I’ve been thinking about my latest book in the DEMONSLAYERS series, STARFIRE, because I’m getting so many nice comments on the book from readers who’ve had a chance to read it, and yet this one happened totally by accident! In fact, it came together in that serendipitous manner of so many of my stories, which means that, when I started writing it, I really had no idea where the story was going.
Let me explain how a proposal for a new series works–the author comes up with an idea and writes a synopsis of the story–a brief outline of the characters and plot that will give the editor a good idea what the books will be about. Often we’re asked to write a few chapters for the first story so the editor can see what style we’ll be using and/or to make sure we have a good handle on our characters, so that’s what I did when I proposed the DEMONSLAYERS series.
But, when I originally sold the series to Kensington, I proposed three books–they bought four. That meant I had to slip a new story into the pre-designed story arc, and I decided to place it between the second and fourth books, hoping that, by then, I’d have a secondary character to work with. The problem is, what I say I’m going to do in a proposal and what I actually end up writing isn’t always the same thing. I had a good idea how DemonFire, the first book, would go, and a general concept for HellFire, the second one. When Dawson Buck showed up in HellFire, I felt like I’d gotten a gift from the story gods! That entire story sort of exploded in my head when I started to write, so it was truly a gift. I wish that happened more often, but I knew then that I had my hero for StarFire. 
But, then I was asked to do a novella for the Nocturnal anthology and CRYSTAL DREAMS almost wrote itself–but it gave a new twist to the entire series. Suddenly I was dealing with magic, along with demons. When I began writing StarFire, I had to incorporate my new characters from CRYSTAL DREAMS and tie the entire story to Dawson Buck, and Selyn, one of the Forgotten Ones. Dawson Buck and Selyn’s character and the story of the women warriors of Lemuria were not part of my original proposal, which meant that STARFIRE had to be part of the series and mesh with what I had already planned. Somehow, it all came together, though by now I think I was driving my editor nuts, because I’d obviously veered well away from the original plan.
Then when I sat down to write CrystalFire, I realized my “story arc” had changed so completely due to Dawson and Selyn’s intervention that I couldn’t use the original fourth story as planned. I had intended for Taron and Willow to be the protagonists, but I wasn’t certain how in the hell that was going to happen, which had me staring at my computer and twiddling my thumbs for way too long. When it finally came to me, it was totally different than originally intended, but actually satisfied some issues that had slipped into earlier books, unplanned. I’ve decided that plotting is a great way to spark an idea, but there’s just no way I can ever get my characters to stick to their original plan.
I’ve also decided that must be a very good thing. I do hope you’re giving my DEMONSLAYERS series a chance. I’ve gotten complaints because they’re not erotic like WOLF TALES, but in my mind, the sex is only a small part of any story. It’s the connection you feel for the characters and the story itself that makes a book work, but I am curious–is the erotic element what you’re looking for in a book, or mainly just a good story? Leave a comment and you’ll have a chance to win a book!
And I did try to line them up nicely, but it appears it ain’t gonna happen, so I’m not going to waste time trying.