How to write a book (short version)
I was just talking with a writer friend about the difficulties of wrangling all the threads of a big novel, in its early stages-something we both have plenty of familiarity with. It got me looking back at my notes for Lava Red Feather Blue, which I struggled with for the first several months of trying to write it. And this note was the turning point:
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Aug. 13, 2017
Here’s my moody trouble today and why I think I’m feeling like this isn’t as much fun as I hope: I’m giving too much thought to what people will like (tons of magic and action, nothing whatsoever to eye-roll about anywhere at all), and not enough to what I actually want to write. So what is it I want to write? Romance between these two guys. With a backdrop of this really cool magical island.
So while, yes, I need to figure out what this island’s fae-related setup is, I also need to keep my focus and the story’s heart on what I keep being most moved by: the potential of Merrick and Larkin’s relationship.
I think today I’ll get out the romance plot outline I downloaded from somewhere and try to lay out the story’s main plot points based on that. Then overlay them on the subplots of magic and setting.
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From there on out, the notes all start lining up much more with the book as we now know it, and I got my enthusiasm back. I had to remember that while plenty of people put magic systems first in their interests (as readers or as writers), I am not such a person. I like magic systems, and I need them, but they're never the top reason I love something. Characters and their various relationships are. So there's no point in my writing something that puts the magic system as the central focus when that's not MY central interest.
Basically: figure out what you most want to write, not what you think other people will like, and put that at the absolute center of the project. Then build the rest of it around that, using that center as your immovable foundation.