A couple of weeks ago, I decided I should write another Christmas story for this year. I’d have to hurry to get it done in time, but I had a few ideas in the back of my head that I’d been thinking about for a while, so I figured I could write a short book pretty quickly.

Then last weekend I sat down to actually think it through and wrote down what I knew about the ideas I had, and I realized how weak those ideas were. When I started trying to develop them, I ran into plot holes and logic problems (which means they’d probably have been fine as the basis for a Hallmark movie, but I have higher standards). Figuring that I wouldn’t try to write a Christmas story this year, after all, I got up to do something else.

And then I got hit by an entirely new idea. When I sat down to write what I knew about it and develop that, I ended up with pages and pages. It kept growing and building.

So, I thought, that’s good that I have a story idea.

But my brain wasn’t done. Suddenly, the previous ideas I’d had fit into that setting in a way that fixed the plot holes. I had the possibility for a series. Every year, I could do a Christmas story set in this same town. In the first one, I could establish some characters who would show up in later stories, and in the later ones I could follow up with the previous characters to show what they’re doing now.

And then yesterday it struck me that once a year isn’t a lot for that kind of series. I could hit all the major holidays, and I had ideas for that.

The tricky thing would be classifying them, aside from the “holiday” theme. They’re generally “sweet” romantic comedy, but they all have a magical element — more like magic realism than outright fantasy, and they’re not really paranormal romance. It looks like this sort of thing sells really well, and I think it would be a fun break to write. I doubt it would help me with fantasy name recognition and might more firmly embed me in the “too romancey” category for getting in with a fantasy publisher, but I’m at the point on giving up on the fantasy world ever accepting me. I might as well earn a living doing something fun rather than keep banging my head against that brick wall.

So now if I’m going to do this, I’ll have to write the Christmas one quickly and maybe come up with the story and characters for a Valentine’s Day one and write an opening so I could include a teaser in the first book. Plus, I need to fully develop the town and come up with the characters for the next few books.

This is what happens when I think I can write a quick, easy, fun story in between bigger projects.

A lot of writers talk about struggling with the sagging middle. My biggest writing problem is the fizzling ending. I don’t think I’ve ever written a book in which I’m totally satisfied with the ending on the first draft.

Actually, I usually don’t even write the ending on the first draft, although I usually have the ending planned before I start writing the book. I get to what should be the climax of the book and suddenly have no idea what it should look like, even though I have a general sense of the things that need to happen. I’ll decide to put off writing the ending until I’ve done a round of revisions, since the things that change in revisions will have a ripple effect that will mean the ending really has to change, so there’s no point in writing it before I know what the changes are.

Then I’ll revise the whole book, get to the ending, and the ending I write is rather lame. I’m often rushing to get through it because I want to be done with the book or because it’s all so intense that I can’t make myself dig into it. It’s like writing while peering between my fingers from behind the sofa. Or I’ll find that I’ve tried to avoid conflict entirely.

So I then have to go back and rework the ending, sometimes figuring out entirely different events for the climactic scene. There’s a lot of pen-and-paper analysis of everything that went on in all the character arcs in the whole book in order to figure out a satisfying way for the good guys to prevail. It generally comes back to figuring out what lesson the heroine has to learn and finding a way to show that she’s learned it. Putting that into practice is a lot more challenging.

And then there’s the resolution, the wrapping-up part, and finding a way to tie up the ends that need to be tied up without going on and on and on after the climax. There’s a very narrow window that works between not enough, so readers don’t feel satisfied, and too much, so readers wonder when this book is ever going to end.

The end is one of the most important parts of the book. The beginning sells this book — people may flip through the first chapter to see if they want to read it. The ending sells the next book — if readers end the book with a satisfied sigh, they’re more likely to be left with a good impression that means they’ll pick up the author’s next book.

I spent yesterday doing the pen-and-paper work to figure out the ending. Not only had I chosen the wrong nemesis, but I’d missed the point entirely. I think I have it figured out now. I just have to write it.

After my rant last week about stupid characters, one of the next books I picked up opened with the heroine doing something stupid and impulsive that got her in huge trouble that ended up affecting other people in her life. Then her adult mentor got her out of that trouble and told her exactly what she needed to do — or not do — to avoid even more trouble that would affect her whole family, and about thirty seconds later she completely neglected to do what he told her she needed to do and went off and did something else and, yeah, got into even more trouble.

This was a YA book, and I know I’m not the target audience. Rash and impulsive is pretty much the teen “brand,” so maybe teen readers aren’t groaning about what an idiot the main character is. This book was really quite successful — a lot more successful than any of my books have been — so maybe the teen readers are enjoying the teen characters ignoring the adults in their lives, even if ignoring good advice leaves a swath of destruction in their wake. Meanwhile I, as an adult, want to give them a good spanking and ground them for about a month.

And I suppose there wouldn’t have been much of a book if the character had listened to the advice — though, really, the trouble she was in was big enough that I don’t think it would have made that much difference. I’d be a lot more sympathetic if she followed the advice and still ended up in trouble than I am when she rebelliously ignored the advice and landed in trouble.

It really is a tricky balance. Smart, reasonable characters who listen to good advice may not be as likely to get into the kind of trouble that makes for a good story. And this does give the characters room to grow. Maybe over the course of the book she’ll learn to listen and think before acting and will realize that her mentors know a thing or two. Right now, she’s just coming across as bratty, wanting what she wants, with no thought for the greater good or even the good of anyone else but herself, and that’s not sympathetic to me.

The heroine I’m writing now has done something quite rash and rebellious, but she thought it through and had a reasonable plan. I guess she was sensibly rebellious rather than stupidly rebellious. She ended up in way over her head, but she did avoid some danger. I’m saving the danger for later in the book.

This morning I figured out the problem with the villain in the book I’m working on: I’ve been focusing on the wrong villain.

There’s still the big bad causing the societal problem, but I picked the wrong lower-level villain to be the heroine’s direct nemesis, the person who stands in the way of her achieving her goals. The one I was trying to make be her nemesis really has no reason to want to oppose her through most of the book, and he has no power to stop her from achieving her initial goal. He’s still an antagonist and he can be the kind of bully who makes her life miserable, but he can’t really do anything to stop her until maybe getting in the way toward the end.

It’s another character who’s been there all along but who I hadn’t really focused on who makes the best nemesis. He has a reason to be opposed to her, in particular, and he has the power to stop her from achieving her goals — all of them, both the one she initially thinks is important and then the real goal she later realizes is what she needs to do. He’s also an agent of the big bad, so he fits in with the big-picture conflict.

I may not even have to rewrite that much to bring this out, but I feel like this is the ingredient that’s been lacking, and emphasizing this conflict will make the book spark.

The challenge will be to actually write the conflict, since I tend to be conflict-averse. I don’t like torturing my characters, but I really must do so.

I was rather social this weekend, going out both Friday and Saturday nights. Shocking, I know. Now it’s back to work, and I’ve got to rewrite a scene that I don’t think is working, but I’ve got to figure out what goes in that place.

This may be a case when it’s easier to write something entirely new than to “fix” what’s already there. I think it needs to be almost entirely new, and trying to rework what I’ve done keeps me from getting it to where it needs to be. A great deal of brainstorming may be required. But once I get past this hurdle, I think it will be fairly smooth sailing until the end, where the rewrites will have a big impact.

I was hoping to get these rewrites done this week, since I have music and art camp next week, and I know nothing much will get done then. But I spent more time than I planned working out the changes I wanted to make, since I ended up changing more than I expected. It makes the book so much better, though.

This book seems to have really taken over my brain, since I find myself drifting off to think about it when I try to read anything else. That’s a good sign (and possibly a bad sign about what I’m reading right now).

Now to figure out what needs to happen in this scene and what it should look like …

I’m back to rewriting the book I’ve been working on, off and on, for much of the year, and I think the break to revise another book was good for me because I had a nice breakthrough. The other night, something I was reading gave me an idea that might apply to my book. It would certainly add conflict to the story and make things more difficult for my character. But as I thought about it, I decided that it would really just add conflict to a part of the book that didn’t need it, that’s only a transition point, and it would mess up a lot of other things in the story.

Yesterday morning when I was trying to figure out the heroine’s character arc, I found myself thinking about it again. It occurred to me that it would actually add conflict to the ending, too. Maybe I needed to consider this idea. So I made a pro/con list about making this change, and I came up with about a page of pros and only a few cons, and the cons were superficial and easily addressed. While it did add conflict to that transition part, that part could still be quick and moved past to get to the real story, and it raised the stakes for the whole story, so that the heroine has a genuine reason to fear failure throughout the book, and she has reason to worry about whether what she does at the end will work.

Basically, I’m yanking away her support system, which always makes things tougher. I guess I’m too nice as an author. I don’t want to hurt my characters. I tend to play it safe as a person, and that usually makes its way into my stories. This is a case of a character not playing it safe, putting everything on the line for something she’s not sure she can even do, but she feels like she has to try.

I’m kind of excited about it now that I’ve overcome my initial resistance.

The funny thing is, it won’t require that much rewriting. There are a couple of scenes that have to go, and I’ll need to write a couple of new ones. Everything else will just require a subtle overlay, and then it makes what happens at the end work better. It’s almost as though I’ve been writing it this way all along and just needed to add the setup.

I love it when the brain works in mysterious ways.

As I try to inject a little more romance into this book, I’ve relied on music to help set the mood. Although I live my life mostly in silence, I do love music, and I use music as a creative tool for my writing. I have playlists for different moods and emotions, and I usually create some sort of soundtrack for each book, with a playlist of songs that remind me of characters, the setting, scenes, themes, or moods. It’s basically an audio collage. These are what I listen to when I’m walking in the morning, when I work around the house, or when I’m brainstorming.

But I don’t usually listen to these playlists while writing. Music with lyrics is a distraction because I stop to listen to the lyrics, or even sing along. I might listen to a particular song to set a mood right before writing, but I can’t listen to it while I’m writing.

While I’m writing a draft, I often listen to classical music, but I can’t listen to anything too familiar because I’ll stop to listen instead of writing. I use the “classical music for focus” station on Amazon Prime Music or one of their playlists. Then I only notice when they play something I know.

Unfortunately, when I’m editing or rewriting, I need silence. Any music is distracting then. But that makes it hard to set a mood when the revision is about adding emotion. I have to listen to it before I write, while I’m doing other things, or I can sometimes dig up the emotion a piece of music makes me feel by thinking about that music. I may assign songs to key scenes and keep those songs in mind when writing the scenes.

One thing I have to work on is remembering that I need to put it all on the page. I’m bad about having my own vivid mental images and feelings relating to what I’m writing and forgetting that my readers don’t have that. I need to transcribe what I’m seeing and feeling in order to convey that to readers. Since my imagination is overactive, I’ve always mentally fleshed out what I read. I’m sure a lot of other readers do that, but it is good for the author to give them clues to make the experience more vivid.