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Committing to the Story

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This is number thirty-three in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.


I’M SITTING HERE with a dozen story ideas that I have written a logline for. I’ve written a pitch for each logline. Some are pretty good. How do I go about deciding what to pursue?

With great difficulty. I mentioned a few weeks ago that for me, writer’s block is often the result of too many ideas trying to worm their way out of my head at the same time. Which will get my attention?

First, I read through all the loglines again, including the ones that I generated long after the blog post on loglines was first drafted back in September. Some of those loglines just leave me cold. For example:

Girl escapes from father’s incestuous intentions, taking a few precious items, and finding work in a neighboring city as a housekeeper, until the owner of the house falls in love.

I wrote that logline based on the German fairy tale “Allerleiruah” or “All-Kinds-Of-Furs.” I just didn’t like the implications of the first part of the story. In some versions, the father actually rapes his daughter. The only interesting part of it was how she found her future husband by being disguised and appearing at dances he gave, then disappearing again as a scullery maid. So, I separated that part out as a concept that I’d keep, but discarded the rest of the pitch.

Then there was this one:

Youngest son stumbles through a quest, succeeding where his older and smarter brothers failed, arousing jealousy and treachery as they attempt to take what he has won.

I didn’t want to deal with magic in this year’s story. I have no problem with magic as I’ve used it in other stories, like Nathan Everett’s Steven George & The Dragon, available on Bookapy. It’s also a magic quest fairy tale. I’ll probably do a magic story again, but this one just sounded trite. It was based on the fairy tale, “The Golden Bird.” I did like the surprise revelation of who the fox was and filed that idea away.

Young woman is caught in a lust-inflamed dream, not realizing her dream-lover is the flesh-and-blood enemy her family has sworn to kill.

I threw out the entire concept of this creeper story which is based on John Keats’ narrative poem, “The Eve of St. Agnes.” But there was a technique he used that I really liked. The entire first five stanzas were about an ‘ancient Beadsman’ praying for sinners as he apparently dies on an ash heap. The sole purpose of this prologue seems to be to set the background scene for what is to occur. And in the last stanza of the poem, we find him finally sleeping or dead on his bed of ashes having prayed for a thousand sinners. I filed that technique away and decided I’d like to include a bookend for this year’s NaNovel. Here’s another I found appealing:

Man interprets a woman’s romantic attention as a thinly-veiled attempt to gain control of his business, but his attempts to rebuff her constantly lead them closer to each other.

I liked this twist on the billionaire next door theme and decided to keep the concept of a romance made difficult because of the difference in economic class of the two people—possibly even employment. I felt I needed a real reason for them to be thrown together, though, and developed a further construct. She, not knowing he is all that rich, falls for the guy at table three in the little diner and constantly gives him little touches, extras on his plate, and her best smile. It never occurs to her that anyone who was really rich would eat at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Socially awkward genius inventor hides behind his CEO’s charisma to manage company, all the while being ridiculed for his stupidity and incompetence.

I liked this general theme and set up, but it needs something besides their public personae to make it work. Can’t just be the charismatic vs. the socially awkward unless there is some kind of critical point at which the socially awkward one has to rise above his phobia in order to win both the business and the girl.

So—drumroll, please—here’s what I’ve arrived at for NaNoWriMo 2023.

Woman stranded in a new town after a short and bitter divorce waits tables in a diner where she meets the man of her dreams; but he is a socially inept recluse constantly on guard against gold diggers. When the two are thrown together, mistrust and misunderstanding nearly destroy any chance of a relationship.


Pitch

When Erin’s divorce was finalized, she had little hope and no prospects. The sole bright spot in her week was the poor fellow who came into the diner on Thursdays and became her regular customer. She had no idea who he was, but of all her customers, he was the one who treated her kindly. She’d never really seen his face, because he kept a hoodie sweatshirt pulled over his eyes and only removed his mask while his head was down and he was eating.

Preston only got out of his penthouse office/apartment once a week. His hoodie and facemask kept him from being recognized as the billionaire creative genius behind JeriCorp Architects. He found Erin’s simple attention to be refreshing, and it enabled him to overcome his shyness and anxiety so that they actually shared a few sentences of conversation when he came in. Of course, she was too pretty to be interested in him as more than a customer. And if she knew who he really was, it would skew the relationship out of whack.

When Erin says she is going to apply for a better job, Preston encourages her, wishing her well. Neither has any idea that the job she will get will throw the two of them together as she becomes his personal assistant. But the mask mandate and change of venue keeps either one from recognizing the other.

Preston is forced into a situation where he must make a public presentation—something he has always avoided by having a president who was handsome and charismatic and was the public face of JeriCorp. When Preston predictably freezes during the presentation, Erin steps in to complete it and sell the project. The cost, however, is recognition of one another. Preston is convinced she was stalking him, especially when his president’s wife accuses her of having an affair with her husband.

Erin quits and leaves his office, but Preston’s mother berates him for losing such a wonderful woman who was obviously in love with him.

Will Preston be in time to stop Erin from leaving town? And if he is in time, is there any hope the two will find their way back together?


Not perfect yet? Well, that’s what November is for!

Of course, now I’m excited to start writing right away, but there are still steps and it’s not November yet. Since this is all about planning the novel, next week I’ll talk about “Creating an Outline.”

The Pitch

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This is number thirty-two in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.


IS IT NECESSARY to write a pitch for my book before I start writing it? Maybe not. But I do believe it is helpful, and as part of my prep for NaNoWriMo, I’ll be trying to craft a pitch for my unwritten novel that will make people want to buy it.

That’s really the difference between a logline and a pitch. The logline piques people’s interest and makes them want to know more. If you see the logline for a movie on TV, you might decide to check it out and see if it’s interesting. It takes more than that, though, for you to buy a ticket to see the movie or to plunk down real dollars to buy the book. You need a good sales pitch.

I figure that if I can’t craft a pitch that will make people want to buy or read the book, then there isn’t much sense writing it. (There are exceptions to that rule. I’ve often written an article or book that I know no one will want to read, but I feel it needs to be written anyway.)

The pitch is usually considerably longer than the logline, however, it comes in two flavors: the elevator pitch and the full pitch. Here’s an example of the elevator pitch for Nathan Everett's The Gutenberg Rubric. See last week’s post for the logline.

Just weeks before production of the great Gutenberg Bible was completed, the inventor of movable type printing was sued by his financial partner for having embezzled funds for a different project. When Gutenberg refused to share the secret project with his partner, the court awarded the entire printing operation to Johan Fust and left Gutenberg with nothing.

What was so valuable to Gutenberg that he would willingly enter poverty to protect the secret from his business partner?

Two rare-book librarians are the unlikely heroes as they race time, biblio-terrorists, and Homeland Security across three continents to find and preserve the legendary ‘other book’ printed by Johannes Gutenberg.

The idea of the elevator pitch is that you enter an elevator with an agent and before it reaches the next floor, you convince him to invite you in to tell him more. As you can see, this isn’t just a tickler with a hook to pique the interest. It is a tight sales pitch. The agent in question will immediately ask, “Is that true about Gutenberg?” (Based on my actual experience with the book.)

It helps that it is true. Only the logline at the end of the pitch is about the novel. The rest of the pitch is to get the agent to say “I’d like to see that.”

And what do you do when you get that far? Then it is time to close the sale. The idea behind the pitch—sometimes referred to as the back cover blurb—is to get the reader to commit to reading the book.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned the planning of Nathan Everett’s City Limits. It involved even more than the index cards, the map, the photos, and the scene-by-scene outline. It started with the logline:

Homeless man stumbles into town just in time to dive into a raging river and save a drowning toddler, instantly becoming the town’s hero—and losing his memory.

Okay, we have the basics of the story. Let’s take a look at the elevator pitch:

Gee Evars wandered into Rosebud Falls on Independence Day just in time to rescue a toddler from the rushing torrent of the Rose River. And to lose his memory. In an attempt to make Rosebud Falls his home, Gee becomes a local hero and inadvertently leads a revolt that changes the balance of power in the town. But will he ever know who he really is?

Then we move to the full pitch:

Gee Evars stumbles into Rosebud Falls, exhausted and dehydrated, but snaps into action to save a drowning toddler from a raging river. Injured, Gee is taken to the hospital, where he discovers he has lost his memory and his wallet. His identity uncertain, Gee sets about making Rosebud Falls his home.

He becomes a local hero, falling for investigative reporter Karen Weisman, who continues to search for his identity as he seems always to be where he is needed most—even when his actions are misunderstood. He changes the balance of power among the seven founding families who rule over the town.

While walking through the mystical forest—the town’s centerpiece and primary economic resource—he eats one of the poisonous nuts and falls into a hallucinatory trance. When he awakens, he discovers what it means to be both the City’s Champion and the Defender of the Forest. Rosebud Falls will never be the same after its encounter with the man with no memory.

When it came time to write the sequel, Wild Woods, I went through much the same process. (Both City Limits and Wild Woods are now available from Bookapy.) I needed to refresh people on the first book and tell them where the second was going.

Gee Evars wandered into town without a memory a few months ago. In that time, he has become the city champion, has led a proxy takeover of the city’s biggest business, and has become a spokesman for the Forest and the Wild Woods. The fence came down between the two on the night of the election approving annexation of the area.

But now, Gee is faced with a new reality. The Wild Woods holds secrets that some people would kill to maintain. Someone needs to manage the exploration of the Wild Woods. Someone needs to eat the nut. If the woods has been used to manufacture drugs and to traffic in children, someone needs to go in and find out if anyone is still in danger.

That task falls to Gee and a small army of high school volunteers who are determined to clean their woods and make it safe and welcoming.

And when abused and brainwashed children wander out of the woods and into town, who better to teach them and bring them back to society than the man who also has no memory?

The pitch is also what you normally read in the listing for a book or on its back cover. It helps to have it in front of you while you are writing the book. That way, you know you are on track as you write.


Of course, all this discourse about how to write the pitch has still left me lacking a storyline for NaNoWriMo. Just two more weeks until I need to start writing. Oh, what shall I do? Next week: “Committing to the Story.”

And we're off again!

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The cast and first chapter of Over Exposure, book 5 of the "Photo Finish" series, have posted this morning. The book is now available on Bookapy as well.

Nate is ready to start his junior year in college, but first he has to make a trip to Los Angeles to consult on the film being based on his photography style. He'll have to return to LA repeatedly through the year before the movie is released.

Classes will be more complicated this year as Nate focuses on the professional instruction rather than the strictly academic. As an upper classman, some new educational experiences are available to Nate and he gets to use his passport for international travel. His world is expanding.

And old problems resurface as former constable Clyde Warren makes some wild accusations and the draft board decides to make things difficult for Nate. All in the 36 chapters of Over Exposure, posting on Thursdays and Sundays.

There was a small glitch in posting this morning and chapter 1 posted over half an hour after the cast list, but everything is up and running now.

Loglines

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This is number thirty-one in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.


NANOWRIMO PREP MONTH continues. Already I’m feeling the pressure to have my idea for what to write in November solidified. So far, I haven’t even decided whether I’m writing erotica or some other literary genre. Fortunately, many if not most of the steps in preparing to write are the same.

The logline is a one-sentence statement that reveals the premise of the story, but also adds an emotional aspect that hooks the reader. (studiobinder.com) Think of the one-line summary in a television directory like TV Guide. Here’s a sample I saw in today’s TV Guide:

A former war veteran storms Afghanistan to rescue his old CO from the Soviets.

Can you guess the movie? How about this one:

A young woman living in an old apartment building becomes pregnant following a horrible nightmare, and begins to fear the worst for her unborn child while suspecting that she is surrounded by evil.

Many writing teachers will say that the logline is created after you’ve written the book or screenplay and need to sell it. But I believe it is a valuable tool to include on the front end of the development cycle. In Blake Snyder’s screenwriting book Save the Cat, he summarizes the logline as simply the answer to “What is it?”

Actor, director, and admitted cad, Terry leads a life filled with colorful and beautiful women: from actresses to students, from stage crew to strangers—Terry never meets a woman he isn’t interested in taking to the next level.

When I first conceived of Things I Never Told My Wife (available on Bookapy), it was a tongue-in-cheek memoir of a Shakespearean player. My 2019 NaNoWriMo project had been called American Royalty, which later became Nathan Everett’s novel A Place at the Table. I needed something more lighthearted and fun to write, so near the end of December I started writing TINTMW.

I didn’t have much of a plan other than that logline. What were some of the things a cad like Terry might do that he’d never tell his wife? I just made a list of them and wrote an episode about each.

I met my soulmate when I was sixteen years old.
Of course, I never told my wife about that.


And that started the adventure. So, here we are preparing for NaNoWriMo 2023—my twentieth! I’ve been looking at storylines that include replotting a fairytale into modern times. Or perhaps a classical narrative poem. I’ve tried to reduce them to a logline to see if I’d buy that. Here are a few ideas:

1. Frustrated father marries off overly-picky daughter to first beggar he sees.
2. Girl escapes from father’s incestuous intentions, taking a few precious items, and finding work in a neighboring city as a housekeeper, until the owner of the house falls in love.
3. Young woman is caught in a lust-inflamed dream, not realizing her dream-lover is the flesh-and-blood enemy her family has sworn to kill.
4. Youngest son stumbles through a quest, succeeding where his older and smarter brothers failed, arousing jealousy and treachery as they attempt to take what he has won.

Notice that in each of these, there is an inciting incident, a protagonist, action, and an antagonist. It is not necessary to name them. Names in most instances don’t add anything to the logline—unless the named character is already known to the reader.

Computer forensics detective Dag Hamar is on the loose again; this time contracted by FinCEN to find and neutralize a computer hacker creating havoc with national security.

Presumably, in this logline for Nathan Everett’s For Mayhem or Madness, readers are already familiar with the previous adventures of Dag Hamar. The name means something.

Alternatively, we have loglines that include more informative elements: Protagonist, action, antagonist, goal, stake.

I created a logline for Nathan Everett’s The Gutenberg Rubric before I started writing the book. I had it memorized and told it to everyone I met, honing it more finely until I was ready to write.

Two rare-book librarians are unlikely heroes as they race time, biblio-terrorists, and Homeland Security across three continents to find and preserve a legendary ‘other book’ printed by Johann Gutenberg.

I have to say, that term ‘biblio-terrorists’ got more attention from agents than anything else in the pitch. The original title I had for the book, however, changed to make it more mysterious. The original title was Gutenberg’s Other Book. While that is a key element, discovering what The Gutenberg Rubric is, drives our heroes on.

Here are a few possible loglines for NaNoWriMo this year that follow this pattern more closely.

5. OSHA inspector accuses contractor of bad wiring, but a short circuit transports the two into an alternate reality where they must battle each other for the hand of a king’s daughter and the safety of the nation.
6. Woman’s wedding is canceled when a rival claims to already be the fiancé’s wife.
7. Man interprets a woman’s romantic attention as a thinly-veiled attempt to gain control of his business, but his attempts to rebuff her constantly lead them closer to each other.
8. Socially awkward genius inventor hides behind his CEO’s charisma to manage his company, all the while being ridiculed for his stupidity and incompetence.

In either logline format, we have the basis to create a story. The premise of the story (in some instances only the setting) is always coupled with an emotional hook. It is the hook that will draw an audience in and make them consider reading a book that they normally wouldn’t because they ‘don’t read that type of topic.’

The next question the author needs to consider is how deep the hook can be set. Is there a whole novel behind the single sentence or is it just a part of the story? (Hopefully, the exciting part.) At this stage you may consider some other aspects of the story.

That inventor in #8 above is just a Sad Sack being taken advantage of by the CEO until it is revealed that both are vying for the same girl’s love. Well, then, should that be included in the logline to set the hook a little deeper or can it wait until we reach the next level of description?


The logline isn’t the end of the planning process. Next week, let’s look at the next level of the description: “The Pitch,” and start eliminating storylines from consideration.

Planner vs. Pantser

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This is number thirty in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.


AS OF TODAY, October 1, 2023, it is officially NaNoWriMo prep month. Even though participants are supposed to start a new work with a blank sheet of paper, various degrees of preparation are allowed and encouraged. This preparation often reveals two different kinds of writers who participate in National Novel Writing Month: Those who plan their work and those who write by the seat of their pants.

I decided that I should look up the definition of the oft-used phrase “by the seat of one’s pants.” It was enlightening. Its first known usage was in 1942 by WWII pilots. It referred to situations in which the aircraft lost its navigation instrumentation and the pilot had to fly by instinct and experience.

Interestingly, I found two subtly different definitions: one was to do something based on personal experience, judgment, and effort, rather than relying on technological aids or formal theory. In flying circles, I believe this is closely related to ‘dead reckoning:’ Navigators using a previous known position to estimate current location based on speed and flight time. The other, and more common in my opinion, definition is to proceed based on intuition or improvisation, without a clear plan or direction.

When NaNoWriMo participants use the term, it is usually the latter definition. They sit down on November 1 and start typing, hoping a story will eventually emerge, but without knowing the path it will take.

Am I a planner or a pantser?

Yes. I have been known to employ both methods. Since I depend largely on my character development driving the story, sometimes it goes in directions I hadn’t imagined. The storyline develops as I type. Character-driven development. At other times, my planning is so extensive, writing is almost easy!



City Limits is now available on Bookapy.

In 2017, I spent nearly all of September and October planning my Nathan Everett (Wayzgoose) project, City Limits. Starting on November 1, I wrote the 128,000-word first draft in thirty days. How much planning did this take to create the planned twelve-episode draft of this story?

I created over 300 3x5 index cards, color coded to indicate action, characters, locations, conflict, and scene breakdown. I worked the cards around on a cork board so that each scene made sense, then I captured what was on the board in a detailed outline.

These cards included a card for every character who would be mentioned in the story. But that wasn’t enough. After I had described what I thought the character should look like, I searched out photographs that I thought each character would look like. I created genealogies so I knew who the major families were and how they were related.

I drafted a map of the entire town included in the City Limits! Every street was named. Every business located. The areas controlled by each family were marked out. And I printed that on a 24x36 inch sheet that I could hang on my wall and refer to as I wrote. How far was it from Gee’s home to the Forest? All I had to do was look at the map and chart the exact route he would take and measure it—because, of course, the map was to scale.

I read similar books to what I wanted to write. I watched television series I thought were comparable. I did everything but actually write the story. In fact, instead of writing, I memorized what I would write on the first page. Memorized without writing. But it would get me started writing when I opened that blank document and said “Ready, set, go!”

And the result? I won’t say it was bad. My alpha readers gave me good feedback. It took six months to rewrite and edit the book, and nearly ninety percent of it was changed! Not to mention cutting 17,000 words!

I’ve mentioned the Devon Layne trilogy of Bob’s Memoir before—also available on Bookapy. That demon talked to me for months before I was ready to start writing. Doug and I talked about what would happen and what Bob would face over the course of 4,000 years. But when I sat down on November 1, 2021, all I knew was “Hi. I’m Bob and I’ll be your demon tonight.” From that point on, the story flowed of its own accord for 150,000 words. The amount of rewriting needed before I released the book the first of March, 2022? About five percent.

So, I’ve been a planner and I’ve been a pantser. And I’ve done some of the combination of work that NaNo writers call being a ‘Plantser.’ And I believe both are great, depending on how inspired I am and how complex the project will be.

I spent just as long planning the sequel to City Limits as I did the original. But I had laid a firm foundation with the first book, so I was able to write the 155,000-word first draft of Wild Woods in November of 2019, and its rewrite was only about 10% significantly changed. So, planning is more effective when there is a good underlying structure to work from.

As I write this, I just finished the first draft of Follow Focus, book six in the Photo Finish series. So, I feel free to work on planning my 2023 NaNoWriMo project. I happen to be spending a few days in the Pacific Northwest doing some dog-sitting, so my daughter—also an author—has spent five days with me brainstorming our NaNo projects. We’ve been assisted by her stepdad who has kept meticulous notes for us and asked clarifying questions.

I expect we will spend at least another day before I return to Las Vegas on the first. We are both gradually zeroing in on a completely new project for each of us. We’ve agreed to limit ourselves to a standalone novel of 50-100,000 words. We have been researching source material and brainstorming a few world-building ideas. We’ve got a long way to go in October before we’ll be ready to start writing on November 1. My $10/month patrons are now following my development notes for the new story!

Oh, and although we are brainstorming our ideas together, we will be writing different stories. We won’t be collaborating on a single idea. But we’ll be following each other’s progress closely.


What’s next in planning? Well, one way to test our ideas is to develop a logline. We’ll be tossing out a number of different loglines for the possible stories we are considering, so that’s what I’ll make the topic for next week: “Loglines.”

Enjoy!
author Devon Layne, aka Nathan Everett
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