I’m currently working on my 37th book in my Haunting Danielle series. One question I get frequently, how do you get your story ideas?
Some series have a very structured formula. For example, take one of my favorites, Murder She Wrote. Jessica is typically at some event. Someone is murdered. Jessica investigates the murder. Murder solved.
If you’ve read several books in my Haunting Danielle series you’ll know, that’s not my formula. While there is always a mystery, there may or may not be a murder, and said murder might have happened years ago. One thing you can expect, ghosts will help solve the mystery, and there are typically several story lines going on simultaneously that come together in some fashion at the end of the story.
Since I released the first book in the series I knew when the next Haunting Danielle book would be published, because I started making each one a pre-ordered eBook. When I sit down to write a book, I need to have it finished in time to meet the deadline set by the preorder.
There are some new authors—or aspiring authors—who don’t understand how anyone could publish four or more books a year. While I write about two books a year now, there was a time I did four a year. However, writing a book from a series is easier than starting a brand new book. In a series the main characters are already established, and I’ve already done the world building. The hardest part for me is keeping everything straight.
But how do I come up with new stories? Sometimes, I am mentally plotting several books ahead. In those situations, an idea that comes to me will require foreshadowing before I write it. For example, I needed to write book 14, The Ghost and the Bride, and the books that followed, before I got to book 17, The Ghost and the Doppelganger.
I don’t always know where the series will take me, I allow each book to lead the way. When finishing up a book, I often come up with a story idea for the next book. Sometimes, I only come up with a title idea. When finishing up The Ghost and Wednesday’s Child, my last release, I looked to see where in time my characters are now living. When first starting the series, they were in the summer of 2014, the same year I was living when I wrote the first book, The Ghost of Marlow House.
While some writers prefer to be more ambiguous about the timeframe of their story; I couldn’t do that as historical events are key elements to the series. It was easier for me to start at a place I was familiar, 2014. However, time moves faster than the world of Haunting Danielle, and they are currently living in 2019.
I decided to make my next book Christmas themed, and have it published the end of November. When looking for a title I chose The Ghost and Christmas Magic. As all my readers know, all the titles in this series start with, “The Ghost…”
Did I have a specific plot in mind when I chose the title and scheduled the pre-order? Nope.
However, I decided, not long after releasing The Ghost and Wednesday’s Child, something I wanted to happen in the next book that I thought my readers would enjoy, and I would have fun writing about. Unfortunately, it was only a snippet of the plot. I needed more.
When between books I often tell readers I’m currently working on the next book. Yet, that typically means I am thinking about the book, and if a plot or scene idea pops into my head I will jot it down for later.
I typically take about seventy days to write a book. Once I start writing, I write a chapter a day, then the next day, I edit the chapter I wrote the previous day and then write a new chapter. The next day, I do the same thing, rewriting whatever I wrote the previous day and writing a new chapter. At the end of forty days, I have a completed rough draft that has technically been edited once. Then comes the serious editing and rewriting, which honestly is my favorite part. Before I hit publish it goes through ProWritingAid, two sets of beta readers, and a professional editor. I also reread it, using the text to voice option while reading the text as the robotic voice says the words, before hitting publish.
And no, I never use Ai. While some may argue ProWritingAid is an arm of Ai, I disagree. It only sees my manuscript after it is in essence written, and is looking for misspelled words, punctuation errors, and overused words.
I write my manuscript in Scrivener but move it to Word during its final editing process. Word added an Ai feature a while back, which I disabled when it first appeared. As many of my fellow writers might agree, I found its little Ai cursor incredibly annoying, following me around the page like a freaking stalker.
I am scheduled to write Chapter One for my new book tomorrow. So now the question, am I a pantser or planner? A panster is someone who writes “by the seat of their pants.” They just sit down, start writing without an outline or specific plan. The planner is the writer who first outlines their story before they start writing. So, which am I?
I’m a combination of planner and pantser, with a hefty dose of automatic writing thrown in. To be honest, the automatic writing is one of my major tools. Four days ago, I really had no idea what I planned to write about in The Ghost and Christmas Magic, aside from that one thing I wanted to happen to one of my main characters.
You may have heard of automatic writing. It has also been called spirit writing, which I suppose is apropos for someone writing about ghosts. Some mediums claim to use automatic writing as a technique to receive messages from their spirit guides or spirits they are attempting to contact.
As for me, I am not sure if I am contacting spirits or just tapping into my inner psyche to unlock my creative side.
This process for me starts with a quality ink pen, not those ink pens you buy in a bulk package, but one that cost over twenty bucks and you change the cartridge when the ink runs out instead of throwing it away.
I sit down with a pad of paper and my pen and begin writing in cursive, typically beginning by writing about what I already know about the book, which might just be its title. And strangely enough, ideas begin popping into my head, giving me story ideas and a plotline fairly quickly.
Like I said, four days ago I knew very little about this book. However, this morning, I basically outlined the entire plotline. Since my handwriting is not terrific and my writing is even difficult for me to read, I then sat down at the computer and began typing up what I had just written in cursive, typing from memory.
So, when someone asks me where I get my story ideas, I’m honestly not sure where they come from. I always have this feeling I’ve a muse—an unseen muse—who whispers in my ear when I take a pen in hand and start writing out the plot ideas.
