Becoming the writer I want to be

More romanceee!! I like many different kinds of stories, but the romance subplots are almost always my favorite part. Lol

 

Its not a massive part of the story to be fair but it adds flavour, and makes the protagonists journey more personal than it would be otherwise. I already had a similar angle for the female protagonist (albeit not a romance, its a mother/daughter relationship) so it made sense to give the male something as well. It also works because of the way the stories are set up; the female protagonists story and its climax is, perhaps not obvious, but clearly set up. From the first few chapters you can figure out whats going to happen and its more a case of figuring out HOW its going to happen and what will make it happen. For the male protagonists story its quite the opposite, the story veers in subtly foreshadowed but pretty unpredictable ways.

What I like about this as well is how the two stories seem almost completely unrelated apart from clearly taking place in the same universe. I think the way that the connection is made is almost nonchalant in, once again, that "damn i need to see where this goes to see how this is addressed" kinda way.

 

That's really cool! I love it when things fall into place so smoothly like that.

 

I'm pretty excited about my new book I'm starting. I know it's totally not gonna be your guys' thing at all, but I'm gonna rall about it anyway. Lol

So the book is going to be set on the set of a TV show similar to The Bachelorette, where a bunch of guys are on a reality show fighting to win the hand of the woman. But instead of being from the POV of the main lead woman, or one of the contestants, it's about one of the producers, and she ends up falling for one of the guys on the show.

I'm excited about this concept because it's simple, and because it follows a similar pattern to the show that already exists, I actually have a lot to work with already as far as structure goes. I've just made a few changes to make it my own.

I've been doing a lot of daydreaming the last couple days, and I finally feel like I actually have some good stuff to start writing, and a direction to go.

I thought of a fun subplot I'm excited about too, between the main girl and a co-worker she doesn't like. Their relationship is going to have a great arc and progression from enemies to friends, which will be nice. I'm not always great at thinking of subplots, so I'm excited about that.

The only thing I'm always nervous about when I start a new romance is that readers won't see the couple together, or their reasons for liking each other won't come across on the page. But I'm sure once I get to writing some scenes of them being cute and having chemistry with each other, it'll be good. I just haven't thought of any of those scenes yet.

 

I had this problem when writing the relationship in my book as well. To sum it up as quickly as possible, the protagonist and woman are brought together by tragedy. They are both psychologically damaged by things that happened to them off-page and as their relationship progresses they come to know this about each other, and they help each other overcome their personal trauma. I like it because the reader and characters learn at the same time, knowing the male protagonists backstory is a mystery set up from the very start of the book and you only find out what it is when the woman does.

I love the dynamic these two have because it acts as a beacon of light in the overall darkness of the story. They both find what they didn't even realise they were looking for in the other person, the woman helps the man become vulnerable and his "true" self again, after years of acting like a hardass devil may care type, and the protagonist is there to help the woman overcome her anxiety over what happened to her and to work as part of her new team. I also found a way to foreshadow future events within the "cute" moments they have and to be honest not to blow my own horn but I think my execution of it is pretty damn good, the kind of thing where once the future events happen you will realise how blatant it was and wonder how it was possible you didn't notice.

The problem is, I dont know if the reader will see it this way, and instead see the relationship, from meeting to officially becoming a couple, as rushed. To be fair, it kinda is, but thats also kinda the point. I dont want to change it from how it is because thats the way its intended to be, I just hope people understand that it being almost spontaneous and driven by circumstance makes more contextual sense than a fairytale romance or something more drawn out.

 

Ahhh, that's one of my favorite tropes! Well done.

I kind of did something similar with my most recent book actually. The male MC's history is well known, but the readers don't find out about the woman's past until he opens up to her about his, and she reciprocates. It's one of my favorite chapters <3

That sounds lovely!

I totally get how you feel. This is why we all need beta readers. I have my mom, sister, and husband read all my books once I'm done, mostly so I can see if they like the characters and relationships and if the pacing is good. Because those are things that are really hard for me to recognize myself, since I already know the story in my head.

With my first book, I could already see the end game of where the male and female were gonna end up, so I kind of made the girl a lot less fearful of him than she should have been in the beginning. I was getting ahead of myself. It was hard for me to see, because I already knew their whole story together, whereas the reader doesn't know them at all yet and needs to be waded in a little more slowly.

 

Wrote 1627 words today so far that'll probably be it for tonight.

 

1900 words today, chapter is finished.

 

A bit more than 1200 words done today.

 

957 words today. Passed the 4,000 word mark for this new book. It's coming along!

 

1500 words ish today. I made the decision to shorten what was to be a long conversation between two characters because I realised while writing that I dont really want another chapter where most of it is just people talking. It made sense in the male protagonists story as it served a narrative purpose, and it honestly didn't for the female protagonist as we already know her and the guy she is talking to perfectly well enough for the story to still work, slowing it down further I feel would harm the pacing. Instead, I had them talk about something that strengthened their friendship in a way that didnt waste the readers time, while providing an insight into WHY these characters are working together at all. Moral of the story, especially when writing sci fi, is sometimes expositional dialogue is needed, you cant completely avoid it, but too much of it can make learning about a character boring, and thats the worst possible outcome.

 

1250 words today. No chance the chapter is getting finished this week but by next week it will.

 

1800 words today, bringing me up to over 200 pages complete! Looking forward to getting back to it next week!

 

I'm so happy some things are opening up around here, because I'm absolutely dying to get out of the house to write. I just want to sit in a coffee shop for a couple hours and get stuff done. I think I'll be doing that this weekend.

 

2100 words today, finishing a long chapter.

 

1650 words today.

 

2100 words today.

 

2050 words today.