Today author Heather Lin joins me to talk about writing and editing Westridge, her new romance novel. Read to the end for an insightful excerpt comparing the original opening of chapter one against the edited intro. What a difference small changes can make!

Before we jump into our interview, though, meet Gabby and Jason, the stars of the book:

Gabby Jones and Jason Dawson were born only months apart in the small town of Westridge. For the next eighteen years, they were inseparable, but after their high school graduation, Gabby got on a bus to the city, leaving Jason with a weak explanation and a broken heart. After five years of making it a point to avoid her old flame, Gabby comes home for a funeral and, thanks to meddling parents and circumstance, she and Jason are thrown together again.

But now Jason is an auto mechanic with an ex-wife and a daughter, and Gabby owns a successful flower shop in the city. Even if Gabby is able to admit she still loves Jason, and even if Jason is able to convince her to tell him the real reason she left, will they be able to get past the changes and broken pieces in time to start over?


Please note that Heather Lin is a blog guest and not a Romance Refined client.

 
Rachel: Thanks so much for stopping by, Heather. Let’s start by talking about your writing process. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Heather: I am a proud pantser. The one time I tried to work with a detailed outline, the story came out just awful. I get an idea, I write down the bare bones, and then I get to work.

Rachel: That’s what I love about interviewing authors: for all the advice out there, I think writers need to be reminded that there is no right or wrong way to write a book. Study, ask questions, try new methods, but ultimately each author must do what works for them.

Do you have a critique partner or beta reader that you consult before submitting to agents or editors?

Fans have been eagerly awaiting the follow-up to the popular, sexy, angsty, paranormal mythological fantasy (yeah, it's all those things!) Blood Flows Deep in the Empire, and it's here! Blood Stained Tranquility is mere days away from publication. Read to the bottom of this blog post to enter to win each title in the highly-rated Szolite series, which "pits free-will against Destiny, Destiny against Fate, and love against brutal desire."

Please note that N. Isabelle Blanco is a blog guest, not a Romance Refined client.

Rachel: Thanks so much for stopping by on your blog tour! When you were writing Blood Stained Tranquility, was it a private affair until it was time for submission, or did you seek early feedback as part of your self-editing process?

N. Isabelle Blanco: I actually have an entire team of people (most importantly, my fellow business partner and author, Elena M. Reyes) that are with me during the entire writing process. I can’t write “blind” and need to have opinions on how I’m doing as I go.

Rachel: If I were an author, I think I’d be much the same! How tightly do you hold onto your original plot and character ideas, even if you feel they aren’t coming together?

The Reluctant Bride is so much more than a Regency romance; it's romance woven through a plot full of spies, traitors and adventure. Add one of the most swoon-worthy heroes – who's not even titled gentry! – and you get a truly fantastic historical. It was a joy to work with Beverley Eikli on this book and I'm happy that her long-awaited publication day has arrived. Beverley's here today with some interesting insight about her approach to editing and the many changes this book has been through.

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Beverley: Hi Rachel, Thanks so much for having me here.

Rachel: Thank you for stopping by! I remember during our first set of exchanged emails when we were introducing ourselves you told me up front that you quite enjoy the editing process and looked forward to it. Music to an editor's ears! Since a lot of authors fear edits, what's your secret? 

Liz Harris is not a cookie-cutter romance author; her unusual locales and atypical relationship dynamics bring something fresh to the genre, and her detailed descriptions of those locales truly whisk the reader away to another time and place, taking on as much importance as the characters themselves. Her latest novel, A Bargain Struck, is a romance in reverse: a marriage on page two that leads to love by the final page. The Daily Mail calls it a "sure hit", and I quite agree! Today Liz is here to share with us how she goes about plotting and revising her early drafts of a book.

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Many thanks for inviting me to join you today, Rachel.

I was handed the idea for my first published novel, The Road Back, on a plate – or, rather, in an album: the novel was inspired by the album compiled by my uncle after he’d visited Ladakh, north of the Himalayas, in the 1940s.

My inspiration for A Bargain Struck came from a very different source – it came from the radio. While driving along one day, thinking about what to write that would fall into the same genre as The Road Back, I heard someone talking about mail-order brides from Russia. I sat up. The concept of mail-order brides was a really romantic concept, I thought. But not in Russia. Before I’d reached my destination, I’d relocated my developing storyline to the wide open plains of Wyoming, where mail-order brides were a common occurrence, and set the story in 1887, a very interesting year in the history of Wyoming.