Building A Plot

Right after we finished building our house and got moved in, I looked around at our property and decided that we needed a pond. When the pond people (what do you call someone who creates a pond???) asked me what type of pond, and what size pond did I want - I had only a vague idea.

"Big," I said. "As big as the property will allow."
There were, of course, leech lines and electrical lines and other necessary considerations.

"Shape?" the pond guy asked.

"Natural," I said. "Nothing that looks too manmade."

And there was my kernel of an idea.

I had no concept of exactly how the pond would turn out, or exactly where on the property it would go. Worse, I had no idea that some of my huge Sycamore trees would have to topple.
And so it is when I start a book.
I have this vague idea, sometimes limited by the publishing house buying it or the characters who infiltrate with the idea. But I have no real true concept of where the idea will go or exactly how it'll turn out.

I knew my pond would eventually hold water.
I know my stories will eventually end with a happy, committed couple.
That's it.

So, you ask, what is all this blathering about a pond?

Well, as you see above, I got my pond.
Just as I get that first plot idea.

Then I have to ask myself - now what?

Because the kids swim in the pond a lot, and we all use a little paddle boat, I decided that I needed a gazebo, dock and boardwalk built at one end.

Sort of like (you guessed it) my books need character development and conflicts and resolutions, both in the external plot, and in the romance.

This is a shot of my kids, and other kids, playing on the floating dock

- just as the characters play in my head.

I took a lot of time deciding exactly what I wanted, how and where I wanted it. Then I hired a contractor.
It was as he did his work that I originally drew a comparison to my version of plot building.

You see, when he first got started on the project, I was horrified. Stationary boards looked as crooked as a dog's hind leg. The supports seemed very shaky. There was absolutely no resemblance to the vision I'd carefully drawn out so that he'd understand what the final product should be.

I could almost see my hard-earned dollars falling into the pond with the fishes!

My husband, by the way, told me to be patient. We knew the contractor, and knew he did good work.
So... I summoned up some trust, and watched in awe of his strange process - until finally it started to come together.


When I start plotting on a book, I have a single scene, character, conflict or piece of dialogue that I build on. If, in those early stages, I told anyone the direction of my thoughts, they'd think I was nuts. Never would they be able to "see" my ultimate vision for the story.

I remember way back in my Harlequin days, a friend asked what my next book would be.

I said, "A blind date, where the heroine meets the hero, who isn't the one she's supposed to meet. See, the hero's friend didn't want to go, so he got the hero to go instead. The hero is supposed to tell the heroine that her blind date is crying off. But the heroine doesn't want the blind date either, so she dresses and acts in a way total opposite of her real personality, in an effort to scare the guy away.
But then the hero sees her and he's intrigued enough that he lets her think he's the blind date. And she's intrigued enough that she doesn't admit she's out of character."

My friend looked at me, and said, "And?"

I said, "I dunno. There'll be some other stuff that happens."

She said, "But that's not enough to be a book. It's barely a scene."

Alas, that's how I write.
I grab a kernel of an idea, I park my butt in my chair, and I start putting things on paper.
Somehow, some magical way, it grows.
Yeah, it seems awkward at first, mostly because I don't know where it's going.
Then the characters start talking, and they tell me.

That's how the contractor worked. He didn't draw out architectural type plans. Nope. He stuck a board in here, a board in there, and built from that.

When I asked him - looking very dubious, I'm sure - about what he was doing, he said that he needed a foundation where he would start.
And he promised me that it'd get prettier as it went along.


A few weeks in (he's a very slow contractor, but good, so we don't quibble too much over his time frames) I could see things coming together. The overall appearance was still that of a strange, gangling, pile of boards and nails with no real purpose.
But at least one section hung out over the water, as a dock should. Another section edged along the shape of the pond, as a boardwalk should. And a sturdy platform looked like it might support a gazebo.

I love it when I get to that point in the book when it starts to really make sense to me, when I see what the characters want to do and where they're headed. When they share the secrets with me.
I'll have these, "Aha!" moments, usually while in bed trying to sleep, and a great turn or development will occur to me.

Have I already told you about the time I had lunch with my Kensington editor, the head of publicity, and the president of the company? If so, skip this. If not, read on!

My title, Just a Hint-Clint, had already been released. That book ended with Jamie, a secondary character and the intended hero of the next book, carrying a naked woman up into the mountains where he lived.

The super nice ladies from Kensington told me that they couldn't wait to see what Jamie was up to.

I said, "Me, too."

You see, at that point in time, I honestly had no idea what Jamie was doing. It just seemed like a really great way to end Clint's story. I must have a lot of faith in myself, because I knew that once I let Jamie carry that naked woman away, he'd figure out what he was doing, and why.
Then he'd tell me.
And he did.

The contractor finished the dock first, and it looked stellar. Those crooked boards that had so worried me were now underneath a really pretty dock with a railing and seat and three fine steps leading up to the... is that supposed to be a boardwalk?

BTW, that gray piece sticking off the end is a floating dock that my boys and their friends use when swimming. It was finished well before the rest of it, so that the kids could get in and out of the pond without stepping on sharp rocks.
The crane fishing off the end of the floating dock is cool, but greedy.
He's eating all my frogs!
If I had my way, he'd be eating goldfish,
because I have more than enough of those!


Two photos of our crazy goldfish. How they got in there, we have no idea!

Anyway, back to my comparisons.

It's so tough for me when an editor asks me questions on book that I haven't yet finished. Until I reach the end, I'm not too sure what will happen, other than that guaranteed happy ending.

After I signed with Berkley, they needed a simple paragraph or two giving them an idea of what the first single title, "Causing Havoc" would be about.

Well, I knew it'd be about a fighter. With estranged family. And I knew there'd be a bad guy. Maybe more than one bad guy. And a heroine. And sex. And a few laughs.

And somehow, stuff would happen and the hero and heroine would fall in love.

See, I'd done that much building so far.

Unfortunately, I told Berkley the wrong bad guy. It turned out to be someone else - and they'd already done a blurb for the book!
I felt terrible when I had to ask them to change it. But they did.

Most publishers are very understanding about an author's ever changing direction.

That particular plot took me longer than usual to build. Instead of my typical 400 pages, I hit 500 - and knew I wasn't really finished. After I mailed it off to the editor, I waited a few days, went back to it, and it became 525 pages.
But finally it looked like what I wanted it to be.

Just as my dock, boardwalk and gazebo finally looked like what I wanted it to be.

I was sort of surprised how the book turned out. But then, I like surprises.

All authors write differently, and I know some like a very definite map of their plots. They like to know where they're going, how each scene will play out, exactly when the big conflict will occur and how they'll resolve it.

Not me. If I knew the ending, I wouldn't be compelled to write the book. I'd be bored in minutes. If I did a detailed outline, I'd feel like I'd already written the book.

For me, the joy of writing is in the discovery, the surprises and - hopefully - the satisfaction when the book is done.

I'm a movie buff. LOVE going to the movies. But my favorites are the movies that take me by surprise, yet still give me a happy ending. For some reason, my brain is focusing on John Travolta, so I'll give three examples of his movies that took me by surprise - Pulp Fiction, which I loved, Get Shorty and Be Cool. Great twists, surprising chuckles, and very fun. My type of flicks.

And how about Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, or The Fifth Element?

Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath?

GREAT surprises in each of those movies.

What about you? Do you like to be surprised? Can you name some books that took you by surprise? Or even a line in a book that took you by surprise. I know after my old (old, old) Harlequin novel, Scandalized hit the stands, a ton of readers wrote to me about their surprise over the garage scene. Worth a laugh, I think.

Or one of my all-time favorite lines ever in a book that not only took me by surprise, but still makes me laugh when I think of it. For all you JAK fans, you'll recall, "Good news. She doesn't need therapy."

Could it get more perfect than that!?

Okay, now your turn. Share a line, a scene, a character - anything - that took you by surprise.

Happy reading everyone!