fiction

I love planning. I’ve spent years collecting beautiful planners and scrawling appointments, to-lists, and goals using colorful pens and stickers.

And yet, I suck at following plans.

My writing is no different. I’ve really tried to plot. I’ve watched webinars, bought books, and implemented systems, all to write more efficiently. To do things right. To be more like everyone else who has it all together.

So in 2021, I meticulously outlined a book scene by scene. Months later, when it came time to draft it, I knew all my planning would pay off.

At the end of that first day of drafting, I had written zero words.

NONE.

Frustrated doesn’t begin to describe the feeling.

Three days later, I started drafting an entirely different story with only the vague premise of a woman who goes to work for a playboy billionaire without knowing the Indecent Proposal-type agreement between him and her husband. Three years, several drafts, and five title changes later, THERE’S ALWAYS A PRICE became my debut.

Not following a plan doesn’t mean there isn’t one. For me, it means I can’t see or feel it until I dive in. Like taking the first step into a wooded area where the path isn’t obvious. I might have to trample some ground cover and slice through the overgrowth, but at some point, the path will become clear—even if I have to cut it.

I’ve stopped working against my natural tendency to write intuitively. Now I embrace it. I view every word I write, even what I cut, as serving the story or my process in some way. Nothing is wasted.

Since 2021, I’ve drafted three more books, including that one I meticulously plotted but couldn’t write. I finally finished it last week and sent it off to my fabulous copy editor. It doesn’t look anything like that outline, and that’s a good thing. Because as I’ve learned, not following a plan is the perfect plan for me.

Aside from scary movies and haunted houses, nothing terrifies me more than someone asking me this: “What do you write?”

I mean, come on. I should be able to answer this since it’s literally what I spend hours doing every single day. But that’s not what happens. Instead, I give a nervous chuckle and then mumble and muddle through a very awful explanation.

So, what do I write? The genre I fit best in is women’s fiction. Yes, it’s an archaic term, but no one has found a good alternative. This genre has a unique feature compared to most others: the plot is advanced by the character’s emotional journey and ultimate change. While characters in many genres undergo some change at various times, they aren’t driven by it. Instead, they’re usually swept up in a huge issue happening outside them. In mysteries, it’s the crime. In romance, it’s the love interest. In horror, it’s the scary monster that’s chasing the main character.

In women’s fiction, the monster is an internal wound deeply seated in the main character long before the reader ever meets them. It gives the character a belief, or rather a misbelief, about the world and usually about themself. This misbelief directs everything the character does from the first page through the story.

Events happening outside the character—the plot—force them to apply their flawed logic. This is where subgenres like thriller, mystery, paranormal, and suspense come in. THERE’S ALWAYS A PRICE has a romantic subplot. But the heart of the story is driven by Cassie and her misbelief that bad things happen when she chooses something she really wants.

So what do I write exactly? I love writing complicated and morally gray characters. I drop them in uncomfortable and entertaining situations and put them through hell all so they hopefully come out better in the end. They fumble and fall; they fail and succeed; they have moments of clarity and then regress into their wounded selves. In short, they’re human. And while growth and change are the goals, how they get there is where the real magic of the story happens. Kind of like life.

Tag: fiction

Failed planner here

What do you write?