Naming Chapters

How does everyone feel about naming their chapters?

I actually LOVE doing it, but I know it’s not meant for every novel, and so I don’t.  To me, it’s like giving the novel a bunch of mini stories.  With each chapter having a beginning, middle and end, but all connecting to the main novel. My chapter names are typically revolving around what is going on in that chapter only….or sometimes, just a common theme within the novel.  Or, in the case of “Everything About You” it’s a display of all the songs in the novel because one of the main characters is a hip hop artist.  The music needs to be felt while reading the novel.

In my very first novel I wrote, chapters were divided by main characters, and each title of the chapter reflected their personality.  I have not used chapter titles for my other works in progress, but I do love it!  I want to do it for all the SSS series.  I mean, if I did it for the first one, I should do it for all.  The Nola Kelly one def would benefit from chapter titles.  Even “Six Sexy Sisters” would be better since there are six main characters…and at times their significant others’ POV.  The only way I have divided chapters now is with the person POV it is. 

So since I will be back in editing mode soon, I will get back to “Everything About You” and get it done!! 

Sisters, they are so fun!

Now that Nanowrimo put me on a writing spree, I am back in blogging mode.  I will try and do it more often, discuss some of the projects I am working on.

Well, first up, finishing “Now That We Found Love.”  After that, I am for real, for real going to go back and edit and make ready the first one in the Six Sexy Sisters.  I still have issues with that one because I wrote it for fun, not for someone to read!! 

Also, I decided the order of the series, makes a lot of sense to me to the development of the story.  First there’s Kitty and Icee, "Everything About You," the story that introduces the sisters, though they are not major characters at all.  My take is, a reader will read this and want more of the sisters.  You get that feel some time around the end.  Like, why are they badasses?  What other dirt have they done? 

Then there is “Six Sexy Sisters” because in this one, you get to finally learn more about each sister as they develop even more and each face some drama.  This was supposed to be it.  I had to do a sequel to “Everything About You” because a stalker was out there for them, and I had to conclude that.

Somewhere in “SSS” it hit me, they all need their own story!  I think Nola Kelly  and Tone started that feeling for me because, even though they were in a solid relationship, it was starting to weaken.  I wanted to develop their relationship more.  Then having the long lost brother CJ around their age was a bonus!

But I wasn’t sure about the other sisters.  I mean, Ashley dies on “SSS” so what do you do?  Make a prequel!  So for that, I decided Sarena Kelly and Victor ST. James love story was interesting enough.  It is!    This also shows how the sisters and Victor’s relationship began.  It also develops Sarena into the deadly weapon she becomes.   This novel is PIVOTAL to the series, but being the fourth installment works because the reader can say , “Oh, I get it now!”

I mean, you can read them in order, but to me, it’s not the same effect.

But then, I wanted to do Tenille’s next, which would come after Nola’s, but I decided if it’s all back and forth, that’s chaotic.  So here’s what is next:

Ashley Kelly-(prequel)Her journey wilding out the two years she spends in St. Louis, MO before she gets pregnant.

Krystle & Kitty Kelly-(prequel)Yes, Kitty gets another story!  I felt like because they are twins, and nearly connected at the hip around the time this one will be written, it worked.  I will try and focus mainly on Krys, but this one may be the most “gangsta” because the twins are hardcore.  Also, this one will be pivotal because they will lose their mother in this one.

Tenille Kelly-It is better to end with her as a wrap-up of what is going on in the others’ lives.  It is going to be glammed out because Tenille will be on her second album and the others will have seen major success as well.  Excited to end with this novel!

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But as I stated yesterday, the Kelly sisters will live on!  Well, not ever as main characters again, with the exception of Nola Kelly.  This will be more like a thriller/suspense novel series.  I’m thinking like the Alex Cross series.  But if you watch Criminal Minds on TV, that is more of what she will do, profile serial killers. 

Nanowrimo 2011 Day 30: Winner!

Done!

Finished at 122Kwords.  One complete novel, and one 80% complete one.  I will finish it this weekend under no pressure.

And umm...even though I have FOUR more to write in the Six Sexy Sisters series, I came up with a great idea for another series.  A spinoff really.  They will be totally different from SSS, but also keeps readers in their lives.  It also will give me a chance to develop and write in a genre I LOVE to read, but can't seem to write.

No, not giving out more details.  All I can say is, I have LOTS, LOTS, LOTS or research. Like for real, I want to be well versed on the technicalities and there are lots.  I will be doing that by reading more in this genre and just researching the field of expertise my main character will be in.

Oh, you know it's one if the Kelly sisters, I couldn't help that.  She quickly became my fave....thought it was Kitty when I first wrote her, thought it was Sarena because she's well, scary, but nope.

Take a wild guess.

Duh!

NOLA KELLY the great FBI Agent!

Nanowrimo 2011 Day 29: Payback is a B....

I probably won’t finish this second novel by tomorrow for Nanowrimo…and that’s okay, because “winning” Nanowrimo is to write 50K and I did that 2 times over!!

I will finish “Now That We Found Love” on my own, writing when I have FREE time, not frantically and all crazy hours of the night.  Thank God!!

Now, payback…who doesn’t want that?  Well, I reread over “Six Sexy Sisters” last night and was fascinated that, when Sarena confronted Victor about her affair with T-Zack, the first thing he stated was “Is this payback for what I did when we were kids?”

Yep!  Well, she said no, but she said she was still hurt by it.  They were not married yet, and supposedly she forgave him for that.  But really?  When I initially wrote Sarena having an affair, it was not for payback sake. She was bored in her marriage and being neglected by Victor who was more concerned with the safety of the rest of Kelly sisters.

But now after writing about Victor’s affair(s), hell yeah, let’s call it payback is a b!*$%!

Nanowrimo 2011 Day 28: Crunch Time!

I pulled an al nighter last night, which means, no sleep, I just wrote like crazy.  I have given up hope to hit 200K as planned, but I may hit a respectable 140K by Wednesday.

I’m still writing “Now That We Found Love.”  Still loving it, but some of the scenes just seem extra.  I mean, this novel spans over at least three years, when Sarena Kelly starts her sophomore year of high school, and now she’s about to enter college as a freshman…and I see no end!  I was afraid of this.

One, because I know the ending, so I just have to write all the scenarios to get to that point.  No surprise ending like the other novels in the Six Sexy Sisters series.  But wa-ay so many throughout the story.  I really detoured what I wanted Victor St. James to be.  He’s supposed to be this awesome guy, loves Sarena, loves her sisters, and goes all out to protect them.  Oh, he’s so much more!

But what has come up is a Victor I did not imagine. I knew I wanted him to “step out” on Sarena at the beginning of their relationship, but man, he went there!!  And as I’m writing it, I’m feeling bad.  He’s supposed to be a good guy!  How can I make what he is doing right?  I couldn’t.  I think I made their relationship mendable though, and obviously they got through it (but Sarena gets her payback in “Six Sexy Sisters”).

Right now, they are on their honeymoon!    

But getting back to Victor’ s little discretion(s)…Victor may not be that hardcore killer yet, but Sarena, GIRL, she went bananas!  She even scared her twin sisters with her rage.  And she’s not even known for her fighting.  She’s known for carrying two guns!  I think I’ll end the novel, somehow, when she gets her hands on her first gun!

Victor is about to start police academy.  I think I have to back track and make him do more dirt. Besides fist fighting, he’s not done anything to make everyone so afraid of him…I mean, busting a guy’s nose in the Campus Union can’t be all he’s known for!  If he’s supposed to be “Killer Victor” he has to, you know, KILL!

silence

I have just the person that must die!

Nanowrimo 2011 Day 23: Now That We Found Love

I know I am no where near 100K and it is the 23rd of the month, but I still have faith that I will hit 200K by the end.  I have a 4-day weekend and no plans but to sit home with the laptop in front of me.

It helps that I looooooove this story!  I titled it "Now That We Found Love" because well, I really was a big fan of Heavy D, and his death was kinda timely to my story.  The day he passed, I wrote a chapter in "Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places" that referenced this song, even though the characters were not born when the song was out!  Geesh!

In this one, the song is only a few years old.  It fit the principle of the story because Victor and Sarena "fall in love" very early on in their young relationship.  But is that enough?  Now that they found love, what are they going to do?  I actually struggled with a 16 and 18 year old claiming to be so madly in love and knowing that's their soul mate.  But it's true, and I know people it has happened to.  So I have to make the story believable...

This means things aren't perfect.

Victor is still conflicted from his past, though he won't admit it.  He also takes his role as father/big brother to the Kelly sisters, very serious...too serious at times, even risking his life.

Sarena has a bad temper that no one can shake.  Victor does not help, training her in boxing and martial arts.  Her rage is from for her father leaving, and for having to take on responsibility of raising her sisters, and in essence, taking her childhood.  She looks to Victor as her escape and having a fairy tale life.

I'm not sure how to end this story.  I like to end with a big BANG, and so far, all of the Kelly novels end with you wanting more...and having cliffhangers.  It's hard to do this one that way, we know what the future hold!  But yet, I bet there will be something juicy at the end. Hmmmm....

Nanowrimo 2011 Day 22: Killer Victor Part 2

Okay, I was not going to go into detail about Victor St. James, but I just have to.  I mean, I detailed each of the Six Sexy Sisters and all it does is intrigues readers to want to read more, I mean, I hope!

Soooo, Victor St. James…so complicated.  Yes, he loves all the Kelly sisters, yes he feels more like their father than brother.  He should, he raised them!

Victor’s story begins when he is a kid, abandoned at age six in an alley in New Orleans, and found by the St. James.  They are an older white couple with no kids, so they decide to adopt him (actual more to this story…I haven’t written it yet, but it’s so deep).  So he is raised with a pretty good life, except his father is in the military and travels a lot, so they move around a lot.  They settle in Springfield, Missouri where his father decides to retire from the military.

He is sixteen when he arrives next door to the Kellys.  He is instantly mesmerized with them and spends a lot of time with them.  Even Mrs. Kelly adores him.  His mother, who was a stay-at-home mom, now travels on vacations with his father, leaving Victor, at seventeen, home alone.   He’s so busy with school, football and three different martial arts he doesn’t get into much trouble…well, if you don’t count the girls.

He dates nonchalantly, in the back of his mind knowing he is missing something.  Yes, that something is Sarena, but he is in denial about his feelings for her, thinking she is just like a sister to him. He is very close with all of the sisters, and they all have little crushes on him at various points in their life (seven year old Tenille is upset when Sarena and Victor start to date because she claims Victor is HER boy friend—and she was serious, LOL!)

Victor wanted to go to the military like his father, but his mother is the one that convinces him he wants a career that keep him home and close to family, so he goes to Missouri State University. At MSU, he develops the reputation that will follow him forever--Killer Victor.  Later, he decides that he will enroll in the Police Academy.  He becomes a force to be reckoned with, but a heart of gold when it comes to the Kellys.

I always make my guy characters guys I could fall in love with.  Victor is a winner!