Hi everybody! It's been a few years that I have written novels, which I do love it but the job as a writer comes with many challenges and questions that we are being asked or ask ourselves. Here, I want to point to TWO most common and important questions that I, as an author, are asked several times!
Let's GET STARTED:
Which Scenes Are the Most Fun to Write?
Oh boy! That is pretty easy, and I bet you can figure it out, but actually there are several situations that are enjoyable. First, creating the missions is fun; figuring out exactly how they could pull off what they do to the bad guys and not get caught is challenging. Just for the record, I actually know people who have lived in that world. I have them review these scenes to see if they think they could actually be pulled off. One of my favorites is in Operation Austin, the hotel scene in Atlanta. I did a LOT of research on that one, actually talking to people who worked at the hotel and studying the staff patterns, how the computer system could be accessed through a 'back door', things like that. It was a lot of fun to figure it out.
Working to figure out how to share concepts and ideas with my readers, without being preachy. That is fun and challenging, really hard actually. I want the books to be fun, but when writing about subjects like these you need to also bring the readers along and educate them without lecturing. I hope I did a good job of that.
My favorite scenes? Of course, the sex scenes. Those are also challenging to write because I want them to be realistic to the people who live these lives, and that means sometimes being explicit, and yet not pornographic. The interpersonal scenes between Gary and Paige, in the early pages of Austin, those were fun because I got to explore the relationship between a hero and a victim. Same with many of the scenes in The Husband Whisperer, Sarah's Story, especially those involving Larry and later, Connor. Writing about the creation of Sphericum was fun, I was deeply involved in Cryptos at the time and came up with that concept, which I do think is a brilliant one, if you don't mind me saying so. My favorites, however, were those scenes in the early stages of introducing Suraya into Gary and Paige’s lives. I'm not going to spoil the fun of letting you discover that, just be aware that a TON of research on Muslim culture went into that story. I have friends in many Muslim nations and had in-depth talks with them before creating that character. Of course, as you know, Suraya Khan was actually a person, a good friend. I tried to write in a manner that she would have enjoyed. Suri, somewhere you are watching all of this and, I hope, laughing at our adventures.
Which Part of Writing Was Hardest?
I love these questions! This one is challenging, though. When I started writing, my first fifteen chapters was in first person, present tense. What I didn't realize is that this particular style is the most limiting and by the time I was fifteen chapters in, it didn't work because I had multiple characters all speaking in first person. I sometimes see writers do that, but it's clumsy and confusing for work like mine that is so detailed.
So, I began writing in third person past tense, but that meant I had to rework fifteen chapters. In book one, Operation Austin, that was a lot of work and after six or eight edits I was still finding issues. So, I would never recommend that an author write in first person other than in a short story that has only one perspective.
Learning to write was hard, creating a system took some time. Nobody taught me; I looked at a lot of videos but none of them really seemed helpful. That is why I created my series of videos, to help authors create a system that allows them to produce good work with less effort.
When I think about the hardest part, however, it has to be dealing with the emotional aspect of writing about human trafficking and what it means to the people, young women mostly, who are captured, enslaved, abused, and tortured. I have resources that have worked as victim advocates for many years and the stories they shared with me are horrific. What the demons do to these women is so evil that I can't even write about some of it, the facts are far worse than the ability of most people to internalize. That was the problem; in order to write about the subject, I needed to know about it and FEEL it. There were many times when I sat at my computer, tears streaming down my face, as I wrote about something that one of 'my girls' had gone through, thinking about real girls who are trapped in that world, hoping and praying that some hero comes to get them... then eventually just giving up hope. That was the hardest part about writing, for certain.
I think this is for today's post, but stay tuned for the next post with more questions and answers.
REMINDER! Please comment below any question that you want to ask an author. I would love to answer them in the next posts.
Have a great time.
Thanks for reading.