Inspiration

I think the question that I see most often when authors interact with their fans is about their process - how does a story get from an idea to a finished product?  It was a question I often had before I was published the first time and its a question I still ask myself as I feel like the writing process can always be refined.  I think it's a really important question too, because the one thing I think aspiring authors don't understand about becoming published is that writing is less of an art and more of a craft.  Writing is skill - a honed, developed, practiced and REPEATABLE skill.  The key there is repeatable; if you want to be successful (in terms of getting more than one thing published) you have to be able to do it again.

The other thing to remember is that for a publishing house, writing isn't art either: it's a business.  They won't accept your manuscript if they don't think it can make them money - it doesn't matter how good or innovative or inspiring it is.  That may sound callous, but it's the truth, cold and hard to swallow as it is.  Publishing companies have certain things they look for (i.e. things that have sold well in the past) and if your manuscript doesn't have it, then they don't want it. 

What does all that mean for your writing process?  Not a whole lot other than that you need one that's going to help you deliver on all those fronts over and over again, not leave you with folders upon folders of unfinished or rejected manuscripts littering your hard drive.  I've been asked before the nature of my writing process in both broad and very specific terms and so I thought I'd do a few posts on some of the most important parts of my process.


I feel I should insert a little disclaimer here.  While most of the tips, tricks and processes that I use could be applied to any type of fiction with success, please remember that the bulk of my writing is erotic romance and so this process is geared specifically toward that.  If you want to adapt this process for a different type of story, just think about what your main focus is - monster encounters in a horror story, fascinating tech in a sci-fi, or magic in a fantasy - and anywhere that I talk about sex (which is my main focus as an erotica writer) replace it with your main focus.  :D

So that begs the question: where is it that I start?  For me, it's all about the sex.  I write erotica, that's what my readers are looking for in my stories.  The basic plot outline I try to follow has room for anywhere between 3 and 6 sex scenes and if I haven't had a sex scene by chapter 3 then I'm doing it wrong.  So, I start with thinking about what kind of sex I want to write: forbidden passion, hate-sex, D/s, vanilla kink, D/s themes without formal structure, soul-bonding, casual that turns into something more?  

From there it was a matter of figuring out what type of story I needed to write to get those types of scenes.  This may be a matter of figuring out something situational, or it may be about what kin of characters would I need to pull that off effectively, or a combination of both. The result then becomes my general premise - hated work rivals realize their tension was sexual all along, boss realizes his hot secretary gets off on following his orders, jaded BDSM club owner renews his passion for the scene when he takes on a difficult, yet sexy sub.

Now that the story is a little more fleshed out, I plug it into my basic chapter outline and see if it works.  I have a basic chapter outline that I use for all my stories that I adapt and change as needed, but basically every story I write starts out looking like this:

1.  Set-up
2. Sex
3. Reaction to Sex
4. Internal Conflict
5. Try to resist each other
6.Can't resist each other
7. Everything Sucks
8. Finally Communicate
9. Internal Conflict Solved

I personally wait until the last chapter to resolve the internal conflict (which in a romance is getting the characters together) because for the types of stories I write, the internal - emotional - conflict is the entire POINT of the story.  All the sex and any external conflict and everything else is just the vehicle that gets them there.  If I were to solve my MAIN conflict (i.e. get the characters into a relationship in the middle of the book) then there would be no point in the reader continuing on.

Also, I don't write a whole lot of external conflict, that's just not what I do. For me, the story is about sex and emotion and I don't feel the need to manipulate those things with dramatic plot lines. I find when I try that it slips into the realm of melodrama. But if external conflict is something you do and can do well, then more power to you. But I would advise you to be careful where you take that. Readers are too savvy to appreciate things like "divine intervention" endings, a narrative littered with cliches, or events that exist solely to be a plot device and push the story along. Also be wary of the gross overreaction response, anything that reads really unrealistic is going to be no fun for readers.

The absolute best advice I can give you about story elements though? Cruise goodreads for bad reviews in your genre. See what your audience is complaining about from other authors. In my genre its all about being fed up with melodrama, weak characters, unrealistic overreactions, poorly written BDSM and stilted, fake sounding dialogue. But find out what it is in your genre. If you want to make money writing, readers have to like your book and be willing to buy subsequent titles. Learn from other author's mistakes and don't piss off your fan base.