Harder than I thought

I thought I'd share a bit about the transition I've made over the last few years from academic writing to fiction writing. Although I'd been planning to turn my hand to fiction for many years, I was always too busy working full time to even think about writing even one more word that I had to. Teaching four classes of first and second-year university English classes left me precious little time to even read for pleasure, let alone write. So I let it slide....

Then, once I got a handle on my workload I began to suffer from long bouts of insomnia. The good news was that now I had time on my hands. The hours between bedtime and when I was ready to fall asleep proved to be fruitful. It was quality time. Just me and my laptop. And so I began to write.

At first I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to tell a story about a married woman who meets an irresistible man while she's travelling in France. Against her better judgement, she begins an affair right under her husband's nose. It wasn't supposed to be a romance. It had to end badly, a sort of cautionary tale. I was influenced by the novel Damage by Josephine Hart. It was gritty and dark and just my kind of read.

So I began. But I didn't begin at the beginning. I began with the first seduction scene. And why not? I wanted to jump into the fun stuff right away.

I have to admit that it was self indulgent of me. But again, why not? Once I'd finished the first draft of that scene, I was happy with what I'd written. And that scene appears, basically unaltered, in the middle of my first novel, Cult of the Black Virgin. But then came the hard part.

I had to create a sympathetic character, place her in a meaningful context, then lead her to this first, explosive coming together with her lover.

That proved a lot harder than I thought it would be. I really sucked at character development. I'd never done it before, and I guess I expected that characters were born fully-formed, ready to walk, talk and have great sex without any direction from their creator.

Boy, did I struggle. Not only was my heroine an adulteress, she was attractive and privileged. I had my work cut out for me if I wanted readers to like her.

That was when I turned to the professionals for help.

I bought books on writing fiction. I took some on-line courses. I attended workshops. And I read articles, blogs and even more novels.

Then things began to morph....