Plot Monkeys

This is the day we’ll give you a glimpse into the process of writing–a chance for the aspiring writers to pick our brains or our readers to ask how we do what we do. Do you have a question for us? Send them to carly@carlyphillips.com and put Plotmonkey Saturday Question in the subject line.

Here’s today’s entry:

When you’re sitting down to write a book, what comes first…the plot, the premise or the characters?

JEL: It totally depends on the book and the process is never the same for me. Sometimes, the setting can come first, like when I sat down to write a book set in New Orleans. The characters came out of the setting, the plot evolved out of the characters. Sometimes, it’s the character that starts the ball rolling, like with my first Marisela book. The second Marisela book, however, since the characters were the same, came from the theme–I wanted her to deal with the next stage in being an agent and put her in a “fish out of water” situation. I have a few novellas coming up that the premise was given to me (matchmaking taxi driver in A FARE TO REMEMBER or baseball in BOYS OF SUMMER) so in both of those cases, I started with the premise, worked the common theme with the other authors, then on the plot and characters. One thing I’ve learned is that you have to be flexible in this business.

CP: I always look for something that interests me, whether it’s the sports hero (like the Hot Zone series), the idea of twins (the Costas sisters), or sometimes I’ll have a character trait that I want to use, such as Vaughn’s dyslexia in Hot Stuff. I knew from an article years ago on Tom Cruise (pre sofa-jumping days) that I wanted to use the idea, and everything about him built from that - his parents being professors who didn’t “get” him and viewed him and his sports achievements as a disappointment. It’s always one thing that begins a story for me and everything else gets built around it. With the Chandler brothers, the idea of three bachelor brothers and their mother pretending to be sick was given to me by an editor and I built the trilogy and everything in it from there. I do find that my process is usually the same and yet it’s always different. How’s THAT for clear as mud, LOL!

LK: I quite often find myself starting a book with a “moment.” Just a scene I picture in my head for some reason. I started playing with it–developing it–trying to see who, exactly, the people in it are and what is taking place. My second book Suite Seduction started when I just had this image of a woman eating an entire chocolate cake and swilling a bottle of champagne. My third, Relentless, started when I had an image of a woman sitting inside a giant paper “cake” about to pop out of it at a bachelor party. At that point, I didn’t know if she was a hired stripper, if she was doing it as a joke, or what! (She turned out to be the bride.)

Once I have the moment, I work on the characters, then the plot.

That, at least, is how I have done it so far.

JD: My books always tend to start with a premise of some sort. In my Surf’s Up anthology coming out in July, Leslie came up with a great idea of having a heroine who is a jeweler, and a hero who is an ex-jewel thief. From there, the characters developed, and luckily in that story the conflict was pretty well built in! For my single titles, they start with a premise, as well. In Too Wilde To Tame, I had the idea of the very wild and untamable heroine, Mia, being the target of a stalker who takes provocative pictures of Mia, then uses them in a threatening way against the heroine. The hero, Cameron, is a P.I., so putting them together was pretty easy. Plus, they did have a past. For me, it’s so much easier to build character, plot, and conflict around a premise. And once I do have a premise of some sort, it’s an ongoing process to figure out just the right character, conflict, and plot to carry the story off!

Do you have a question for the monkeys? Don’t forget to email Carly at carly@carlyphillips.com if you do!

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