Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Every Writer Needs a Plan, Right?


The inspiration for my three novels, Dancing Priest , A Light Shining, and Dancing King, was a song. The story was gradually written in my head, and only there, for four years. When I began to pound the keyboard, it poured out – gushed, actually – for almost 250,000 words. Eventually, I shaped the equivalent of two novels from that original manuscript and had enough to write the third. But the story arc for the series was set by 2006. 

Along the way, the outlines, drafts, and ideas developed for five more novels using the same characters, ranging from a 4,000-word treatment to a 70,000-word manuscript. Somewhere in there two entirely different novel ideas popped up, one becoming a 60,000-word manuscript and the other a 1,000-word summary. And the ideas for three more novels in the Dancing Priest series have been rattling around my head, following the same process as the original – creation in my mind as I go to sleep at night.


Did I mention the 30,000-word novella? 

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets & Writers.

2 comments:

Pamela M. Steiner said...

Whatever your plan is...I do hope you continue this series of books. May God direct your thoughts and plans with His plan. I loaned the books to a friend of mine to read, and her comment was after reading the first one, "If I wasn't already a Christian, this book would make me want to be one." That is a powerful testimony. Keep writing. There is power in the written word when it directed by God.

Glynn said...

Pamela - what an encouragement! Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm stunned.