Stop That Seductive Spy!

Mood today:



Shhh. Don't tell them but it's FUN (they are easily jinxed) watching the Braves again. I'm going to be at Atlanta next week and I hope they have a game in town because then I can finally see my favorite team play! It'll probably be sticky hot in Atlanta too, just right for a ball game ;-).

Now if only I can somehow get whatever water they are drinking in the dugout for my own creative burst...sigh. I need a good swing at the plate and get this prologue ball out of the field. Because I need to get back to Helen, you see. Because this is HER story too, you know. But does Muse listen? No... Muse wants Mr. Secret Trainer-Commando to take center stage.

This is going to be a really strange trilogy because this prologue is reshaping my whole planned focus. I have to embrace it because that's the way I write--seat of my pants, hold my breath, jump off the cliff, hope I fly. Sort of like this blogging thing everyday ;-).

Anyway, the Crossfire trilogy was an interesting learning experience. I wanted to see whether I could hold three stories together using a MacGuffin plot device. The idea was not to dump too much on the reader because I already have so much to tell and being limited to a certain number of pages, I have to choose which sub-plot on which to expand.

If you are a story-arc nerd and draw a diagram of the three books, you will find several ongoing plots:

1. the SEALs and their goal
2. the GEM/COS Command and their objective

-->1 and 2 working together

3. T and Alex
4. Jed (Stefan)

-->each of their "roles" within the covert objective and of course, their relationship with each other (esp. T and Alex). Ongoing arc of T and Alex because...hey, no room to tell everything! And what the hell does Jed do for fun anyway? ;-) And...and...and, has Jed slept with EVERY desirable female that crossed his path? ;-)

5. the different routes of human trafficking

-->different countries for each novel, different and same attitudes, cultural

6. Lily and the CIA

-->more a sidebar, besides the backstory of Lily's book, because I like to show that grayness in everything

7. the roles of the strategist, the leader and the sharpshooter.

8. the camaraderie of the SEALs

--> 7 and 8 are also sidebars, condiments, toppings, the things that make my heart sing. EXCEPT THAT A LOT OF IT GOT CUT IN ONE BOOK. Ahem.

9) The MacGuffin itself.

-->I could have written that sub-plot differently but it would have needed a lot more pages. As it stands, it became more personal from Book One, The Protector, to Book Three, Sleeping ***. I actually wanted to show Lily at the Summit and then you would have had a good peek of Jed in his magnificence :-) but I couldn't do it without an extra 3 chapters. And y'all know WHAT HAPPENED to almost 60 (three chapters) pages of words.... So instead, I used the MacGuffin as an emotional wave, building it and have it "crashed" over different characters through the book. Nice parallel with Reed's surfer-dude character, eh, even if I suddenly realized that myself? ;-P

Anyway, you see how fun it could be for me to break down my own stories and try to understand how my mind works. You understand I do this AFTER I wrote them, right? So, during the process itself, I was actually conducting the whole symphony with a blindfold. I hear the music but everything is from instinct.

So.

Now I'm trying to learn how to write a new kind of three-book series. There is no MacGuffin yet to move my plot along. The first book focused on the heroine because the hero was a mystery. The second book has decided to focus on the hero because...he is still a mystery. LOL. My original plan had been to have Hell unravel more of these interesting skeins, but so far...the hero is doing it for himself quite nicely, thank you verra much.

Oh, HELLLLLEN! I need you to wake up and start talking! Your darling man is taking over the story! He is the most seductive bastard I've ever met in my writing life and I mean it. He's just so damn tempting, showing me all the things that should be sub-plots and side-bars and trying to tease me into thinking that they are main courses. If this continues, it will be a 100,000 word prologue and what will my editor say to that?!

I need to drink the Braves' magic elixir and start hitting everything out of sight. That's my daily mantra these days. I need to start a winning streak.

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