Sandra’s Miscellany

As the blogosphere is winding down from the Bombshell news, I’m considering now my future direction.

It’s simple enough, really. I came into the writing game with a plan and, due to the unforeseen and unfortunate closure of the Bombshell line in January 2007, my plan needs to be accelerated.

Writing for Bombshell was a great learning experience because I learned that I really do like to write big, sprawling stories. Not necessarily action-adventure or romantic suspense, but stories that simply cover a lot of emotional and intellectual ground. One of The Orchid Hunter’s selling points was the fact that it included the rainforest-gold mining-mercury usage-indigenous peoples issues. It didn’t beat these issues into the readers’ heads, but added texture and complexity to the choices Jessie was forced to make. Her choices, in fact, became more important as the story progressed because the stakes in the jungle were rising at the same time her personal stakes were rising.

Intended Victim was originally envisioned as a big, sprawling story with two main threads, and I was asked to break these threads into two stories. At first I was excited because I thought, Instant two-book contract! But the reality soon set in. I’d have to hack out the layers and complexity that I’d crafted into the original proposal and distill the first story down to its base parts while simultaneously floating enough threads that the story could be continued in a sequel. This was a heckuva lot harder than just writing the one big book.

But, I also learned something very important from Dan Brown, whom I regularly bash in this blog. I read Digital Fortress and saw very clearly how to catapult the story from one complexity to an even greater one. The book starts with all of the characters confronting one problem, but at about the halfway point, a new piece of information comes in and suddenly they all realize they’ve been duped and the problem is not only something else but the stakes have been raised.

I don’t know what’s in store for Intended Victim, but I hope that, if it does get picked up as a single title, I’ll have the opportunity to go back to the original proposal and really write that sucker. It begs to be textured, detailed, and complex. Is it women’s fiction? I don’t think so. I think it’s more of a techno-thriller than anything else — the grittier, the better. Now that, I can definitely do.

But all of this to say that having a five-year plan was a pretty good idea for me. It gave my endeavors structure and leaves me with a way forward in my career without my wringing my hands with worry.

Do you have a five-year plan? I had a plan when I was unpublished because I had a sneaking suspicion that things would change once I sold. I just didn’t realize how much things would change. And I’m someone who needs a plan in order to produce and to feel safe. (Yes, I’m very much like Captain Chris in that regard — her challenge is my challenge.)

So, what’s the plan?