Ask the Author: Minnette Meador
Answered Questions (6)
Minnette Meador
Wy'East, urban fantasy thriller - When a mysterious billionaire blackmails a well-known psychiatrist to leave his home half naked in the middle of the night, kidnaps a crazy woman right out of a high security hospital and brings them together to a mansion hidden in the snow topped peaks, what they accomplish together will not only change their lives forever, but the future of the entire human race. Book I of the Saṃsāra Immortal Book series.
Minnette Meador
Really good books, movies and shows... amazing new music
Minnette Meador
2nd Editions of all my books just got released (whew!) - I'm actually working on three books right now: Wy'East (Urban Fantasy Thriller), Phantom Hearts (Book II of The Ghost Series), Pirate Prince (Book IV of The Centurion Series) and planning for several others.
Minnette Meador
This is an article I wrote sometime back about my process... hope this helps:
Monique asked me about my process for The Belle Stalker. That’s a tough question to answer without putting everyone to sleep. Writers are notoriously action packed inside their heads – but watching them work is like watching trees grow. I’ll give it my best shot…
The story starts with a question. For Belle Stalker: What if a mythical being were stuck in the human world for 2,000 years?
I generally sit in a chair, put my feet up and daydream, or let my mind wander right before I go to sleep at night, or I take a long walk. Sounds weird, but that’s what I do. Then I just let the juices flow. Sometimes an idea comes to me very quickly, others not so quickly. With Belle Stalker it came right away.
I used to write from the hip, just letting the story and the characters guide me to where they wanted me to go. I still DO write from the hip, but now I have a bolt action, automatic holster that guides the gun to my hand. In other words, I outline everything. That doesn’t mean it ever comes out the way I’ve written it down (and it never does) but it does mean I have certain highpoints the characters need to reach, a timeline they have to keep, and an ultimate climax and resolution. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? It might be, but it keeps me on task, saves me hours of rewriting later, and makes the story tighter.
So exclusively just for you, here are the magic tools I use to create a story. Don’t get too excited! Hope these might help those writers or wanttabe writers out there. All the links go to Google Docs and you might be asked to sign up. It’s free and a great resource if you want to share documents. If you don’t or can’t access, please make sure to drop a note to mmeador at minnettemeador dot com and I’ll send you copies.
1. Characterization Survey - I use this chart for each one of my characters, but fill it out completely for the hero, heroine, and the villain. Then I write out a background story for each character in OneNote (see below). Note: The finished questionnaire gets copied into OneNote under the Characters Tab by Name.
2. World Building Survey - This little gem came to me from a wonderful writer Patricia Wrede. It is the quintessential guide for world building and I use it extensively for not only fantasy/sci-fi worlds, but for the modern one as well. If after filling out this survey you don’t know your world from every angle, then you haven’t done it right.
3. OneNote - I use OneNote for all of my books and highly recommend it for writers. There is a screenshot of how I use it here. I use this extensively (make sure to check out the tabs under each subject) and cut and paste all my research there too. It has saved me countless hours. Character Sheets, Goals Motivations Conflicts Statements for each character, plotting, chapter/synopsis, research, and even pictures of characters and places go into this document. I keep the plot screen next to the word document I am writing in, so I can see what’s next. This is what it looks like.
4. Research – I do extensive research on the internet and copy and paste all my articles into OneNote, then categorize the research (see link). If you take a look at this document you’ll see on the right hand side of the screenshot a list of other subjects I’ve researched for this book. It also makes is amazingly easy at the end to do acknowledgements and bibliographies for my books. This is very handy especially if I’m writing a historical piece.
There are lots of other craft type tools I use and many of them are listed on my blog under Writing Resources if you’re interested. Note: I haven’t updated this list in a long time. If some of the links don’t work, my apologies.
I will say this about my process: It is ever changing and differs from book to book. I’ve developed what I use over the last eight books, hopefully each time streamlining the process so that I write better and produce compelling stories ~fingers crossed~. I hope you get a change to read The Belle Stalker. The only thing I promise about the story is that it is different than most and is one wild ride… Minnette :o)
Monique asked me about my process for The Belle Stalker. That’s a tough question to answer without putting everyone to sleep. Writers are notoriously action packed inside their heads – but watching them work is like watching trees grow. I’ll give it my best shot…
The story starts with a question. For Belle Stalker: What if a mythical being were stuck in the human world for 2,000 years?
I generally sit in a chair, put my feet up and daydream, or let my mind wander right before I go to sleep at night, or I take a long walk. Sounds weird, but that’s what I do. Then I just let the juices flow. Sometimes an idea comes to me very quickly, others not so quickly. With Belle Stalker it came right away.
I used to write from the hip, just letting the story and the characters guide me to where they wanted me to go. I still DO write from the hip, but now I have a bolt action, automatic holster that guides the gun to my hand. In other words, I outline everything. That doesn’t mean it ever comes out the way I’ve written it down (and it never does) but it does mean I have certain highpoints the characters need to reach, a timeline they have to keep, and an ultimate climax and resolution. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? It might be, but it keeps me on task, saves me hours of rewriting later, and makes the story tighter.
So exclusively just for you, here are the magic tools I use to create a story. Don’t get too excited! Hope these might help those writers or wanttabe writers out there. All the links go to Google Docs and you might be asked to sign up. It’s free and a great resource if you want to share documents. If you don’t or can’t access, please make sure to drop a note to mmeador at minnettemeador dot com and I’ll send you copies.
1. Characterization Survey - I use this chart for each one of my characters, but fill it out completely for the hero, heroine, and the villain. Then I write out a background story for each character in OneNote (see below). Note: The finished questionnaire gets copied into OneNote under the Characters Tab by Name.
2. World Building Survey - This little gem came to me from a wonderful writer Patricia Wrede. It is the quintessential guide for world building and I use it extensively for not only fantasy/sci-fi worlds, but for the modern one as well. If after filling out this survey you don’t know your world from every angle, then you haven’t done it right.
3. OneNote - I use OneNote for all of my books and highly recommend it for writers. There is a screenshot of how I use it here. I use this extensively (make sure to check out the tabs under each subject) and cut and paste all my research there too. It has saved me countless hours. Character Sheets, Goals Motivations Conflicts Statements for each character, plotting, chapter/synopsis, research, and even pictures of characters and places go into this document. I keep the plot screen next to the word document I am writing in, so I can see what’s next. This is what it looks like.
4. Research – I do extensive research on the internet and copy and paste all my articles into OneNote, then categorize the research (see link). If you take a look at this document you’ll see on the right hand side of the screenshot a list of other subjects I’ve researched for this book. It also makes is amazingly easy at the end to do acknowledgements and bibliographies for my books. This is very handy especially if I’m writing a historical piece.
There are lots of other craft type tools I use and many of them are listed on my blog under Writing Resources if you’re interested. Note: I haven’t updated this list in a long time. If some of the links don’t work, my apologies.
I will say this about my process: It is ever changing and differs from book to book. I’ve developed what I use over the last eight books, hopefully each time streamlining the process so that I write better and produce compelling stories ~fingers crossed~. I hope you get a change to read The Belle Stalker. The only thing I promise about the story is that it is different than most and is one wild ride… Minnette :o)
Minnette Meador
Creating people that surprise, anger, and delight you every day. It's like having another world inside your head...
Minnette Meador
I force myself to be somewhere where I can't be distracted and make myself write anything, even if it's gibberish. I often read back through what I've already written to try to jumpstart things.
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