Terri Reed here and I’m starting a new book, as of yet untitled, but will be a June 2012 release. My book will be the sixth book in a new Love Inspired Suspense continuity series about an Irish Christian family with a long history of public service. The setting will be a fictional town in Massachusetts called Fitzgerald Bay. Already, this is a place I'd like to visit with a wonderful cast of characters. So keep an eye out next January for the first book in the series by Shirlee McCoy.
So back to my new project, before I ever sit down at the computer I do a lot of pre-writing. Mostly done by hand in a spiral notebook. Yes, I’m a plotter, through and through. I have to have my road map, or in other words, a detailed synopsis. But before I even write that, I have to develop my characters. To me, this is the most important part of writing since so much of story comes out of the characters. I use several methods, gleaning various processes from many different brilliant authors and teachers.
The most recent tool I have added to my pre-writing comes from story master, Michael Hauge. http://storymastery.com/
Last year I attended a workshop where Michael shared his expertise with us and helped me to delve deeper into my characters. I was stuck in the middle of a book at the time, my January 2011 release Daughter of Texas, book one of Texas Ranger Justice from Love Inspired Suspense. My heroine wasn't working. There was something about her that was eluding me. By the time the workshop was over, my heroine was a fully developed, sympathetic character that readers could root for. Thank you, Michael!
For those of you who will be in NYC this summer for Romance Writers of America’s national conference www.rwanational.org , look for Michael’s workshops. You won’t be disappointed!
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