Whoo! Finished! And I emailed it to my ed tonight. So… that’s my 18th M&B delivered. It was 4,000 words short this morning, but the final readthrough and tinkering brought it back to where it should be.

Layering – Wendy asked me about this so, despite what I’ve read elsewhere that authors’ blogs shouldn’t be narcissistic (um – well, what else are they going to be, then, if said writers are talking about their books and day to day life?), this is how I work on fiction.

When I get an idea for a book, I rough it out on computer file and then write a two-page synopsis. For romances, I list the conflicts first – this way I can see if the conflict is strong enough to sustain a book (and I prefer both of them to have internal conflicts - this is for MY books, btw, not necessarily ones I read). The rest of the synopsis is bare-bones action, i.e. what happens in the book and in order of narration – no thoughts, no dialogue, no characterisation (because the hero/heroine each have a one-liner slotted in above the conflict. Ditto setting). I tend to avoid flashbacks in category romances because it tends to slow the pace down too much (but if I do use it, as I did in Posh Docs book 1, it has to be relevant AND short). Then there’s a quick discussion with my ed, and when we’ve agreed the rough outline (and deadline!) I start work. The characters stay in my head until they start stomping around and I’m ready to write it, so I might be messing about for a couple of weeks before I start work (depends on deadline!). I also do my research notes before I start writing. PD3’s setting was neurology, so I had some fab diseases lined up - though due to the plot (no spoilers, vbg) I have a lot of spare notes so I can do another neurology book at some time in the future.

When I start writing the book, it goes straight on the computer. And I’m afraid I’m one of these people who write very fast – I make no apologies for it, though, because that suits me: I need to do a lot of things at once, very fast, or I just end up with a complete mess. (This is the ADHD. I’ve learned how to deal with it productively. I wouldn't expect anyone normal to work this way but it suits me.) I write my first draft of a chapter or so, then the next day I read it through and tinker with it, write the next chapter, and then go back and tinker with the first two chapters, and so on through the book (though I tend only to read through/tinker with a maximum of two chapters before the current chapter). I also have a spreadsheet going showing what my word count is, so I can check I’m on target and also see if any chapters are a bit ‘short’.

When I’ve finished the first draft, that’s when I go through and layer things in. Usually it’s emotion. I do this by gut instinct so I’m not laying down any rules or (pah!) formula here. The things I look out for are:

• too much narrative in one place – if it’s telling rather than showing, or too much introspection (the latter is one of my weak points, along with too much drinking coffee), it may need some of the narrative switching into dialogue or action to make it tighter
• too much dialogue in one place - this is where I can put in emotional layering to break up the speech a bit and get the reader into the character’s head. What I add is usually deep point of view (i.e. written as the character thinks and feels, but without the ‘he felt/thought’ – it’s direct information, similar to speech). It’s basically the character’s emotional reaction to what’s going on, and it might be completely different to what’s coming out of said character’s mouth!
• emotional punch – this is similar to the ‘deep point of view’ approach (because I want the reader to feel exactly what my characters are feeling). It’s the crisis point. Is it strong enough? Which senses have I brought in? What will make my reader feel it even more strongly?
• Saggy middle - suffice it to say that my books sometimes resemble me physically! That usually means chopping out anything that doesn't move the plot forward. One thing I have noticed in other authors (and no, am NOT naming and shaming as it's my view) is that they use sex scenes to pad out a weak plot. If my characters have sex, it's for a reason. Usually to do with heightening or resolving internal conflict. The sex has to change them - and it also has to have emotion, not just be clinical sex-by-numbers.

Sometimes I scrap whole scenes if they don’t ‘feel’ right. But I can’t explain WHY I feel they’re not right – it’s gut instinct. 

Right. My week off starts here. Well, tomorrow lunchtime, when I’ve printed off PD3 for my agent and posted it off/tidied my office/picked up my new research books from the library. Hmm. Wonder if DH can get a day off next week and we can sneak off to the beach and pretend we’re teenagers again?