Exciting news! My next psychological thriller will be published this summer, probably in August. I’ve sent the final version to my editor and am now awaiting her feedback. My publishers (Inkubator Books) and I have agreed the title and signed off the design for the front cover. Our process is a little bit different to that of most publishing houses so I thought I’d share with you what happens.
First of all, I pitch an idea. That’s probably just a couple of paragraphs and written a bit like a blurb. If my publisher, Brian, likes the concept then I’ll flesh out the idea and create a first synopsis. This is normally two or three pages. Then we’ll have our first Zoom session. Inkubator are based in Dublin, my editor Jan is in Scotland and I’m in southern England. Although we’ve all spent hours and hours on Zoom, we’ve never actually met in person! We’ll talk through some basics of the plot and Brian will point out any potential plot holes or character problems. He’s a master at twists and coming up with ideas for act changes.
Inkubator Books has grown a lot over the last couple of years and because I (kind of!) know what I’m doing now, it’s over to Jan and me. I’ll create what we call a detailed Beat Sheet. This is essentially bullet points of everything that happens and is normally about 2 - 5 bullet points per chapter. Sometimes this process goes quickly, other times it can take weeks until I get it right and Jan signs it off. At that stage Brian might have a quick glimpse at the beat sheet. Only at that point do I start the actual writing. This means that my manuscripts rarely need much developmental editing as all the plot snags have already been ironed out.
During the plotting stage, characters and locations have been percolating in my head and when I start that first chapter, my fingers race across the keyboard as the dialogue between my characters splurges onto the page. My writing days are all different but I tend to average around 2500 words a day. My best ever day was 6500 words, and that was when I was writing Deserve To Die. I particularly enjoyed writing from Tamara’s point of view (the baddie!). Not sure what that says about me…🤣
When I’ve finished writing the manuscript, I’ll reread it and make any changes before sending it off to Jan. She’ll have a read and add in comments and suggestions. We’ll then have Zoom chats to discuss her ideas. This process might be repeated several times until we’re both happy with the book. We’re in that loop right now for my current work in progress.
In a future post, I’ll let you know what happens next in the writing process.
Some authors throw their hands up in horror when they find out how I write because they think that such intricate plotting takes away the discovery of writing. Pansters don’t plot and they discover the book as they go along. I used to write like that, but I found that I’d get myself into plot holes and because thrillers are complicated, sometimes it can get really messy. I wrote one book where I didn’t know who the villain was until the last chapter. The problem was, I had to go back and make so many changes in order for that to work. So these days I’m firmly a plotter! And I don’t think plotting removes any fun or creativity from the process. I’m just finishing off book number fifteen and am still loving writing!