NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Monday, January 29, 2018

All the Words Not on the Page

All the Words Not on the Page
By Julie Rowe

The words you read in a published book are just the end product of a process that can take weeks, months, or even years. Every writer has their own method of getting their story down, revising, editing, and finally giving the go to say it’s done. No matter the process, there are still a lot of words the reader never gets to see. Words that are, nevertheless, part of the story.

Some writers need a detailed outline, a plan, or map of the story before they flesh it out with setting, character, and conflict. Others want no advance planning at all, preferring to discover the story as they write. They may edit and revise as they write, or wait until after the first draft is done before revising to tuck all the story threads away neatly.

I tend to write my first draft without much revision or editing as I go. For me, creation is a very different mental process from editing and revision. My experience of the story changes when I go from the first draft into the second and following drafts. I tend to write action and dialogue first, then add description and emotional context in successive drafts. I also have to read through the manuscript front to back for continuity – how many days have passed, secondary character names, who did what. Through all of this, words are being added, removed, or changed.

Before I send the completed manuscript to my editor, I print it off and go at it with a red pen; striking out, questioning, and adding words. Here’s a photo of my table covered in pages from Smoke and Mirrors, releasing Feb 26, 2018. Every pile is a chapter, full of red pen notes and post-it-note reminders.

So many words my readers will never see, yet the story wouldn’t exist without them. Character interviews, a multi-page synopsis, and editorial notes from a collection of editors who work on the book – the reader doesn’t get to see those either.

I’m curious, as a reader, which hidden words would you like to see?




Julie Rowe’s first career as a medical lab technologist in Canada took her to the North West Territories and northern Alberta, where she still resides. She loves to include medical details in her romance novels, but admits she’ll never be able to write about all her medical experiences because, “Fiction has to be believable”. Julie writes romantic suspense and romantic thrillers. Her next release, Smoke and Mirrors book #2 of the Outbreak Taskforce series will be out Feb 26, 2018. You can find her at www.julieroweauthor.com , on Twitter @julieroweauthor or at her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/JulieRoweAuthor



4 comments:

Deanna said...

I've never actually thought about wanting to see any of the hidden words. If I think about it, I'd probably say, if there were entire scenes cut out of the story, I might want to read those and find out why they were cut out.

Sandy Parks said...

I just want the finished product, because that is your best effort. I must admit, though,from the photo of your table, that your method looks way too organized and neat. Are you sure you're a writer? lol

Roxi said...

Knowing all the bits, would break the illusion as a reader. However, as a writer, understanding someone’s process could help creativity and organization. Personally, I have created character note cards to help with continuity. For me, seeing how others develop their characters, and track each one, would be interesting.

Julie Moffett said...

Such an interesting post, Julie. I am a sticky note queen -- I use them for everything, including plotting out the entire book on a trifold board. I really enjoy hearing about other author's processes. It helps me refine mine!

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