Plot Monkeys

Okay, I’d hoped to be done this new book by today’s blog, remember? Well…not quite.

I’m soooooo close, I promise, and I’ve been working my butt off (don’t I wish, considering its size!) I know I’ll be there in a day or two. But there are a lot of threads and strings in this story and I’ve been trying to make sure they all tie together and form something neat by the time all is said and done.

Anyway, I thought that since I’m so deep in this right now, you might like a glimpse at the “process.”

Reaching the final dramatic confrontation in this story has caused a ripple effect through the entire book, as it does with all of my books (the big ones, at least.) I get to the climax, everything has finally come together in my mind, and I realize I now have to go back and layer in all the things I missed when writing the story, simply because I was not sure about what was going to happen. (I’m a by-the-seat-of-the-pants writer, not a plotter. The Plotmonkeys help me create the bones of the story…I flesh them out as I go.)

No problem. Layering’s great (ask Julie!) So I’ve done that–I’ve added tidbits, red herrings, clues, and entire scenes. I’ve rearranged chapters to make those new scenes fit. I’ve deepened characters, I’ve broadened the scope of the story, I’ve fleshed out places where things were skeletal and trimmed up the fleshy bits.

Here’s something else I have to confess: I’ve also changed my margins. I always do this. I start my book with 1.25 margins all around, so it feels like I’m really getting somewhere in the early stages. Then around page 100 I change them to 1” all the way around, kind of a standard measure. Then as I hit the 2/3 point and realize I have a lot of story still left to tell, I push it to .9 on top and .8 on bottom, that way I’ll get 25 lines per page, which is a publishing standard.

Then I hit the last 50 pages or so. And I panic. How in the name of God am I going to be able to finish in 50 pages? So I bump the right margin to .9, then look at the chapter ending page of every chapter, hunting for short ones. When I find them, I go through that particular chapter removing words and sentences, pulling up paragraphs, until I suck that short last page into the preceding ones. I get myself another 10 or so pages that way.

Yes. I play this game with every book. Pathetic, isn’t it? What can I say…it’s my process. :-)

Here’s one more tiny snag I’ve hit with this book…maybe you readers can help me with it. These characters have a great, fun, sexy relationship, but for a number of legitimate reasons, they don’t completely have sex until quite a ways into the story. (Though they do just about everything else…lol!) When I originally wrote it, it was fine, about 250 pages in (out of around 400. Ish.) Now that I’ve layered, however, adding an entire plot thread, I realize the first fully consummated love scene has been pushed to about page 300! That’s ¾ of the way through the book. I’ve never had it come (ahem…) that late. Early, yes. I’ve had sex in chapter one in my category books, but not late. (Not I…I mean, my characters have had sex…oh, you know what I mean!)

Anyway, I’m wondering, what’s your take on it? Does it bother you to read a big, meaty book and have the characters having lots of sexy encounters, but not doing that until the last quarter of the book? Personally, I love it because the sexual tension between them is so thick it’s making me sweat! But are readers going to be cool with it?

Curious minds want to know…

Thanks all! Hope you have a great week.