A Funny Thing Happened . . .

A funny thing happened on my way to Mill Pond’s book 4.   I introduced Tyne Newsome in my third romance.  He’s Paula’s assistant chef.  He’s tall, scruffy, and sexy.  He has to beat women away, but the man has tunnel vision.  All he thinks about is opening a restaurant of his own and cooking.  And he came to life in book 3 and jumped off the pages.  So, when I started book 4, how could I not let him shine?

I wrote the first three Mill Pond romances from the female protagonist’s POV.  But when I sat down to write FIT TO BE THAI’d (the working title for book 4), Tyne didn’t want to be pushed in the background.  He has attitude and opinions, and he meant to share them.  The thing is, he’s such a strong character, I worried he’d overshadow Daphne, so I needed to give her a voice, too.  So, for the first time in a romance, I’m writing the male and female POV.  And I think it’s making this book stronger.

Will I write both POVs in my next romance?  I don’t know.  It’s according to how loud the characters yap at me.

The other surprise in book 4?  I ended up with more plot points than any author needs.  Forty of them, and they’re detailed.  And I only had a few, small references to Daphne’s friend, Miriam, in any of them.  But then Miriam walked into Tyne’s kitchen in chapter seven, and that woman had just as much swagger and attitude as Tyne did.  I listened to them go back and forth and loved how they interacted.  So guess who gets a bigger role than I expected?  Miriam is a high school English teacher who doesn’t mince words.

Now don’t get me wrong.  When I have an outline and a character surprises me, that’s allowed.  It’s even encouraged.  But the characters know what their boundaries are, and they have to stay in them.  Miriam doesn’t change any turning points, but she sure enjoys it when she can steal a scene:)

A good writer friend of mine, Kyra Jacobs, experienced the same type of thing when she was working on her Checkerberry Inn romance series and her paranormal romance/dragon series.  On her blog, she wrote, “…it marked a wonderful new beginning for my writing as I stepped away from writing in first person, single point of view (female main character only) to multiple points of view.”

You can find her blog @: https://indianawonderer.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/psst-its-me/

Whatever you’re working on now, I hope you’re having as much fun as I am.  I’m trying to twist Kyra Jacobs’s arm to get her to do a guest spot for you here.  After all, she writes about dragons, who are shifters.  And I write about Prosper, who’s a shifter.  Okay, he’s a bear, not a dragon, but there’s something about shifters, don’t you think?  Those big, strong men who have an animal caged inside them?  And Kyra writes romances…and I write romances.  We have so much in common, except probably the way we write.  If she’s sane, she’s never done forty plot points for any of her novels.  No one should.  But, hey! Every book’s different.  I never thought I’d do it either.

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