There is a question authors get asked a lot. Are you a plotster or a pantster? I resist boxes. I don’t just like to think outside the box, I like to believe there is no box. But I’m told by my biggest fan and soul mate, that I have to be ready to answer such a question at book events. So I’ve been ruminating on it.
I have a board for my new trilogy – and for the first thirty chapters of the first book, it simply had the title “The Extractor Series” but now it has a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book’s culmination. I’ve been working on it for four months now, and I’ve always known, more or less, what’s going to happen, and who it’s happening to. But when I sit down to write, I find myself going off wherever the character leads me. There’s “ooh, she didn’t”, “you didn’t see that coming, did ya”, and “take that!” all over the place (which can be humorous or annoying depending on your POV!).
And that’s what I absolutely love about sitting down to write every day. I have an idea of what’s happening, but what actually comes out can be as surprising as a Vicar letting one rip in Church. Last night, Landry (our time travelling Extractor heroine) asked Delaney what love feels like and her response almost made me weep a little…
You’ll have to wait until 2017 to see if it makes you weep 😉
And I guess I still haven’t answered the initial question outright – to get my full answer, you’ll have to ask me at the Bold Strokes UK Book Festival in June!