Please extend a warm welcome to Felice Stevens!
A bit of an inside look to planning a series
When I start a new series, for the most part I have all the couples lined up in my head. But being a pantser, the couples don’t always cooperate and that’s where the fun comes in. The first time that happened to me occurred with the Through Hell and Back series. Jordan was never supposed to get a book. He and Keith were the happy, stable couple in the group of friends. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way.
When I began the Man Up series with Austin, I had intended to hook Frankie up with James. James was still the uptight, enigmatic boss but he had a thing for Frankie. Of course he couldn’t let Frankie know, since Frankie worked for him. Austin figured it out and of course James denied it.
Eventually Frankie’s ex, Aaron would try to get Frankie back, resulting in James coming to the rescue and realizing he loved Frankie and Frankie’s gratitude for James’s help would turn to love so on and so forth.
Pretty blah I realized. Frankie was no damsel in distress who needed saving and I couldn’t get James to cooperate past a few longing looks at Frankie. However, when Malcolm made his first appearance in Rhoades—Undeniable there was instant chemistry between him and James. Mal couldn’t stop teasing and poking at James and James couldn’t help but respond. And so James and Malcolm as a couple were born and I have had them taunting and tormenting each other for four books now.
Sometimes it isn’t only the couples who change on you but the plot lines. When I began Embrace the Fire, book Three of Through Hell and Back, Brandon wasn’t a schoolteacher. He was—now don’t laugh—a homeless kid who’d been held basically captive by a drug lord as his sex slave. He worked in a diner but wasn’t allowed any other contact with the outside world. Then one night, Tash came to the diner with Luke and they saw Brandon getting treated poorly by the drug lord and they followed Brandon home and…..well you can see why that went into the delete pile. LOL.
In a Walk Through Fire, Ash always had a tormented past, but he didn’t start out self-harming. That was strictly an “ah-ha” moment as I was writing. In that case the plot took hold of me and I experienced what every author loves: the feeling when your fingers can’t keep up with what your brain is telling you. The words virtually write themselves. It doesn’t happen with every book but when it does, there’ s no other feeling like it.
I hope you enjoyed a little bit of an insight to my writing process and two of my favorite series.
The Man Up series can be found here:
#1 AUSTIN – only 99c!
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#2 RHOADES—UNDENIABLE
Amazon US - Barnes and Noble - Kobo - iBooks
#3 FRANKIE—UNFORGETTABLE
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#4 CORT—UNBREAKABLE
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