Gary Feinstein's Blog: Is anybody out there?

When I originally thought about my second novel I considered writing a sequel to Under the Family Tree, in which I would follow the same protagonist (Dakota Lodi) three years later. She would be 19 if that were the case and so technically it would be a new adult as opposed to a young adult novel. Instead, I went in a different direction. The story begins three years later, in the same location, and with some of the first novels minor secondary characters playing more major roles. Except it is told in first-person through the eyes of a new protagonist, 17 year old, Elijah Parker. The story is completely different but there are instances where it intersects with Under the Family Tree. I've also added Dakota to some of the scenes as well, and she plays a critical role in solving the mystery portion of the book.

Anyway, I've seen writers do this before but I'm curious as to what people think about it.

Hello everyone. My name is Gary Feinstein. Is anybody out there, is the name of my blog because I'm not sure if anyone is actually going to read or care about this blog. Either way, I am doing this as a form of self-expression, which is probably why, four years ago, I decided to write my first novel, Under the Family Tree. I see writing as a way to take the parts of your internal self that you have difficulty expressing, and siphon them through characters and stories. It's a mysterious process, but quite gratifying when it comes together.

As to this blog, I hope to post every Friday. Subjects will include the writing process, the new novel I am working on, as well as observations on other books and authors that I like. From friends, followers and other's, I welcome all comments. In return, I promise that my replies will always be respectful.

Thanks.

Gary Feinstein

When you write mystery novels, a certain amount of planning is crucial. In my YA novel, Under the Family Tree, there is a murder, and as the writer I chose the murderer, the motive, and all related events that occurred before, during and after the crime. Then I mapped these all out in a timeline. Who knew what... when, where and how. Once that was done, I picked out a few tiny, innocuous seeming details and sprinkled them throughout the story. These are actually clues, but for the reader, they won't be so easy to detect. It will be like passing a person in the street that you once knew but don't immediately recognize.

Unless you pass them again, of course.

As a writer; are you a pantser or a planner?

For you readers out there, perhaps you don't know or care about the difference.

But for the sake of this blog let's get into it.

A pantser flies by the seat of their pants and makes up stuff as they go along, letting the story flow naturally... sometimes from their subconscious. Whereas a planner makes outlines of every scene from A to Z. For my YA novel, Under the Family Tree, I used a combination of the two. Since I was writing a mystery novel, I outlined timelines of certain events so that I could drop tiny clues throughout the story. But mostly I wrote and wrote and wrote, and followed where the story took me. And if I came to a fork in the road, I wasn't afraid to take it.

In fact... the biggest plot twist in my novel, came to me after waking up at 5 in the morning, and it changed the entire trajectory of the story.

Oh... did you think I was going to tell you what that was?

Sorry.

Is anybody out there?
Gary Feinstein
https://www.garyfeinstein.com/