Plotting With Robin Gianna & Giveaways!

 Please welcome author Robin Gianna. She's talking about Plotting and also  came with multiple giveaways!

After completing a degree in journalism, working in the advertising industry, then becoming a stay-at-home mom, Robin Gianna had what she likes to call her ‘awakening’. While on vacation, lying in the sun with a beach read, she realized she wanted to write the romance novels she'd loved since her teens.

Robin loves pushing her characters toward their own happily-ever-afters! When she's not writing, Robin's life is filled with a happily messy kitchen, a needy garden, a wonderful husband, three great kids, a drooling bulldog and one grouchy Siamese cat.

Robin Gianna on the web:

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Over to Robin now...

Plot.

The word alone makes many writers shudder.  What exactly is it, and how can I be sure mine is any good?  Some of us love to spend time working out a plot before we write, and some of us despise it, wanting to jump right in and, as Stephen King puts it, “fly into the mist.”

I think it takes time to figure out whether we’re ‘plotters’ or ‘pantsers’ or somewhere in between.  Being a bit impulsive and impatient, I enthusiastically dove right in to my first attempt at writing fiction, only to have the story sputter to a halt around chapter four.  So after studying detailed plotting techniques, I tried that.  By the time I’d finished the plotting, I had zero desire to write the darn thing any more.  After much trial and error, I finally realized that being somewhere in the middle of the plotting, pantsing spectrum works for me.

I start with an idea.  For example, for my Harlequin Mills & Boon medical romance that was just released, I wanted to go with a familiar trope—older brother’s best friend she’d crushed on forever until he disappointed and hurt her.  But I also wanted it to be more problematic than that, so I ratcheted up the conflict.  The heroine just graduated from medical school, and is an intern at the hospital the hero is an attending surgeon, and now her teacher. 

Then I think hard about the characters.  Who are they, and why?  What pain are they carrying around with them that affects how they think and what they do?  What do they want, and what’s going to get in the way of that as the story progresses?

With that in mind, I come up with turning points in the story to shoot for, but in between those points I don’t have a clear idea how I’m going to get to them, and just let it unfold.  I like to use screenwriter Michael Hauge’s plot structure, where something occurs near the beginning to change how things are for the character (my heroine shows up on the hero’s teaching rotation).  Then at about the 1/4 mark, the character’s general desire becomes a visible external motivation   (he needs to keep his distance).  That looks good for awhile, then I have to make something happen to make going back to where he or she was at the beginning impossible (an emotional moment brings them together to make love).  Then I come up with the black moment, where after ups and downs in the story, it looks like all is lost (what the hero had worried about all along happens).  After suffering, the character decides to do something he or she would never have done at the beginning of the story to find the happiness they want and deserve.

Whew!  None of it’s easy, but who said writing a novel is?  Bottom line, don’t fret if you hate plotting, or can’t imagine not having a solid plot for every scene before you begin to write.  With a little time and effort, you’ll discover what works best for you, and learning that goes a long way to get a book written that you’ll be proud of.

So tell me, how do you get started on a novel?

Robin Gianna has a new release! 

FLIRTING WITH DR. OFF-LIMITS

Flirting with the forbidden… 

For intern Dr. Katy Pappas, seeing delectable surgeon Alec Armstrong again is sweet torture! He might have rejected her after their sinfully delicious kiss years before, but he still sets her pulse racing!

Alec is captivated by gorgeous, grown-up Katy. But as his best friend's sister, a colleague and his student, Katy is definitely off-limits! He's made the mistake of mixing business with pleasure before, and he won't risk Katy's career. Yet can he resist the oh-so-wrong when it feels oh-so-right…?



Buy Links:

Amazon         Amazon Aus               Amazon UK

Mills & Boon UK         Mills & Boon Aust

Harlequin US                 B&N

 

Enter this Goodreads Giveaway to win signed print copies! 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Flirting with Dr. Off-Limits

by Robin Gianna

Giveaway ends October 30, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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