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Part Seven: The Publishing

I am going to start out by saying this: you will get rejected. It’s inevitable. Not everyone is going to like your book or the subject or the content or the characters or the writing style. It’s just not gonna please everyone, just like everything in life doesn’t please every single person. All I’m saying is expect rejection, but hope for the best. Even if you do get rejected, don’t let that discourage you from continuing to try and find a publisher. If J.K. Rowling had given up then we wouldn’t have Harry Potter. So keep at it.

The process of publishing is a long one. It can best be compared to a quest: you’ve got the part of preparing for the quest, the Riddle Door along with the Three Elders who help on your quest and the final piece to travel on with quest: the Magical Scroll. Then you’ve got the harder parts: the Quest Member Meeting, your first monster encounter, The Winter Solstice, the scary Villain, Plan of Attack, and the Final Boss Battle. Then the latter half of the quest where things start to become last minute, crunch time processing, but also a reward: the King’s thanks, the end of quest gold, the Robin Hood Hero, and the long journey home. Even when you’re writing out your manuscript and trying to get everything wrapped up into a nice little word burrito, you’ve got things you can do that will help along your publishing quest be easier for you.

In the publishing process there are several things you’ve got to be doing. This often involves other people getting involved too. So once you’ve got your acceptance that an editor and publishing company will take your book, you have a lot to do before the book is on the shelves. You aren’t done just yet.

If you are self-publishing, your process is going to be a little different. I can’t accurately say what goes into that process, because I don’t know much about it, but it follows these same steps, but you are everyone.

Preparing For Your Quest: While you are writing you’re still on the down low working to make publishing easier. When finalizing your book, visit book stores. Be a little spy to find the competition because publishing is a very competitive field. This is kind of to scope out what’s new and what people are liking at the moment. It can also help you develop ideas to market your book, which is an important step later down the line. Build your credibility by being able to talk to publishers about other people books and how they were successful with their marketing. This will also make it easier on your publisher and you to market and sell your book. The library is also a good place to go, but a bookstore is ideal because they have a constant influx of new books to look at and spy on.

The Riddle Door: As I said before, publishing is a very competitive business. A lot of the major publishing houses will not look at your book if you don’t have an agent representing you. They solely rely on what those agents bring to them. If an editor decides to read your book then yay, but this still isn’t done yet. Your manuscript now has to pass a series of tests. The editor is like the magical doors that make you answer a riddle for you to go forward into the publishing process. If you answer correctly (the editor likes your book), then your book gets passed on the Three Elders or in this case the Committee of Editors. The Three Elders refer to the standards that your book has to pass. Elder One: the content of your book is good and the technical side is also good. Remember those minimum of two times you edited? Here is where it pays. Elder Two: your book will produce revenue and attract customers and booksellers. Remember those times you sent it to your friends and people? That will give you insight on whether or not an editor and customer will like and buy your book. Elder Three: Whether you and your book are promotable or not. If you don’t get approved by the Three Elders, then your book will be dropped. These are thing you have to think about and be careful with when trying to publish and write. If you do pass these three, then you have been accepted into the quest and given a magical scroll or a contract. Every publisher’s contract to writers are different so you’ve really got read up on the contract and what it offers and what it says. Just be careful and wise, but celebrate a little, you’ve been offered a contract. That’s awesome.

Quest Member Meeting: After you’ve got your magic scroll signed and passed the Riddle Door and the Three Elders, you’ve got to meet your team. Go to your publishing company, call your editor for a meeting and ask them to invite any people they think would be an important part of your publishing quest. This is your first impression, make it a good one, because once you sign that contract you lose rights and control on publishing your manuscript. The better the first impression, the more you can be heard by the team that is helping you publish. It’s good to build a relationship with the people who have the highest influence in your book’s publication process, this also helps your ideas be heard. If there are more important people there than just your editor and some assistants, then you are higher on their investment list. Don’t beat yourself up if you do have bunch of assistants because not a lot of first time authors are high on the list because they are new to the publishing business.

First Monster Encounter: This what is actually known as the editorial. Nowadays, editorials aren’t often needed. More and more editors are requesting very little rewrites and reworks to read. This is also the most important part too because this is where you work with your editor. Under contract, you are legally obligated to rewrite and deliver on time what they want you to. They can also change your books title. Develop a good relationship with your editor because the better the relationship, the better you will work together and understand what the other wants in regards to your book. You still legally have the copyrights of your book, but your publisher has ownership of the writing. This is not that scary if you have a good relationship with your editor and publisher. It’s important not to come off as “needy” to your editor, but do not neglect your relationship with them.

Winter Solstice: This is a fun one. It also puts into perspective that your being published. This is where schedling happens. Yes, that scheduling that sets your date of publication. It can take a while for your book to actually hit the shelves (1 to 2 years a while), but it’s really worth the wait. This can be because publishers think that a book will do better as a certain with the certain genre it is or because of how long the production takes. Keep in mind the competition at your publishing house too, you could be put almost on a back burner to what they are more invested in publishing. Just don’t stress.

The Scary Villain: This, in its basic form, is how many books do you have to sell to make a profit. This is called the “Budget Number” because this is one of the ways a publisher will prioritize, how much attention to detail your book gets, and you don’t normally know what that budget number is. Your Quest Member Meeting is the best way to figure out where you are on their priorities list. Don’t be afraid if you don’t know it, because if you’ve got a good relationship with your team, you should be good to go. Trust your team to do well with what they have, it’s their job after all.

Plan Of Attack: This is a fun part too. This is where you get to see the development of your book. The outside cover and the interior layout of your book, the printing, and the binding of the finished product. You need to be aware of all your production dates so you can ask questions and make suggestion when you should. Remember not to be a pest and overbearing because in the end, the publisher bought the rights to your writing and can do what they want. If you have a good relationship with your quest members, your ideas may be placed into the production, but you need to know what to suggest them.

Final Boss Battle: This is the difficult one. Making your book known to the public. Promoting your book is probably one of the hardest things to do as a first time author, but with your publishers help, you can do it. They know how to market because they’ve been doing it for a while. It’s their job, so trust that they know what their doing and have you in their mind. If you have a stronger platform, you could probably more involved in this section, especially with advertising. You’ve got to have a nice mixture of promotion, publicity, and advertising because that will make your book successful in sales.

King's Thanks: This is your last meeting with your Quest Members. This is the wrap up of the process and the finalization of everything that has gone on within publishing. Everything that you have wanted to say must be said before this final meeting, otherwise, it will not happen. It’ll be too late for anything to change. Not a lot of authors get to attend this conference, but if you are invited, then good job, you’ve done something awesome. If not, don’t be upset. Asks questions about what happened there or ask to attend part of it. Observe, Network, and learn from it as well

End Of The Quest Gold: This is where sales happen to big chain bookstores like the ones that everyone knows. It really depends on how high on the list your book is for places to order copies. This is fine. The more copies sold within a small area is better than little copies sold within every single bookstore. Just be patient and calm.

Robin Hood Hero: This is the distribution. This is where your sales representative and booksellers work together to sell as many of your books as they can. They are giving your creation out in the world.

Long Journey Home: YOUR BOOK IS NOW ON SHELVES! You’ve done it. It’s now available to buy in stores and online. Be proud of what you did. Happy little pat on the back again.

It’s important to know the process that your book goes through to get published. It will also put you ahead of the game if you know what goes on before you actually start this process on your first book too.

Part Six: The Important Formatting

Before you send in your finished piece to any publisher there are some key formating things you’ve got to do. If you don’t, they will throw it out. They will not read it if it’s not formatted like they want it to be. That’s just how it goes. So below are some basics of what the format should look like. And below that is an example of it.

Formatting Basics: The basics are pretty easy to grasp, but there are a lot of them so stick with me.

Black, 12pt, Times New Roman

Margins are set an 1 inch

Left alignment, right should be scraggly

Single space after all periods, none of that double stuff they tell you about

Use double spaced lines (if you printed your book out like I did in Part Three, your book will already be formatted correctly)

Never hit tab to indent, but have it set to .5 inches

These are the ultimate basics for the entire formating. These should be used completely throughout your manuscript. Yes, I said manuscript. When formatting your book, it becomes your manuscript, which is basically your finished book that hasn’t been published yet. Also it sounds cool to say and brag about to your friends, so there’s that.

Formatting Specifics: There are specific ways you’ve got to format certain parts of your writing. For example there’s a title pages, the way the chapters are set, page numbers and breaks that are needed and where, what symbols to use when it comes to a scene break.

Title Page Formatting: this is weird and specific and ultimately, this is what the publisher or editor will see first and determine if they should throw it out. High stakes, so take time to get the formatting right here. It counts.

If you have a manager, their details should go in the top right corner of your title page, but if you don’t have one, you don’t need to worry about it

Begin in the middle of the page and centered

Your book title goes first, in caps and bolded

Enter then type “by” and then enter again

Your name goes on this line, if you have a pen name, you should put that here

The next line will be your word count line: “Approx. ___ words” (should be to the nearest hundred)

Further down the page will be your personal information.

Should be aligned to the right towards the bottom on the page

Your name is on the first line, your real name - first and last

Your address goes on the second line

Your phone number goes on the third line

Your email goes on the fourth line

At the very end in the footer you need to copywrite with your full name, ©, and the year date you finished (this will not show up on any of your other pages so be careful)

The title page is pretty simple and has a lot of white space, but it needs to be formatted perfectly or an editor will not look at it.

The Chapter Formatting: Every single chapter and page after the title is formatted like this in fiction.

Page numbers start here

Your last name and part or your entire title of your book also goes in the header next to the page number

Your chapter title should start a third of the way down the page and the your text should start two enters after the title

Every first paragraph of a chapter is aligned left, meaning there will be no indentation

When you want a scene break use  “#” centered in its own line, you can also leave it blank if you want and start two enters down from the last line of the paragraph you finished

The “#” also act like the first paragraph of a chapter, there shouldn’t be any indentation on the first paragraph after the “#”

Each chapter should start on a new page so use page breaks (a shortcut on both Word and Google Docs is ctrl+enter and that will bring you to a new page to start your chapter)

To end your book and formatting completely type “THE END” at the very end of your book two enters down from your finishing paragraph.

Here's an example.

Part Five: The Re-edit

Yeah, you heard me. The re-edit. It's most the same as the first editing section, but this time it's for the finalization of you book. After you've finished re-writing and fixing your edits, you've got go re-edit for the last minutes mistakes. Some grammar things and punctuation are tricky so make sure to look them up if you don’t quite know if you should use it or if you don’t know how to use it. There will be some, I know it. This step is also kind of optional, but I highly recommend doing this because it will be in your best interest to present a nearly perfect product to just about everyone.

Part Four: The Second Writing

I know. This again. Some people have different ways of doing this part. Some skip it altogether. Some completely scratch the first draft if they really hate. The Writing Process™ is a cycle of plan, write, edit, plan write edit, planwriteedit. It’s repetitive for a reason. All of this is so your final piece will be just perfect and something you can truly be proud of showing to your grandmother who taught English Literature. Yeah, that perfect. Granted, it still will not be perfectly perfect, we are human after all, but it will be mostly perfect, which is still awesome.

This section is both optional and not optional. This section can also take as long as Part Two or super short. To me, the second writing is where you fix your draft and finalize your editing you did in Part Three. To others, this is a completely new draft that follows your plot and editing notes and extra information that a writer wants to add. Again, this stuff is completely up to you and what works for you. And you should do it again. And again. And again, in order for it to be as perfect as possible.

Part Three: The Endless Editing

Editing is not everyone’s favorite part of The Writing Process™, but it has to be done to improve your story and make it as perfect as you want your project to be. If you don’t like editing, hire someone to do it for you. But honestly, it would be a really good idea for you to try it yourself for a couple of reasons.

Rereading The Story: You get to reread your entire story, you entire work, your entire project that you’ve been working on for upwards of years, your finally finished book. That’s freaking exciting. To me, this is kind of like a moment of awe because it become more final to me. Like I did this. This is a product I produced after months of hard work and endless crying, pen breaking, and backspacing. This is something to be proud of. I know how hard you worked on it, give yourself a happy little pat on the back. With rereading your story, you also get to see your own world and characters work throughout the story like your reading a book you checked out from the library. You get to see exactly how you did creating a literary world. And that’s pretty cool.

Improvement On Your Writery: You get to see the mistakes you make with grammar and sentence structure and language and plot holes and imagery and spelling and so many more things. As I always say, “There is always room for improvement.” Even if you think your writing is perfect, it is not. I’m not being rude, I’m being real. No first draft is ever perfect, trust me. There are details missing, spelling errors, repetitive and boring sentence structure and length, paragraphs where there aren’t one but need to be and vice versa, extra information that doesn’t need to be there, unexplained shit that just makes your reader confused, and unanswered questions that should be answered. There are so many things that still have to be improved upon. The more you self edit, the more you will learn to recognise these mistakes and correct them when doing the actual writing. You’ll also learn different ways to write sentences and write correct grammar structure. Vocabulary might also improve too.

The way I like to edit is in two’s. I’ll edit for grammar on the first go through. Then I’ll edit for content on the second go through. I also only do a couple chapters at a time because that eases some of the overwhelming feeling about the project you are now embarking on. Again, like the planning process, you will find your ideal way to edit and what works for you. I personally prefer the pen to paper kind of editing too. (See Part Six for formatting to make it easier for you on paper as well as when you go to publish it.) I printed my entire book out once I had finished it and paperclipped the pages of one chapter together. I carry around a ton of gel pens and a file folder containing two chapters of the book.

The Nitty Gritty Grammar: In the first go through of my editing process, I solely focus on the grammar side of the book. I nitpick through sentence structure, punctuation, paragraph, stylistic or accidental happening, repetitive words, synonyms to words, right verb tenses, right point of view, dialogue punctuated correctly, spelling, overall structure, length of paragraphs and sentences and chapter, whether or not I want to reword a sentence to make it flow easier or clearer, and so much more. There’s a lot that goes into just the nitty gritty, nail on a chalkboard part of editing. This is the part where you find the stupid needle in a haystack. That’s why I do it first because the next part it like a treat, even if it is still editing.

The Entertaining Content: This is the fun part of editing, that’s why I do it the second time through. Here you decide what to keep in scenes and what to throw out, what paragraphs are necessary and ones that aren’t, the plot holes that you have to fill in, if the plot is moving forward like you want, if the characters need less or more character development, if your world needs more work or not, what information you need to include and what you need to take out, and if you like it in general. This is also where you get to just read your story. It’s like a treat because you’re just reading a book at this point; even if you are still editing.

There are a lot of editor’s marks too that can be helpful when doing the editing. If you do want to edit like I do with classic pen and paper, then before you print it out make sure to double space it. This will give you more room to write in corrections and information you want to add. You can also write all over the margins of the paper, there’s plenty of room. For people who don’t like to type out their stories, post-it notes, different colored pens, and different colored highlighters are your best friends. Make a code for each color, just use them randomly, put post-it notes everywhere you think you want it with a note or suggestion on it, it’s really up to you, it’s your story and editing. Go wild and have some fun.

Dear Anyone,

I saw. I saw the news again. Another headline that matches the one from last week and the week before that. I saw the same words in the article and more names under the title that would be added to more tombstones. Yet another youth has died and yet another beg for a reformed gun law has been ignored. People have said it is futile, trying to go against the government and convince them that maybe kids shouldn’t be dying like they are.

I didn’t come here to yell at you or tell you that you are a terrible person. No, you yell enough for the both of us. You tell us everything we say doesn’t matter. What we have to say isn’t worth while. They are merely the words of an unintelligent youth, a teen who hasn’t had much life experience to say the claims they have. We don’t know anything.

But, I beg to differ. We may not know much about how to pay taxes or live on our own or balance two jobs with school, but we know what it’s like to mourn our friends and classmates. We know what it's like to be dressed in black and beg for change at a funeral for a sixteen year old student.

It’s time for a change. I know and I understand that change cannot happen overnight and change takes hard work. I know we will not get immediate results and everything won’t change in an instant. I am well aware of this fact, but I am also aware that change can happen.

You can call us names and insult us and tell us we aren’t doing anything to help anyone. You can discourage us and berate us, but we will not break. We will push forward to a time where we don’t have to worry about dying when we wake up on a Monday morning. We will not back down when our lives are the ones on the line.

I remember a while ago, I had a random thought in the middle of just doing the dishes. It shocked me so much that I had to pause in my work and take a moment to process what my brain had just come up with.

My mother is going back to school to go for education. I admire her greatly for her hard work and bravery to go back to school in general, but after this thought I was afraid for her. A fear I don’t even think she is aware that I have. A fear that shouldn’t exist.

That day, standing over the sink, I thought, I don’t want Mom to go back to school because what if she gets shot?

I know. I know it is unreasonable, but now, with the way things have been going? Is it really unreasonable? To want to protect my mom from getting shot in a school while she’s just trying to teach someone basic english? Is it unjustifiable to have such a fear when there have been so many headlines that mimic the ones before it?

But it is still a stretch to ask our government to reform a gun law. To crack down on the amount of guns its citizens has illegally. To ask for one gun to be taken off the streets because it has killed so many kids. To request and plead and beg for more support for the country’s youth living.

All we ask is for there to be a ban on the same style guns like the AR-15, which isn’t a lot to ask. In 1994, there was a ban on assault rifles like AR-15s and AK-47s that lasted until 2004, when the ban expired. The ban made it illegal to manufacture and distribute assault rifles, such as the ones I have said, to private citizens.

We are not trying to take your rights. We are not saying that no one can own guns. We are not making people who own guns seem like criminals. My family owns a couple of guns and I myself have fired them. The Second Amendment is free for you to use, not something that we are trying to take away.

We are trying to get guns that shouldn’t belong to citizens off the streets. We are trying to make stricter laws that make obtaining a gun safer for the user as well as the people around them. We just want to be safe.

If we did it in 1994, why is it so hard now? Especially when so many people have been affected by the gun violence surrounding guns like these? Especially when we need it so much more now? Will your eyes finally be opened when another one’s are closed for the last time?

I don’t know about you, but I would like to live in a world where I don’t have to see another article titled ‘17 Dead in Mass Shooting.’ I would like to live in a world where we are all treated like we matter instead of written off as dumb teenagers.

To quote Benjamin Franklin, “I have a happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.” I believe that change can and will happen and we will not back down until it does. Not just for those kids who have lost their lives, but for everyone who has suffered from gun violence.

We are all people just trying to live a life that should be safe and fun. We are students that are trying to get an education. We are politicians working in the best interest of the people. We are mothers and fathers, friends and family, strangers and passerbys. We are human after all, are we not? We are just people who want change.

And we people are going to be the change.

With Hope,

Part Two: The Actual Writing

This is the part we hate. No really, we do. Making the words go is hard. Figuring out where the scenes go is hard. Finding the space and time to actually write is hard, but you gotta stick with it. Writing is like making a puzzle, you’ve just got to put the pieces in place.

Writing is a process, that's why it's called The Writing Process™. Your first draft isn't going to be perfect. It's gonna have simple grammar, spelling errors, extra words, repetitive sentences, misused dialogue, horrible dialogue, too much dialogue, overall terrible writing, etc. It's not gonna be perfect bc it's a draft and it's the first part of creating an entire book. This is where your character will come to life but the words you use and the scenes will meld together with the world around your characters and everything is gonna be wrapped up in a nice little bow or sorts, but that's the end result. The real writing is hard. It's gruesome details and "I can't remember if I wrote that" and a happy little mixture of "my writing sucks" and "this is amazing I am a genius" and it's using Grammar to your advantage and you trying to set the mood and tone and trying to make the plot work and move it forward without any plot holes. Writing is making a story out of your plans. Writing is making sure everything makes sense and comes together. The biggest thing to remember: writing is not just writing, writing is creating and imagining and being so many different things a once.

Drafting is fun though. This is where you get to express most of your creativity while still loosely following The Book Structure™. It won’t follow exactly, but again it’s really up to the writer.

This is where the world jumps out at the reader from the page. This is where the characters deal with a conflict in probably not logical, but relatable ways. This is also where subplots make an appearance. A subplot is like a mini storyline within a story, it’s not quite the main conflict or content, but it still can impact the characters and the world. A huge sublot a lot of books have is romance. We see that a lot in fiction, but that’s not the only one. There are so many and, again, the only thing that limits you is your own creativity. In the writing section, you also see your plans fall into place so you can add subplots and extra details you hadn’t thought of before.

There’s this thing we writer’s love to do and most readers love to read: Plot Twists. This is a major thing. A plot twist can be considered a climax or used as a climax. Some can be huge and completely change the direction of the plot so it’s okay to use a plot twist as your climax. There’s also this other thing that’s smaller, but still has a somewhat significant change to either the characters, the world, or the story’s plot: Plot Turn. These aren’t often as big or significant as a Plot Twist. These are more minor and less shocking, some can even be predicted. These are easier to come up with and include too. The best Plot Twists and Plot Turns also use some foreshadowing to hint at the big or smaller change. Still try to leave your reader unsuspecting, but when it happens they will realize that what the piece of foreshadowing was hinting at. I don’t know about you, but when that happens to me, I feel like a dumbass because “Man, I should've noticed.”

Language is a huge part of the writing. The styles you use can make a huge impact on how intelligent the character is, how complex your story is, what words you use (vocabulary), and how complex your sentences are. The perspective that you write in can also have a huge impact on the story. Language and the style you use helps to improve your voice as a writer and also helps to develop a style or way that you enjoy writing.

With all books, there are many lessons to be learned. I, for one, did not purposely write a specific lesson that could be learned, but my book still had a couple different ones because they developed with the plot and the characters and the world. It doesn’t have to be something you’re really focused on. It can be side note lesson. You really don’t have to have a lesson in mind unless you really want one to be used, but it should be something to at least keep in the back of your mind.

Writing is basically a lot a lot a lot of hard work and it takes a lot a lot a lot of time. This shit does not happen in a day. But it becomes more fun and exciting the more you write because you get the joy of seeing your characters, your settings, your conflicts, your plot, your words come together to make a beautiful work of art. It may have a couple flaws, but that is perfectly okay. That’s what editing is for. I think the best part about writing is you get to be creative with how you word different things. You are the author so you get to decide what people say, what happens, and how everything changes and interacts. It’s really up to you.

And then there’s our trusty friend called Writer’s Block. He’s an asshole, but we can always count on him to make sure our work doesn’t get done. Often a lot of writer’s struggle with writer’s block. This is often when a writer can’t determine where they want to go in a story or they don’t know what to write to continue on with their plot and make their story flow. The best thing to do when you’ve got writer’s block is to just keep writing. I know it sounds weird, but it’s true. I like to do little exercises like write a little scene/one shot using your characters and give them a little story. It’s difficult yes, but it will help in a few different ways: it can help get rid of our pesky friend, it can help you better develop your characters, and it can spark a new idea that you want to include in your story. Writer’s block comes and it goes, but honestly, that’s just part of being a writer.

Part One: The Fun Planning

This is only the first part of and it alone takes months, but don’t get scared, this is actually kind of a fun part. For Where Loyalties Lied (my novel), it took me literally a month and a half to get every single bit of information on little details, but I'm still planning even now. It's kind of a never ending process throughout writing, but it’s still exciting. A few basic things that will affect what exactly you need to plan and how you need to plan it are your genre, the length you’re shooting for, the overall tone and mood of the book, what point of view you’re writing in, and in general what the content will be. This will help you with what you need to specifically plan for within your story. It’s helpful, but really you don’t have to know right the second you start planning.

Characters happen here. Character planning is where you create a person or thing that your story is going to use. You create their family, friends, personalities, looks, mannerisms, quirks, flaws, position within the story, their impact within the story/on the other characters, the stereotypes to be broken or used. And you have to do that several times for several characters. Another thing to factor into this area is the possible character development that could happen within the story. The possible changes for each character and how the changes occured. You’ve also got to address how characters would react in certain situations. Your characters should be complex because a character is essentially going to be a person. People are complex, so if you make your character so, they become more believable or relatable to your reader. Someone the reader can connect with. That will also help keep your reader interested in the book because they become invested in the character’s life.

World Building happens here. With world building you create the spaces your character will be in like home, a friend’s place, restaurants, schools, planets, galaxies, hotels, etc. With each place you’ve got to determine the societal norms, gender roles, government systems, criminal systems, how the citizens interact with the government, the language(s) spoken, the terrain of the space, common transportation, the people/species that live there, the pets and animals, culture, things the place is specifically known for, climate, weather, living conditions for citizens, and again you've got your stereotypes to break or bring in. You’ve also got to figure out how your character react and live within your environments you've created and what time period that your story will be set in. This can be a more difficult part of the planning the more settings you’ve got. But, the best thing is you are only limited by your own creativity here and same with your characters. That’s the beauty of it. Obviously, you can only go so far and so creative if you’re doing places that already exist and real areas on the world, but you can still be as creative as you want with your characters and how your characters interact with the world or place. A lot of how your characters react and how society is in your world(s) is developed through the plot and the writing. Some of it just kind of happens which is great, a true subconscious gift. And some of the details just kind of stay in the back of your mind.

Plot planning happens here. Probably the most important thing within the planning because without it you've got no story. It's like that roller coaster thing they teach you when writing an essay. You got the Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution.

The Explaining Exposition: This is where you build up your story, introduce the characters, introduce your world, introduce the conflict (lightly, a small taste) that makes up the story’s plot. This is the “Who? What? When? Where? Why?” section of the book. But be careful here because shit can get complicated or boring if you start too fast of too slow. Build it up, but still allow for the story to be interesting and keep the reader engaged. In this section, it can also get boring because of all the introducing and the explaining; show don’t tell is a key to keep your reader interested. Try to sprinkle in the information through dialogue and action that you write. Even though you are explaining, you still have to tell the story so don’t neglect creating one. The reader will understand what is going on as they get further into the story, I promise. In this section, you do want to leave questions unanswered so the reader will remain interested and want to know what happens next. Be careful about how much information you give away. It’s like teasing the reader into wanted to know more.

The Wonderful Rising Action: This is where you DEVELOP your characters, the setting, and the conflict. Explain with show don't tell methods about what your characters are going to do with the conflict. And further development the conflict. Explain what it is, how it affects your characters, the story direction. This is the majority of your story. The key thing is DEVELOPMENT. Making the characters, the setting, and the plot believable so people will actually like your story and be invested in continuing to read it. This is where you start to build in action. More of the story than the explanation here although you still might want to do explaining. Details will fall into place when you start to write out your plans.

The Ever Awaited Climax: This is where shit gets hairy for your characters. This should be the most intense and crazy moment since you found out how babies were created. Make shit go to hell, but have fun with it. Match you conflict to the situation you've built around it within still believable bounds, but make it the most important part/the turning point of your story. This often comes towards the end of the book.

The Fast Falling Action: This will happen quicker than the rising action. This is where you wrap up your loose ends of your conflict and let your characters start to breathe again. This is also where you start to see the aftermath of the impact on your world (the societal changes, the different ways people go about interacting with govt, etc), the changes in your characters (PTSD, a change of some characteristics good or bad, developed habits, different interactions with different characters, new mannerisms and quirks, mental and physical differences from he beginning of the book, basically your character development is most evident here, etc), and then the consequences of the conflict as a whole (what the conflict changed in the story. A general change in the world as a whole).

The Final Resolution: This is the complete end of the story. You really gotta wrap that shit up like a burrito. Tuck it all in, nice and neat and  make sure to tie up the questions that have also been left unsaid. All questions (or most) should be answered. Your characters and world should be recovering from your conflict and getting back into the groove of the life they lived before the conflict happened, even if both have changed significantly, there will still be a new developed way of living. This is the basic form that all books follow.

Chapter One: Start Quote

“I used to have a fear that I would never find love. I used to be afraid that I would be alone forever, with my fifteen cats of course. I’m not sure if that fear has gone away now, but hey, shrug.

I met her.

I know that sounds stupid. ‘She changed my life forever’ stupid, but it’s true. She was a true rose in a patch of daisies. I remember what she looked like the day I met her. She wore a red velvet button up skirt and a mustard yellow sweater. Her wavy auburn hair pulled up in  what she called a messy bun. It suited her. That was the first time I saw her, in her parents’ flower shop, Flowers For Few. She stood behind the register far-outdoing the beauty of the carnations and yarrows. I was too blinded by anger to realize her beauty at the time, instead, I ungracefully slapped a twenty on the counter and said:

“How do you passive-aggressively say  ‘fuck you’ in flower?”

And this was my first hello.

She laughed. An airy and cheery laugh.

“Well,” she spoke sweeter than honey on a plate of sugar. “You’ll need some geraniums for stupidity, foxglove for insecurity, meadowsweet for uselessness.”

She gracefully waltzed around the shop, plucking flowers from pots and bringing them back to the counter as she explained the meaning of each. “How about some yellow carnations that say ‘You have disappointed me’ and some orange lilies for hatred to top it off?”

I nodded and watched as she wrapped them in paper and arranged the pissed off plants in a way that would make them look less tragic. I watched her swipe the bill off the counter and put it into the register. She handed me the hateful bouquet of seething beauty.

“Thanks,” I said plainly as I turned to leave.

She stopped me from moving very far, “Who’s it for?”

“My algebra teacher. She’s truly a person to despise. A disgrace to humanity.”

She giggled at that. “Mrs. Dawson?”

I nodded and turned back to see her leaning on the counter with her elbows. Her glasses slid down her nose as gravity took a loose hold of them. “You’ve had her?”

“Yeah. She’s great,” she agreed, sarcasm dripping from the words.

I grunted a response, turning to leave again. Again she stopped me.

“I’m Primrose. Primrose Di Angelo.”

I turned back to her, “That’s pretty too.”

Her eyebrows furrowed and she stood up again, no longer leaning on the counter. She looked at me with curiosity and a slight smile on her lips. “Too?”

“Yes. Too.” I said. “A pretty name for a pretty girl. See you around Angel.”

And I left with that. I replayed the interaction in my mind all the way to high school. My footsteps keeping my racing thoughts in check and the flowers filling my head with anger again. How could she fail me on the final? I was the best student to her.

I pushed open the door and was greeted by Felix. He gave me an odd look for the flowers. I gave him no explanation. Together we walked to Mrs. Dawson's classroom for the dreaded first period. I later found out that she was allergic to the pollen in those plants, and that almost made the hateful gift just that much sweeter.

I didn’t think about Miss Primrose Di Angelo for about three days after that less than ideal incident at the flower shop. It took three days for me to remember her pretty face and her auburn hair that seemed to have a mind of its own with the way it would stick out in any direction. It took three days for me to bump into her at school and three days more to realize she was in my spanish class.

The amount of time I would stare at her, mesmerized by her gorgeous nature, is almost sad. I mean, she was worth all the dreamy looks in my eyes and the hopeful stares on my face, but I literally couldn’t look away.

I spoke to her for the first time in almost a week, and it wasn’t my choice either. My spanish teacher, Mr. Kane decided it was a good idea to stick the daydreamer and the girl he was daydreaming about together for a group project. And in February, of all months. Even better, the week of Valentine’s day.

“Hola!” I said to her.

She nodded her head. “Hi. Y’know we can speak english right now right?”

I gave her a blank look and said: “I’m trying to impress you with my language of love skills.”

She gave a laugh. Her shoulders shook slightly as she shook her head. It was an airy light laugh, but I came to love it. I wanted to hear it every waking moment and I wanted to be the cause of such an amazingly sweet laugh or a cute giggle. I wanted her to never stop laughing and always have a reason to laugh, but now…

I sat back in the school’s chair and sighed happily. I went through the paper and read the project guidelines. It was to visit a place somewhere close, maximum driving distance three hours, and describe it in detail in a spanish paper. Two pages in length and turn it it by April 20th.

“Where do you want to go?” She asked.

I looked at her and said nothing. Her hair was down today and was perfectly calm, but messy, and her clothes were wrinkled and straight. The colors of them matched her freckles that were strewn haphazardly across her slightly hooked nose. Her orphic brown eyes speckled with golden hints when the light fled through the classroom window were entrancing.

“Hello?” Primrose questioned waving her hand in front of my face.

I blinked in surprise and mumbled a sorry. I heard her giggle as I looked back down to the paper on my desk. “Um.. Where do you want to go?”

“I just asked you that.”

I could only manage a soft and embarrassed, “Oh.”

“Why don’t we go to Chicago? That’s only what? Two hours away?”

I nodded, to Chicago it was.

I received her phone number and email so we could make a Chicago day trip plan to have ready for the weekend.

\\\\\

The trip to Chicago was one to never forget for many reasons. One: Primrose and I were going with a couple of friends, Two: We were going to visit several different places in a twenty-four hour time span, Three: No parents to tell us what to do.

I said goodbye to my family that morning and promised Oliver and Poppy I’d get them some souvenirs. They couldn’t stop requesting what they wanted, but I told them I’d surprise them.

This was also the first time I saw Primrose’s parents. Her father, Marco Di Angelo is a very traditional Italian man. He also looked like an Italian Mafia man: slick black hair, on the shorter side, but with lots of intimidating muscles. He was nice after I got to know him though. He owned half the flower shop with Primrose’s mother, Mamrie Rhodes.

I knocked on the door of the well- looked after home and he answered in his robe. The hairs on his chest made the hairs on the back of my head stand up. He didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows at me.

“Um.. I’m here to pick up Primrose. We’re doing a spanish project together and need to get going if we’re going to do all the things we had planned, sir,” I explained.

“I’ll get her for you,” he spoke softly like Primrose did and closed the door.

I waited on the porch for several minutes. Felix was staring at me from the window of the pickup truck. He kept tapping his wrist where a watch should be, but wasn’t. I gave him the finger.

The door opened a second later and i could hear the blood rush through me and my heart start to pound for two different reasons: Primrose Di Angelo and getting caught by her dad, giving the peace sign with one finger down. I immediately recovered and turned to see Primrose holding two bags as her friend ran back inside the house shouting that she forgot to pack tampons.

“Lemme take those for you,” I smiled as a greeting to her, my arms out willing to receive the bags.

She gratefully piled the bags onto my arms and I stumbled my way to my truck and put them in the back. Felix popped out to help me lift them. Before the girls came to the truck, Felix looked at me sternly.

“Tap that,” he commanded.

And disappeared before I could say that love doesn’t equal sex.

“This is Linden Love,” Primrose said as she gestured to me. “And this is Bethany Chase.” She said as she gestured to the tampon girl.

“Neat,” I said as I opened the car door for them to slide in.

As the girls slide into the back seat of the pickup, I heard my name called by Primrose’s father. I went over to him and he hit me with a stern look.

“Keep her safe, no funny business, and treat her well. Also her favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip.”

He closed the door on me after that brief and uncomfortable conversation. I thought the ice cream flavor was a weird bit of information at the time, but I understood later why he had told me.

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Author here! :)