Hi, everyone. Today’s guest is Amy Romine here to talk about plot! Stick around. Post a comment and say hi!
Hoarding Plot Ideas Burying My Theme?
One of my favorite ways to fight the nagging of procrastination and get my blood flowing is to go back and read over past manuscripts. Although I am not sure you could really call them that, more like attempts at manuscripts. In reading them it is easy to see at times how far I have come, it is also easy to see how far I have yet to journey. One of the funniest things I have found in past tales is my inability to not put something into the folds of the tale. I had to have everything and the kitchen sink in there. Every piece, scrap and tiny bit of any tale I had ever found in the past was wrapped into this monster of a project. Then it hits me, like two-ton A&E commercial, I am a hoarder! I am a plot hoarder. Yes me, I have a writing disease that causes me to writing without focus! I take everything I have piled up, the millions of ideas, I gathered as a yearling artist, and crammed them all into one little slip of a story.
There are several reasons for this as I now realize, one being the lack of an overall theme. Theme was always the word that makes me wince, it is the one aspect within the confines of writing dogma that I had more or less rejected. It wasn’t until recently, via a Kristen Lamb blog, specifically about ‘getting primal with your plot’, that I smoothed my ruffled feathers about what it means to have a theme. Kristen made me realize, that I was making it more complex than it actually was. I was simply getting in my own way because I didn’t get it and my writing showed it.
When people would ask me what my book was about I would in effect get tongue tied and not be able to say anything in response. I was of the thinking that I was too close to the plot, the characters, the way they all co-existed in my little brain there was no way for me to sum up the theme of the book in just a few words. BUZZ! Wrong Answer!
The truth is that I couldn’t sum it up because it was a jumbled fracking mess, with no structure. I, in my infinite ignorance, was making it too difficult trying to throw every plot twist, and ah moment into a story that in fact closely resembled the blob. Why was I making it so difficult? Why couldn’t I just see that I needed a theme, cut everything else away and be done with it?
First off, I was a know it all, young, writer, who thought there was nothing anyone could teach her that she didn’t already know. I am a natural after all. NOT!
Solution? Boil it down. Go primal, rip away all of the extra crap and what is left? Usually a single word or two. To illustrate my point, I will use my own books as the examples.
- Trust Me – Serenity Lost: Family Loyalty/Love / Don’t get killed
- Trust Me – Veiled Deception: Don’t Die / Love / Protect loved ones
- Trust Me – Jaded Promises: Revenge / Love /Protect Loved Ones
- Tarot Series – Shockwave: Love / Vengeance
- Tarot Series – Backlash: Love / Protect Loved Ones/ Survive
- Tarot Series – Fallout: Love / Survive
- You Never Could Be: Love / Sex / Trust
- War Zone: Love / Sex / Don’t Die
- Soulmate Chronicles – Ever the Same: Protect Loved Ones / Survive / Love
- Soulmate Chronicles – Come Undone: Don’t get killed / Vengeance / Love
- Soulmate Chronicles – After All: Vengeance / Love / Don’t get Killed, Coming Summer 2012
That’s it, too easy right? Well no it really isn’t. If you take these words and use them as your compass you will be able to in turn focus your manuscript and rip away all of the useless crap. Now, don’t so nutz and start deleting everything! Please don’t! Yes this is an aspect of my hoarding I will not release. If it made it to the page it is worth the ink. Maybe not now, but it will fit in somewhere, someday. Alright back to our little experiment. The ultimate self test is to translate the categories to the story plot, right? Okay we will try one. War Zone – Soldier falls for doctor, doctor goes into the battle field with the soldier, soldier and doctor consummate their relationship. Hot Damn it worked!
Here is another, Soulmate Chronicles –Come Undone – Two federal agents are hunted by paranormal assassins, the two agents, after years of separation fall in love, one of the agents sacrifices themselves to avenge past sins.
See, it works! I dare you to prove me wrong! And or to test your own manuscripts, how focused are your plots? Can you complete the challenge?
All of the novels listed above can be found at Extasy Books, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Author Bio
Amy Romine has always wanted to be one of the good guys. From playing ‘Charlie’s Angels’ in the backyard of her Allentown, PA home as a child, to the pages of her most recent series, The Soul Mate Chronicles, Amy has always dreamt of adventure and romance. Her need to make characters truly deserve their happiness takes us on many a twisted journey. From serial killers to demons, Amy holds nothing back in the name of true enduring love.
A wife, mother of three, full-time corporate employee and now the author of two compellingly addictive series and finishing a third, her entrance onto the stage of romantic suspense has been an enthralling adventure all its own. Amy started writing in high school but didn’t take the professional plunge until three years ago when a little voice told her she was meant to be doing something more…
Since her premier release of Serenity Lost in October 2010 with Extasy Books, Amy has become the Prime Time Editor for BellaOnline, and regular contributing author to the Amazon Subscription Blog, ‘Red Lipstick Journals’. Amy is also an active eBook Author supporter lending her voice to encouraging new and indie eBook authors in striding toward their visions. Her own goal is to be a self sustaining author by 2014.
Amy currently resides in Arlington, Texas with her husband, and three children.
