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STORY MORPH
I know for me, when I read a story I love, I can’t imagine it happening any other way. Characters have ‘issues,’ they get faced with challenges, they battle back, grow and learn, and I imagine that is how it must always have been. This is The Story.
But of course, authors revise those stories. Sometimes dramatically so. Story Morph is the way of writing.
Every author has his or her own method. Sometimes their writing style is a revise-as-you-go thing. Sometimes it’s a first/second/third draft approach. Sometimes it’s more of an, oh, I don’t know . . . Revise-as-you-go-then-rip-it-
to-shreds-add-an-entirely-new- external-plot-and-be-sure-to- change-the characters-as-you-go-and-for- sure-change-the-Black-Moment- but-keep-those-2-scenes-from- the-original-manuscript way of doing things. That last method? Yeah, that’s mine.
To wit: The Irish Warrior.
Originally I wrote the story as a labor of nothing but love (i.e. no skills, no knowledge, no craftsmanship.) Here’s how it morphed . . .
I’d worked on the story for years, on and off, pre-contract. Then I had a baby, went insane, came back, and started writing again. In 2008 it won Romance Writers of America’s (RWA) 2008 Golden Heart® Award for Best Historical Romance, and my editor at Kensington suggested we use it as the second book in our contract. I happily said yes. Then I pulled it out and looked at it again.Uh, no.
It was not enough. It was . . . okay. Who buys ‘okay’? Not me. Not more than once, anyhow. So I knew had to up the external stakes. I needed a thicker plot, a bigger plot. Bigger goals for the characters, bigger obstacles. In short, I needed a ‘bigger’ story. I needed a better one.
11 months later, I finished. Yesterday, it landed on the shelves.
In the Golden Heart version of The Irish Warrior, the heroine was much more the trope-ish ‘fiesty’ heroine, not the smart, savvy– if repressed– merchant she is now. In the current version, Senna is one smart cookie and takes action because she must. She gets backed into a corner and figures a way out using her brains and wits. It involves a roughish rebel warrior chained in the prisons, a little bit of alcohol, and one very long trek across medieval Ireland, unleashing a chain of irrevocable events that changes everyone’s world.
The hero helps. 🙂
Even in original versions, Finian was the ‘good alpha’ hero: strong, confident, in charge, willing to take on the most dangerous, risky jobs for his king, a warrior of the first order, en route to even greater things. But he’s also a charmer, with a sense of humor. He makes Senna laugh a lot. He also makes her pant a lot. But at his core, he’s torn.
Originally, he was less torn. More complete. Less complicated. Less interesting. Used to be, he had an uncomfortable choice to make. Now, in his dark moment of decision, he’s going to have to turn his back on everything he’s ever wanted, if he wants Senna.
And then, there’s the plot morph. Originally, there was little more than a woman fleeing her evil betrothed, a man who wanted more land and was perfectly willing to have it be Irish land.
Now there’s an intertwined external plot involving dyes. Sound boring? Hopefully it’s not, because this is not just any old dye. These dyes can rock people’s world. Literally.
In the ancient world, dyes were the province of kings and counts. Color mattered. It connoted royalty, power, prestige, and resources. The most valued dyes were precious, hard to make, and under royal protection. The most precious and coveted dye was Tyrian purple, the royal purple, made from a snail Murex Brandaris.
In Irish, the dyes are made from mollusks, but they are still coveted: the secret of the Wishmé dyes. Their color and desirability are modeled on the Tyrian Murex, but these dyes are not only beautiful, they’re lethal. They have militaristic applications. They’re beautiful weapons.
And out there, somewhere, is not only the codebook–the forgotten recipe for creating the deadly dyes–but the one person who can read it: a dye-witch.
So the hunt is on. It involves kings and barons and spies and warriors. It crosses borders, involves Irish sovereignty and Scottish independence. It presses the characters to face their worst fears and in the process, become something better than they’d imagined possible.
So, when you read The Irish Warrior, you can know it has been though many incarnations, and has truly been a labor of love. And hopefully, when you’re done reading, if I’ve done my job, it will have done its job: create a feeling, deep inside, that says, Yes, I believe. It really can be this way.
Kris writes sexy, adventure-filled medieval romances for Kensington and Pocket Books. THE IRISH WARRIOR
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We have two additional print copies of The Irish Warrior
This book sounds awesome and I’d really love to win it. Thanks very much for the giveaway!
petalsontheriver at gmail dot com
This sounds like a fantastic story. I love finding new authors and I love Medieval History Stories. Why did you (Kris) pick Medieval Stories? Is it heritage based or just a love for the time period/culture?
Also, I wish the digital copies were available in PDF for my Sony. Sigh…Oh well, I’ll enter for a print…I like the smell of books too.
Anyway, welcome and I can’t wait to read it.
dragonlady12 at yahoo.com
Hi, Kris! Congratulations on the release of your second book, “The Irish Warrior”! Your first book, “The Conqueror”, was terrific, and so well-received. How are your own personal experiences and feelings as a writer differing with your second book as compared to the thrill of first being published?
Please enter my name in the drawing. US Resident, Follower, Subscriber.
gcwhiskas at aol dot com
Hello ladies! So glad to see you all here.
DragonLady: yes, it was 100% the love of Ireland that started me writing. In fact, my very first (very scary) book was set in 18th c Colonies. Then I read a book set in the middle ages, just as I was already starting to get interested in that part of my heritage, and it was like storm fronts converged. LOL. I sat down and started writing IRISH (a much diff version, of course) and I didn’t stop. I just kept having story ideas that were absolutely medieval-set.
During the first draft of IRISH, I’d be up until 3am at times, and I’d come home early from work. One day, I was so struck my the need to write this one scene, I turned the car around on the way TO work, and came home and wrote it. LOL
The medieval period just compels me in some deep way.
That said, I do have a couple Renaissance-era and later stories in various stages of done-ness.
Thank-you for asking!
Virginia~
Aw, thanks for your kind words about The Conqueror!
I have to say . . . I think IRISH is a better *written* book, from a writer’s perspective, as far as it being tighter and whatnot. But it’s a bit different from The Conqueror–more adventure-y, more sexy. So, oddly perhaps? I’m more apprehensive about this release. To some degree, you’re a known quantity on your second book. People now have expectations. I really want to meet them.
Nah. I want to surpass them. 🙂
What a great question, Virginia. Thank-you!
Hi Kris, Welcome! I’ve been dying to read ‘The Irish Warrior’ after the great reviews from The Book Binge & Season Blog. Just dl’d for my Kindle! Amazing. Your story morph only whets my appetite more, thank you.
Hi Kris,
Congrats!
I can’t wait to read this book!
chey127 at hotmail dot com
I bet the book is wonderful (it definitel sounds so by the excerpt in the other post…) and I can’t wait to read it! So….lets see….*taps chin*….Ah! If your book was made into a movie (because dude, wouldn’t that be awesome?:-) and if you got to choose, who would star in it?
Chey~ Yay! So glad the book sounds good to you. 🙂
Scorpio~ Fabulous! You’re most welcome. I hope you love it–let me know. And there’s the Kindle free download, so yay! 🙂
Chelsea~
No. You did not ask that question. I *stink* at it! 🙂 The romance buyer for Borders asks it in the online interview that I’m doing there this week, and I was tempted to say ‘Shrek.” LOL ‘Celebrity’ questions stump me every time.
Not to be crushingly obvious, but . . . I mean, Mel Gibson in Braveheart comes to mind. I know, I know, it’s this annoyingly obvious Celtic connection. And then, there’s all the historical inaccuracies of the film. But that all aside, there’s a lot of similarities in their personality: great warrior, reluctant leader, a ‘good alpha’ honorable, charming…
So, unfortunately, I’m going to have to go with that.
But! If you read it and think of someone else better, you let me know, okay? 🙂
How about Pierce Brosnan?
And hey, not only is he delicious (and has been for quite a while–check him out as Remington Steele, or in Manions of America, for example) but he’s Irish to boot!
Best of luck The Irish Warrior, Ms Kennedy!
Azteclady~
Ohh, I hadn’t thought of him! Cool suggestion.
And yet, I always see Brosnan as debonair and smooth. Polished. Finian *could* be that, but he’s more earthy and well, then there’s the whole ‘warrior’ thing.
Actually, tho, now I’m getting this ‘cleaned up courtier’ thing going on in my mind for Finian . . . he looks good! 😉
Aztec, thanks so much for saying hi again, and for your well wishes! Hope you check the book out, and if you do, hope it makes you smile.
Your book sounds and looks amazing! I love the cover and I have been known to buy books solely because of the covers. 😀
Hi Kris, I’ve been waiting to read this book after highly liking your debut. Interesting post on how the story changed and characters evolved along the way. Renaissance is another era that interests more, so I’ll be watching for that down the road.
LilMiss~
Well, now you’re a girl after my own heart. 🙂 Didn’t Kensington do a fabulous job with this cover?
And that little tag line under the title, ‘Nothing can stop him’? I’m thinking they adapted it from an actual line in the story.
The hero is pondering all the pretty suicidal things he’s contemplating doing to recover these dyes, and then he thinks, ‘And none of that mattered… Nothing would stop him.’
When I first saw that tag line on the cover, I had a little smile, b/c it sounded like a movie tagline. And so, of course, then, I started seeing it as a movie… Cuz, you know, I hadn’t been before (right)
Pam~
I’m so happy to hear you liked The Conqueror! I hope you like IRISH just as much–or more. 😉
I have been hearing that so much from people, how much they’d enjoy a Renaissance-era story. There’s a few plot pieces that might constrain the time period and push it out of a strict Renaissance preiod, but I’m certainly going to try and fit it in there.
Thanks for coming by and for giving the books a chance. 🙂 Let me know what you think of IRISH.
Thanks, I’d love to win a copy of this book!!
Hi Kris!
congrats on the release – I saw you and your book a lot around on the blogosphere lately and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
will there be more books?
wish you all the best,
Ina
Hi Roise & Ina~
Very glad to see you, and glad to hear the book sounds like something you want to read. 🙂
Ina, yes, thank-you for asking! I am at work right now on a book set on the eve of Magna Carta, with a very, *very* dangerous knight, a woman on a mission, who completely upends his world. Unfortunately, her mission is utterly at odds with his, and their explosive passion threatens the kingdom one of them is trying to save.
We’re not sure of release dates yet, but it’s going to be another sexy, adventurous medieval, and I hope you check it out. 🙂
Hi Kris ~
Thanks for the interesting post. I love to read what goes into writing a book – the process fascinates me because everyone does it differently. Good luck with this new book! I can’t wait to read it ~
Cheryl
CherylS22~
I agree! I love hearing about how people do their craft. From candle-making to book binding to blackmithing or cake-making, it’s always fascinating. And I think it’s intensified when you have some knowledge and heartfelt interest in a particular craft-y world, like readers do with books.
I’m glad hearing about the process of this revision was interesting, Cheryl, and if you read the story, I hope you love it. 🙂