Writing Like Joan Wilder
(it's in the plotting for me)
Today’s post has a song soundtrack, which I’ll introduce it later, but first, let’s watch this short video:
I first watched “Romancing the Stone” before I entered into the serious pursuit of publishing romances. I loved this movie — I am not at all certain it has stood the test of time, however.
Once deep into the publishing world, my delight at that opening scene changed to derision: Joan Wilder didn’t need to make a second draft? Was she a pantser, not a plotter? (A pantser writes by the seat of their pants.) And she just handed it off to her editor who called her and came over to her house? For real?
But the tears at a happy ending. Ahh, I aspired to that, but alas I do not find it in the writing, I find it in the plotting.
Before pen commits to paper (I wrote this by hand, remember), I spend a few months working on the plot.
From the germination of the idea (see this post)… I daydream. I imagine how the story unfolds… it plays out like a movie in my mind … and I start a mind map.
This enables me to get the bones down, as it were and then as I imagine or figure out each bit, I move the plot-points around.
Sometimes the plot generates questions and this is when I brainstorm in the mind map, following and imagining all the possibilities before choosing one and altering the plot from that moment forward.
Thus, I imagined the end of book one before even putting pen to paper. The scene itself was a foretelling of the final scene because we know our heroine has visions.
I found myself in tearful denial. No! It’s not going to happen this way. There had to be a way around it, a way she could escape it because she saw it coming.
And yet, any other choice would not serve the story. All her greatest fears needed to come true, and I would figure out the redemption part, if there was any, later.
As I wrote the outline, I cried because her pain was so real in my mind. When it came to fleshing it out into a full scene, other writing concerns came into play: I had written the bulk of the novel by this point so the sadness faded a bit, the point of view (it’s hers), and I wanted to make you feel it all too. No idea if it was successful … I’ll be asking you in July about that.
What ideas and assumptions do you have about romance writers? Maybe I can bust a few more. Let me know in the comments or via email!
Need a catch up on all things behind the scenes (that I probably haven’t talked about here?). Watch this video.
Did the videos load for anybody?