Tag: characters

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Wicked Wednesday – Deleted Bit from STRONGER THAN SIN

STRONGER THAN SIN Paranormal RomanceThere’s an interesting discussion by Keri Stevens over at the Carina Press blog. Keri is talking about her latest release, STONE KISSED, and what she does with those scenes that need to get cut.

It’s just part of the revision process that sometimes you, or more often an editor, chops scenes from a book. In STRONGER THAN SIN I dropped a number of scenes which showed Liliana interacting with the Carrera family even though I hated to do that. I loved Mick and Cat from SINS OF THE FLESH and thought you might like to see what was happening with them as well as the other Carrera family members. Unfortunately, as much as you love those scenes you need to understand that you have to focus on the main characters and not distract readers with old characters.

But I do know that many of you asked about the other Carreras and I appreciate that you grew that attached to them that you didn’t want to see them go. Believe me, I didn’t either and that’s why I’m going to be offering up a number of deleted bits featuring the Carrera family from the various SINS books

So here goes! This scene was originally in STRONGER THAN SIN, but it really didn’t portray Liliana as a woman capable of making her own decisions although it reinforced the importance of family to Liliana. To add action, I replaced it with a scene where Liliana and Mick are jogging and Liliana realizes she is being followed. In the new scene, although Mick offers his help, Liliana decides to go it alone to avoid bringing any more trouble into her brother’s already complicated life.

If you can’t see the excerpt below, you can click here to read it!

Stronger Than Sin Deleted Bits

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Characters are Plot

writingheartAt the February meeting of the Liberty States Fiction Writers we were very lucky to have my friend and fellow author, Anna DeStefano, do a wonderful workshop on revisions. During the course of the workshop, Anna mentioned something which I truly believe – Characters are plot.

Why do I believe that? You may read a book that has a good plot – pacing works, premise is interesting. But if the characters leave you flat, you will forget that book almost as quickly as you read it.

Writing emotionally developed and interesting characters is, IMHO, key to creating a memorable book and plot. Why plot? you ask. Because it is the development of the characters and how they resolve their internal conflicts that creates the story arc of your plot. It is your job as a writer to craft scenes in which the characters are challenged to deal with their conflicts and advance until at the end of the novel, the characters have resolved those internal conflicts (or maybe just one of them if you are creating a series with the same characters).

For this reason, I totally believe that characters are plot. When you define your characters and how they need to grow, you can then build a story around that. When you do, you will have a book where your readers are always on the edge of their seats wondering whether or not the character will rise up to the occasion or fail. Readers will cheer for them and their hearts will break when the characters encounter problems.

When your readers finish your book, not only will you have given them a story that engaged them, but you will have touched them and created characters they will remember long after the books are sitting on a shelf.

Characters are plot. Remember that before you get started and your story will almost write itself.

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