I find it very hard to write “F”s, or feeling types, because my brain just doesn’t work that way. (Note: I am an INTJ, and I think my strongest domain is that T, that “thinking” quality. Laith is an ENTP and Elena is an ISTJ-very opposite types, but united by that thinking element. I have done the Myers-Briggs Personality test for most of my characters.
I certainly haven’t used any famous person’s personality to shape either character again, that’s just not my style. I had no particular model for Elena, although no doubt her perfectionistic tendencies and her favoring of reason over emotion come straight from me. It feels organic and sometimes you surprise yourself with connections and storylines you’d never have planned. There’s something deeply satisfying about pantsing a story. That said, I do enjoy the endless managed chaos of my Tales of Blood & Light process. Be a planner if you want a streamlined process! I’ve gone the planned route for other books, and it is much easier and it involves a lot less rewriting. In retrospect, this is a very labor-intensive way to write books, definitely not for people who don’t like the slog of rewrites and massive amounts of editing.
I also try to 1) trust in my subconscious to unearth the threads of the story that need to be unearthed 2) keep track of essential facts with lots of folders and post-its (I like to have important information and details on paper rather than on the computer, as I like spreading out my papers on the floor and getting a big overall picture every now and again) and 3) endless reworking and rewriting. So the answer lurking within all those words is…there was no planning, and what someone should learn from my experience is: this is not the best approach to writing a seven-book series!įortunately, I have a pretty good memory, which helps me keep track of the logistics of the story arc-that and a whole bunch of slips of paper and several maps. I tore apart everything and rewrote parts of all the books, dismantled the book Night Queen and turned it into Mage and Source, and now here I am with a completely pantsed seven-book series in the works! So, that’s when I finally realized I needed seven books. I was able to tease out from the exiting stories that I’d set up these seven stones (the Ophirae) that were vital to the return of magic, and thus, I could have seven books, each essentially describing a romantic relationship and the re-awakening of one of the seven stones needed to restore magic to this world. That was when I finally realized I was telling a story about the fall and return of magic in this world, an apocalypse and a restoration.
Only after writing Sterling did I decide to sit down and formally examine what I was trying to do with this series. But then I decided to write Sterling’s story, which came out very easily, and felt like a natural next step after the Cedna’s book.
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