Plotting SCENT OF EVIL

When I finished editing, formatting and publishing FAERIE I needed a mental break. I started reading again, working in the garden, thinking and plotting. 

Before I started writing middle grade, I had written a paranormal romance. 
 . . . well, it wasn't much of a romance, considering I never really 'got' the hero and heroine conflict that was necessary for a romance. And it wasn't much of a paranormal in the sense it didn't involve vampires, werewolves, demons, etc. My character was a shape-shifter, but with a very weak reason to shift, if I say so myself. In hindsight, I have to admit that the entire story was too shallow.

I had the external conflict. I had the internal conflict of the heroine. And I wrote the story as a novella. I thought that I could rewrite it to make it a full length book, but then I started writing MG and shelved this story.

After editing three middle grade stories over the last five months, I needed to write something fresh. I resurrected SCENT OF EVIL.

But with a big difference.

The external plot is more convoluted. The villain has a serious purpose, which directly relates to the heroine. For those of you new to the writing biz--the villain always has a purpose. You might be able to get away with 'he was just a froot-loop' once, but the villain has a reason for being, and doing, evil.

My female protagonist has her internal conflict.

But my hero was just there.

--Though this isn't a romance, per se, I did want to deepen the conflict with the hero to add a deeper dimension to the story.

When I had a lunch date with Marilyn Pappano, I decided to pick her brains. She's the queen of writing romance and has a gazillion books under her belt. AND it helped that she had read a little of the original story when I was still in her crit group. I told her my problem and within a couple minutes of talking it out--we came up with his internal conflict! AND the conflict between the hero and heroine! YAY!

The interesting part of this whole scenario was that the answer was right in front of me, but I couldn't see it.

Can't see the forest for the trees, yanno? 

Over the last few weeks, I've been working out the details of the plot with bullet points. I've had to work the story from the conclusion back to the beginning, figuring out my red herrings and other stuff. And I think I'm ready to write . . . two days before school is out for the summer.

Yeah, my timing sucks.

I'll write my synopsis this week and I'll start writing the story. . . because there's a contest I thought I'd enter to see how people respond to it. I'll need to write 25 pages--edit and clean it up--by June 10th. Tight deadline, but I think I could pull it off.

We'll see.

Later, Peeps!