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Jessica Ferguson

Author, Writing Coach, Speaker

Telling Stories Over and Over and Over Again!

June 12, 2021 By Jessica Ferguson Leave a Comment

How many times can you write the same story? The same story, but different. The same story, but different authors.

I know we often encourage each other by saying we can give the same idea or plot to ten others and we’ll come away with ten completely different stories. That’s true. I believe it.

I’ve said before that while writing The Groom Wore Blue Suede Shoes, three Elvis books were published before mine was even finished. That’s always discouraging and a little frightening. Are ideas just floating around in the air, waiting for someone to grab ’em. Well, as weird as it sounds, I do sort of believe that. I know all good things in our lives come from God, and that we can do nothing on our own. That includes getting good ideas. I certainly didn’t come up with those great ideas–the ones those bestselling writers grabbed and ran with.  

Recently I’ve seen two of my ideas come to pass, written by others. They were enough like my idea that if I write mine now, I’ll feel like a copy cat.

I know there aren’t any “new” ideas; everything’s been done/written already. I’m trying to break myself of the habit of “mulling things around in my head” forever and a day. I’m a slow thinker, but a pretty fast writer. Does that make sense. 🙂

I’ve written a little more than 100 pages of my inspirational romance. A couple weeks ago, I picked up one of the Love Inspired books in Walmart and guess what, the theme was almost exactly the same as mine. Except the author offered a cute twist. 🙂 So it was different, but the same.

After I fought away the doubt, despair, and agony I took a look through my realistic lens.  By the time I finish my book, query the editor, wait for a reply, actually sell it, go through revisions, all the necessary steps involved, more than a year will have passed. I’m sure even more stories like mine will have been published.

The point is, when this happens we can’t get discouraged. We need to just finish our books! We can try for a traditional publisher or we can indie publish. After all, we’re in the land of opportunity, aren’t we? (Unless books, reading, writing, and publishing are cancelled. Yikes!)

Have you seen some of your ideas come to fruition by other writers? Did you keep writing or did you get so discouraged you gave up? Hopefully, you kept writing!

 

Filed Under: Ideas, Plotting, Writing Tagged With: Copy Cat, Different but the same, ideas, Love Inspired Romance

How Do You Write?

May 28, 2021 By Jessica Ferguson 2 Comments

I truly envy those of you who can sit down and plot your entire book scene by scene or chapter by chapter, including each character’s GMC. I can’t. Or maybe I should say I don’t plot to that extent. I use a very vague 3-act structure. And pile lots of random notes into my iPhone.

I start thinking about the story when an idea or a character with a goal or a problem pop into my mind. I vaguely map out the little I know —and hope it’s enough to keep me excited. I’ll be able to tell soon enough … when I start writing. The actual writing is where I get to know my characters and my story. Would you call me a pantser?

I’m a fast typist. If I have a soft comfortable chair to sit in, I can write all day. I just think story and let my fingers fly. The problem, of course, is that there’s a heck of a lot of revision.

Once I wrote four novellas in the course of a few days. That was several years back and I often think about those short books, and how I might make them longer. The characters are still real to me. Their stories still excite me, but they’re so rough I’d probably be overwhelmed if I re-read them. I wonder how long revision would take. I used to love rewriting my novels. Now, not so much.

Every writer has their own writing/plotting/revision methods. Plotting is probably second nature to many of you. I’m good with beginnings and endings–meaning they come fairly easy. It’s the middle that stops me cold and hangs me up.

I’m investigating plottr. It seems like an interesting program—and very visual. I’ve never fully understood or caught on to Scrivener so maybe Plottr will work for me. There’s an interesting YouTube interview with bestselling author Deb Kastner, and she shares her plotting a romance template. There are many good instructional videos showing valuable info regarding plottr. You may have already watched them.

Have you used Plottr? What’s your experience with it? Share how you write. I’m curious and interested.

Filed Under: Plotting Tagged With: Deb Kastner, plotting, Plottr, rewriting, writing, YouTube

Reality Faith.
Reality Fiction.

"As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
Acts 4:20

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