On Working with Rachel
Hi! I'm Rinda Elliott and Rachel's guest blogger this week. Those of you who follow the Deadline Dames will know who I am, but for those of you who don't, I'm just another writer. LOL! Seriously, I write urban fantasy among other things and recently finished the first in a paranormal romance young adult trilogy. That book is making its way out into the world now. I also have the first in an adult urban fantasy series under submission.
Rachel and I share several things in common and have an excellent working partnership. It's not always easy for either of us because we came into this with promises of honesty above all else and we've held to that. There are times when we argue and we've both admitted to stomping around after a particularly unwelcome critique--but both of us have grown as writers and I trust Rachel to catch my big blunders before anyone else sees them. I do the same for her.
There are also a lot of exciting plot phone calls and laughter. I tend to amuse her highly with my misplaced modifiers, for instance. But we both love creating new worlds and sharing stories of the people who live in those worlds.
So, with this first post, thought I'd answer a couple of questions Rachel's readers have asked.
The first? What was my dominant emotion while reading Shift?
You guys are sneaky. ;)
I don't give away spoilers, but I suppose I won't be giving too much away if I admit to a squirmy sort of dread/anticipation mix. I knew something had to happen and the anticipation of that something kept me on the edge of my seat. If you read Prey, you'll get why. I also felt excitement and some anger and let's see... hope. Rachel did an excellent job of stirring emotion. It's a wonderful book and I can't wait for you all to get your hands on it.
Someone on Twitter asked for information on mapping out a long series and that's a better question for Rachel. She's written further into her series books than I have. Now, I have worked with her on every book after Stray, so her world is pretty strong in my mind. There have been several times we've been on the phone hashing out some plot when one or the other stops and brings up a point from a past book.
I brought this up already, but some of our best work is done hashing on the phone. We brainstorm, laugh and even argue. Rachel's worlds are very set. Her settings and characters are so very real to her, down to the smallest of details. For instance, here's an example of a conversation:
Rachel. "I wrote (?) into a bad situation. Now I have to figure out how what they'd do."
Me. "What if they did this?"
Rachel. "They'd never do that, it's impossible for their bodies to do that."
Me. "But you're the writer, their creator."
Rachel. Silence. "No, it's not logical."
As you probably guessed from that particular phone call, I wasn't much help that time. Not with coming up with the solution. But.. and this is the all important huge "but" here. That is not what we do for each other. No, our role is to get the other's mind working. She throws out ideas and I respond with some of my own and at some point, something clicks.
So, there you have a glimpse into our working world. :)
I'll continue to answer questions in upcoming posts, so feel free to ask them!
Rachel and I share several things in common and have an excellent working partnership. It's not always easy for either of us because we came into this with promises of honesty above all else and we've held to that. There are times when we argue and we've both admitted to stomping around after a particularly unwelcome critique--but both of us have grown as writers and I trust Rachel to catch my big blunders before anyone else sees them. I do the same for her.
There are also a lot of exciting plot phone calls and laughter. I tend to amuse her highly with my misplaced modifiers, for instance. But we both love creating new worlds and sharing stories of the people who live in those worlds.
So, with this first post, thought I'd answer a couple of questions Rachel's readers have asked.
The first? What was my dominant emotion while reading Shift?
You guys are sneaky. ;)
I don't give away spoilers, but I suppose I won't be giving too much away if I admit to a squirmy sort of dread/anticipation mix. I knew something had to happen and the anticipation of that something kept me on the edge of my seat. If you read Prey, you'll get why. I also felt excitement and some anger and let's see... hope. Rachel did an excellent job of stirring emotion. It's a wonderful book and I can't wait for you all to get your hands on it.
Someone on Twitter asked for information on mapping out a long series and that's a better question for Rachel. She's written further into her series books than I have. Now, I have worked with her on every book after Stray, so her world is pretty strong in my mind. There have been several times we've been on the phone hashing out some plot when one or the other stops and brings up a point from a past book.
I brought this up already, but some of our best work is done hashing on the phone. We brainstorm, laugh and even argue. Rachel's worlds are very set. Her settings and characters are so very real to her, down to the smallest of details. For instance, here's an example of a conversation:
Rachel. "I wrote (?) into a bad situation. Now I have to figure out how what they'd do."
Me. "What if they did this?"
Rachel. "They'd never do that, it's impossible for their bodies to do that."
Me. "But you're the writer, their creator."
Rachel. Silence. "No, it's not logical."
As you probably guessed from that particular phone call, I wasn't much help that time. Not with coming up with the solution. But.. and this is the all important huge "but" here. That is not what we do for each other. No, our role is to get the other's mind working. She throws out ideas and I respond with some of my own and at some point, something clicks.
So, there you have a glimpse into our working world. :)
I'll continue to answer questions in upcoming posts, so feel free to ask them!