Hi, friend! Thank you for joining me on this virtual coffee date.
Today’s Cuppa 🇬🇧: Thank You for Sharing is being published in the UK and Commonwealth!
It was acquired by Keshini Naidoo at Hera Books, whose mission is to publish diverse commercial fiction. It’s been as delightful to work with the team there (and Louise, my agent Jess’s UK partner) as it has been difficult to keep this a secret for so many months. Read the full announcement here.
Today’s Coffee Special: My writing process!
I asked on Instagram what kinds of topics y’all would like to see in my newsletter, and the responses could all be more or less reduced to “how do you, personally, approach writing a book?” I love reading about other authors’ writing processes, so I’m excited to share mine!
My process is simple: I sit on my couch, open my word doc, put Bad Bunny music videos on my TV, and try not to have a breakdown.
JK (mostly). As I see it, the process of writing a romance novel requires five parts: characters, premise, plot, drafting, and revision. For me, the order in which I went through this process shifted drastically between Thank You for Sharing, and [redacted], which I’m in the middle of drafting. In writer lingo, I’m a pantser (as in fly by the seat of my pants) by nature who is pretending to be a plotter for the sake of writing under contract.
Characters
This is the part that comes first and easiest to me, as it is what keeps me invested in a book both as a reader and as a writer. With Thank You for Sharing, the characters co-appeared in my head with an idea for a meet-uncomfortable: two mixed race Jews are next to each other on a plane, and one of them, in an attempt to make a flirty joke, accidentally parrots a common offensive refrain that people who aren’t Jews of color say to JoC. In order for this to play out in the semi-disastrous but comical way it appeared in my head, the person saying the comment needed to have been incredibly well intentioned, and the person receiving it needed to be quick-tempered, or at least in a situation that pushed them that way. With this rather minimal information, I started writing the scene, and Liyah and Daniel came to life fully-formed before my eyes. I wish I could be more specific about how I picked them than that, but I truly felt like I knew exactly who they were in their essences before I filled in details like jobs, hometowns, etc.
With my second book, I actually originally had an idea for a meet-cute involving Kayla (Daniel’s sister) and a new female main character, and that scene required this new character to have a fraternal male twin. When I found out that TYFS would need revision to make it more high-concept in order to sell, I saw that the book I had on my hands was also incredibly character-focused rather than plot-driven, so I scrapped that version. I decided to make the internal struggles this new character was dealing with shared by her love interest, generating external conflict, which meant the person for her couldn’t be Kayla. I identified the bits of Kayla I’d felt would be compatible with Jade, and I imagined a totally new person who had those key traits but felt different enough that I wouldn’t mourn the story that wouldn’t be.
Another thing to note is that I don’t really ever plan to write a book without at least one main character being a (femme) Black Jew. I am interested in exploring multiracial identity in my character work and in portraying characters with backgrounds that don’t always show up in popular media, and that informs the people that naturally pop into my head when I’m brainstorming a project.
Premise
With TYFS, I came up with this as I was writing: originally, these two people have a meet-disaster, then find out they have mutual friends, and end up in a semi-structured found family style friend group. In revisions, I pulled from what was already there in the separate character arcs and tied it together. Their career goals from the original manuscript were merged when Liyah’s museum becomes a client of Daniel’s marketing firm, and the Jewish sleep-away camp first kiss stories were merged by making them at the same camp, and with each other.
With the book I’m drafting, because I a.) wanted it to be more plot-driven and “high-concept” from the get and b.) knew that in an ideal world, I’d be writing it under contract and would thus have to get it approved in advance, I needed to have a clear, pitch-able hook that would easily translate into an eventful plot. Instead of jumping in to write, which is my natural inclination, I used the character profiles I’d created to craft a one-line pitch, and then went from there.
Plot
I don’t know what to say about TYFS. I just wrote a book, I guess? I had some ideas after writing the first five chapters that I’d put in one page of bullet points, but mostly I came up with the plot points as I wrote them. When I revised with the new premise in mind, I edited that one page to add and subtract chapters, and then had a call with my fabulous agent, who helped me shuffle the rest around to make it stronger.
For Book 2, I needed an outline I could show to my agent and editor for approval. And… I still wrote the first chapter without one, because I couldn’t get invested without first actually getting into the heads of the characters. But from there, I wrote as detailed an outline I could muster (mostly because I didn’t want to write an actual synposis), and wrote the next four chapters to make sure it felt right to me. With that, I went back and forth with my agent, editing the outline (and then the text) until there was clear motivation and tension to drive the plot forward from both characters.
Drafting
Drafting TYFS was mostly a breeze. I got stuck at one point because I wanted to write a later chapter that didn’t make sense yet, and my friend, Betsy, said, “You know you don’t have to write it in order,” and that was about all the trouble I had. I think that’s not too uncommon when you’re writing a book just for fun—I wasn’t obsessing over how to sell it or what the broad public’s opinions would be, and so it went pretty quickly and with little resistance.
Book 2, of course, is a different story. Drafting has been much, much slower, in part because I had to pause for four months to finish my PhD and move across the country, but also because I have already experienced a lot more external feedback on my writing, and I am trying this plotter thing for the first time. Because I have an outline already, when I hit play again, I found it difficult initially to get excited to write. I already knew what was going to happen, so where’s then fun in that? I’ve overcome that in two ways. The first, by simply forcing myself to write, often setting a timer and just typing whatever came out, even if I had to shape it up later (thank you, Ava Wilder, for the sprinting tip!). I discovered excitement in seeing how the characters would react to different circumstances, even if I already knew the setting and general events. The second is by viewing the outline as a living document rather than something carved into stone. I have not yet figured out how not to stress about reader response to the book. If you have transcended such fears, please share your secrets.
Revising
I find revising to be terribly intimidating up until the plan clicks into place. Then, it’s something that goes very quickly, and ends up being quite fun. During the big TYFS revision, I even ended up writing an entirely new chapter I hadn’t planned, and it is one of my favorites in the whole book. My experience was much the same with my Book 2 sample chapters (the only part I’ve had to really revise so far).
My Favorite Part
Before I wrote this newsletter, I thought I’d say I prefer drafting to revising, but upon reflection, I think it’s the opposite. I LOVE thinking about drafting, but the actual process can get frustrating or tedious (even with my first book, which was much easier—I’m learning that there’s a sophomore slump for all things in life). I DETEST thinking about revising because I tend to catastrophize and convince myself I’m incapable of fixing the text, but once I figure it out, it’s so much more fun than drafting, because I know the characters and the story so much better. If I have to pick a single story element, I think my favorite thing to write is the main characters in a fight 😈
A Biscotti with Your Coffee
TV: I am finishing this newsletter while my partner and I watch the season premiere of Succession. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s as good as everybody says.
Books: For the trans rights readathon this past week, I supported the Trans Health Legal Fund. I picked For the Love of April French and Detransition, Baby. The first is steamy and sweet and so, so, SO romantic. Like squealing, kicking my feet, etc. But also incredibly heart achy at times? I haven’t finished the second because it was an unexpectedly busy week (but of course I still donated for it!).
Music: Right now, I am listening to nothing but Bad Bunny (not hyperbole). I cannot put into words what the beat in DÁKITI does to me.
Mwah,
Rachel Runya Katz