This is the last in my weeklong series featuring novelists and how they approach their writing.
I’ve been writing as Raven West since 2001 when First Class Male was published by Lighthouse Press. The publisher also took over the publication of my first novel; Red Wine for Breakfast and also published Journey to Dimension Nine, my collection of erotica short stories under my pen name FireBird. Unfortunately, the publisher went out of business about three years ago, so I’ve re-published the titles in ebook format with Smashwords. Because I wanted control over the rights and publication, I published my latest novel Undercover Reunion with CreateSpace.
I guess my type of writing could be classified as Contemporary Fiction. My stories involve relationships, but aren’t typical “romance” novels. There is a mysterious death in Red Wine for Breakfast, but it’s not your typical murder mystery, and there’s plenty of adventure and intrigue in Undercover Reunion.
I started writing Red Wine for Breakfast in 1985 after the accidental death of my best friend Mary Ellen Grable, I wrote the story as an emotional release because I needed a way to deal with the tragedy.
Raven’s Writing Process
The process varies. Red Wine for Breakfast took me eight years to complete and I really didn’t have much of a plot when I started. I wrote a chapter here and there, and then put it all together. First Class Male was a bit different. I wrote, edited and completed each chapter, one at a time. I wrote the first 50,000 word draft of Undercover Reunion from start to finish in 2010 for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, then spent the next year doing the edits and re-writes before it was published in November of 2011. I plan on taking the challenge again this year writing Bourbon for Brunch, the sequel to Red Wine for Breakfast.
Raven Talks About Her Technique
I use a very loose outline at first with broad ideas, but I never force the story to stay within the boundaries of the outline. I definitely “color outside of the lines” when it comes to writing fiction. It is so exciting to not know exactly what is going to happen! Even though I have a solid idea of the story line, sometimes the characters take the story to places I never even imagined. Even with an outline, or a deadline, you just can’t force a story. I usually know the ending of the books and write the story backwards! The best technique is to relax and go with the flow!
Naming Characters
When I’m using a character sketch of an actual person, I’ll invert the letters of their first and last name, use a middle name as the first or last or just use some variation of the name. For instance, the postmaster Alex in First Class Male was actually Alan. Don-Donald in Undercover Reunion came from my husband’s middle name, Ronald. Sometimes names are just given to the character for no reason at all.
Unlike my own name, I never change a character’s name once I start writing the story. I may use a nickname. Mel for Melanie, Katie for Kathleen in Undercover Reunion, but once a character is named, they are created to be that person and there is no turning back.
Other than a physical description and brief paragraph on the characters’ personality, I really don’t stick to any pre-conceived details. My characters will “tell me” who they are as I’m writing the story. More than a few times, they’ll also argue with me! For example, Mark in First Class Male was originally written as a throw-away ex boyfriend of Rachel, but “he” insisted on being in the book, so he became a much more involved character than I originally planned.
There is a bit of “magic” in the process of writing fiction. The Muse can hit anyplace and anytime and the well planned story suddenly takes on a life of its own and ends up going in directions I never thought of, which can be both frustrating and exciting. When I originally ended First Class Male I realized that there wasn’t any connection between the ending and the beginning, so I had to write Part IV to what had originally been a three part novel! I hadn’t planned on one of my main characters in Undercover Reunion meeting an untimely death or being a double agent, but one thing leads to another and it’s up to the creative writer to stay true to the MUSE, wherever she leads! As long as everything makes sense in the end!
Learn more about Raven West here: http://ravenwest.net