting to freak out about it since I was so deep into the series, I wondered. But no… after more thought, I didn’t think that was the root of the trouble, after all.
So I spent several days deep in thought about this. I sorted through a lot of possibilities, but nothing seemed to fit quite right. Then, finally, as I reached more scenes where the character of Charlotte Harrison had to do more speaking and acting, it finally hit me:
I HAD NO IDEA WHAT CHARLOTTE WANTED. (*insert dramatic gasp here*)
I didn’t know WHY she was there. (Okay… I knew WHY she was there for ME, for MY purposes, but there had to be a reason for HER to be there as well, otherwise it all just falls apart.) I didn’t know the motivations behind her presence in this book, or her actions. And if, as the author, I don’t know that… then I can’t know how she would act, or what she would say, in any given situation.
And THAT was what’s been bothering me this WHOLE TIME. Ever since I started writing this book in November 2020. Only now it was to the point where she was so involved in the book’s plot, and she had enough scenes where she needed to SPEAK and you know, DO THINGS… that my not-knowing was becoming a problem. It was really starting to hinder the story.
And my subconscious knew this, and was repeatedly poking my consciousness with a stick, trying to get it to notice, too. Until at last, the nagging sensation became so profound I knew there really was some kind of real problem, and I needed to sit down and figure it out.
Well, at precisely this time was when I saw all those other authors raving about Story Genius. So I thought, “Well, I’m pretty sure I know what’s wrong with my book now, but I’ll get this Story Genius book anyway. Maybe it will have further insights, or maybe it will help confirm my conclusions about book 3 are on the right track.”
So I bought it. And I started reading it. And I was immediately hooked. Fascinated and intrigued, because the reasons why humans are so obsessed with story has always been a subject near and dear to my heart! (Obviously.) Immediately, I loved this book.
Even better… almost immediately, it confirmed all my conclusions about what was wrong with my book 3 and Charlotte Harrison in particular! Whaddaya know!!
But it went deeper, too, and I’m so glad I found this book when I did. Because now I can take the time to really dig in and make sure the rest of the Lucky Logan series stays on track, and goes where I’ve always wanted it to go!
To that end, I’ve decided to publicly work through some of the exercises Lisa Cron goes through in the book here, on the blog, and maybe in a few YouTube videos, too. (Sometimes I just really don’t feel like typing anymore, ya know??) So that’s what I’ll be doing over the next few weeks.
I’ll be working through the following projects, for different perspectives of various stages, and for my own use, of course. But I thought it might be interesting for other authors and readers too to get an insight into this process. And anyway, I’ve always wanted to document the development of a raw idea from first glimmer to finished novel, as it changes SO MUCH in-between, but never got around to it.
Maybe this will help me actually do that!
So here’s what I’ll be going over with Story Genius:
- The Lucky Logan series – as a whole. However, eventually I’ll likely narrow down onto book 3, Bones in Blackbird, and Charlotte in particular.
- Reign of Dust – this is my romantic epic fantasy book 1. I’ve drafted the entire thing… but there is something very wrong with it. It’s taken me years to figure out what that is. I mostly figured out what was wrong on my own, but now Story Genius has given me a much better insight into some very glaring issues with it. So I’m going to start all over again with this one, and hopefully work through what I need to do to re-structure and re-vamp it so that someday it can actually go out into the world!
- An MM and an MF western romance idea – these two are very, very raw ideas, which I think will be fun to take through this process to see if I can flesh them out into a form that’s actually ready to be written. I’ve lumped them together here because they are basically twin ideas, with very similar premises executed in slightly different ways, because I couldn’t decide which I wanted to write more. So I figured I’ll just write both. 🙂
And that’s that!
And also… this has gotten long enough… so next up will be… The First Pinprick… where I go back to the very first original idea that sparked all of these books in the first place!
Till then….
Stay safe, my dears!
PS: If you’re a writer and you’d like to check out Story Genius for yourself, you can grab it right here! Full disclosure, I am an Amazon Affiliate and will earn from qualifying purchases. 🙂 But that’s just another fantastic way you can help me write more books… without having to pay anything extra yourself! (Hey, thanks!!)
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