Writing Process Blog Hop

My amazing CP Ashley Turcotte has invited me to take part in this fun little blog hop. It’s fairly simple, just four questions about my writing process, and then I’ll name someone at the end to hopefully keep this going. Here it goes!

1. What are you working on right now?

Right now I’m working on editing up a YA SciFi story I’ve titled IF SKYSCRAPERS HAD SECRETS (ISHS). I settled on the title recently and I hope it sticks. I struggle with titles the most, so having this one come to me early is a good sign. Basically, I wrote this over the summer, reread it several times and I’m now passing it through beta groups. After each beta group, I work to hone issues down until I feel like (and hear from new readers) that the problem is no longer showing its ugly head. Having just started this process, I’m going through line-edits from the aforementioned Miss Turcotte. They’re kicking my butt a bit, but the story is so much better for it!

2. How does it differ from other works in its genre?

ISHS is a scifi, but it doesn’t have a lot of the hallmark plot points that clog the genre. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of classic scifi stories that focus a ton on aliens, or space opera or crazy new inventions. That’s just not ISHS. I would say that it relies a lot more on a realistic look at the near future of Earth and how our world will be effected by the choices current generations are making.

3. Why do you write what you do?

Much like Ashley, since I was very young I’ve been telling stories and none of them ever involved what was going on in my real (contemporary) life. They were always grandiose tales of other worlds, or exaggerations from the world around me. It was the easiest way for me to escape my real world problems and forget my troubles for even a little while. As such, speculative fiction has always been my go-to for writing. Fantasy, scifi, alternate history, historical fantasy, you name it–I write it!

4. How does your writing process work?

More or less, I come up with the general concept first. My last story, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE is an alternate history based off the idea of what might have happened if the American revolutionaries lost the war to the British and the world that would come from that.

ISHS started out as the idea of a boy living in a world where cities are organized in vertical levels to accommodate the surplus population. Generally I don’t get the actual pitch style 1-sentence concept of the story down until I’m done, but simply start off an idea.

Then, I let the idea simmer inside me until I collect all sorts of thoughts about plot, character, twists and themes that speak to me. At that point, I begin to string the plot together through an outline. I don’t like to actually begin writing until I know all the details of the story and can hear my MC’s voice speak to me. I like to call myself a plotting pantser because I plot all I can until I let myself go and just write whatever feels right-whether that goes along with my outline or not.

And then it’s a few read-throughs to make it decent and off to betas!

I know it’s unusual, but it works for me 🙂 Now I’m supposed to tag someone else in this blog hop. Since everyone I can think of is probably as busy as me, I’ve picked two people. One- my oldest CP buddy, Margaret Alexander. And Two- the infamous Summer Heacock. Have fun, ladies!