The writing process of Willow: A Story was a real learning process. I'd like to share some of what I learned with you! This is going to be a multi-part series on my blog about my writing process. Hope you enjoy it, whether you're a writer, or just curious about how a book is made.
Prior to writing Willow: A Story, I wrote a historical fiction novella which ended up around 30k words, although I had planned for it to be a full-length book. I was around 12 when I started writing that story - needless to say, it will never see the light of day.
Some people get ideas for their books from watching people, reading other books, watching movies, or imagining stories in their head. I tend to get my inspiration from looking at pictures.
The photo above is what inspired my seed idea for Willow: A Story.
{all credits to Simplicity Photography for the picture.}
My first idea was nothing like the book turned out to be. It was set in New York City, the main character was a businesswoman who was a workaholic. The starting point was her finding this little girl on her doorstep, with no one around, and it completely disrupting her life.
Of course, this brought up a million other questions. Why wouldn't she just take her to the nearest police station? Who were the parents? New York is a huge city, why would the girl be dropped off at this specific woman's house?
It was a process of trial and error, lots of scrolling through Pinterest to find character inspiration. Around this time that I started several different documents where I answered detailed questions about each of my characters to get to know them better. The Myers Briggs testing was helpful for me to begin to form their signature personalities.
Once I had the main characters, it was time to begin outlining. Unfortunately, I no longer have that outline, but I do have a good idea of how it was set up. This was my first time using this process, and I wanted to be really strict about it.
Backstories and settings were still changing at this stage. Lauren had taken over her Grandparents' orchard, but that didn't seem very practical considering how much work goes into that job. I decided on her working at the local Post Office & Grocery Store.
As the plot began to come together, I began to outline every single chapter. All I wanted to do was start writing, but I held myself back until I had gotten almost every chapter plotted.
At the same time, I was debating over which point of view to write from. Third person - which I had previously written in, or first person. I chose the latter, it worked out quite well. Originally I only wrote from Lauren's point of view, but once writing commented, I realized quickly that if I wanted this book to reach a higher word count, there had to be more than one perspective. So, I added Charlotte's point of view.
Once my outline was pretty substantial, I began writing. But that's another post for another day!
If you're interested in purchasing the book, here is the paperback version, and here is the kindle version. It is also available at Okanagan Regional Library.
