Mary O'Gara

Posts Tagged ‘Sherrilyn Kenyon’

Rita-winner Dianna Love is both generous in her support of other writers and disciplined in her own prolific schedule that includes both collaboration and independent writing.  Dianma and Mary Buckham are coming to Albuquerque this week end, presenting an all-day workshop they donated to raise money for diabetes research.  Sherrilyn Kenyon (#1 NYT bestselling author) will be present as an honored guest, and Saturday evening all three authors will be at Borders Uptown for a booksigning with other authors.

Mary :  I have two Dianna Love books on my desk, and they’re both collaborative works, a novel with Sherrilyn Kenyon and a nonfiction book with Mary Buckham.  And you just mentioned a new collaboration with a third author.  Can you talk about that, too?

Dianna:  It’s interesting even to me to have several collaborations.  I never planned on cowriting with anyone, but it just happened.  The collaboration on Break Into Fiction®: 11 Steps to Building a Story that Sells came from the Break Into Fiction® program I created with Mary Buckham for workshops we teach nationally. The response to these workshops was overwhelming in a good way, but we quickly realized we’d never be able to share the information with as many struggling writers as in a book.  And we were getting requests from all over the world for the book before we even seriously discussed writing it.

The collaboration with Sherrilyn Kenyon came totally by accident.  I tour every year with her and during one of these multi-week jaunts we started talking about her BAD Agency suspense series (she’d only released one full length novel).  Sherri felt the series could be stronger, but she had reservations about her voice suiting dark and edgy suspense.  I started brainstorming her next story just to give her ideas about how it could be much bigger and edgier – more of a romantic thriller, something larger than romantic suspense.  That’s when she asked me to co-write the series.  What was my answer?  Well, my mama drowned the dumb kids <g>.  Of course, I said yes, but she and I had become very close friends so my only qualification was that we try one book to see if we could do it and still remain friends.  We’ve just turned in our third collaboration – SILENT TRUTH – that will be out April 20, 2010, so we think it’s working out well.

As for the other collaboration, I’ll share more on that when I know more, but the book is completed and being considered.  It’s a mainstream thriller that’s high concept.  My co-writer was an NBC anchor for 46 years and a hoot to work with.  I’m also working on a solo project…just trying to stay busy.

Mary:  You’re a plotter.  Mary Buckham also plots everything in advance, and Sherrilyn Kenyon is a “pantser” who doesn’t want to know the outcome until she writes it.   So how does that affect your role?  Is your contribution and your work style different with each of the other authors?   Or is it just different because one’s nonfiction and the other fiction?

Dianna:  Mary and I think very much alike when it comes to the craft of writing and creating stories.  Even so, we have our own writing process.  I feel very strongly about writers sticking to their “process” of being a plotter or a pantser (seat-of-the-pants writer) or a hybrid like me.  I like to flush out a first couple scenes to get a feel for the characters then I plot, because the suspense threads in the books I’m doing with Sherri are so complex it’s important to know where it’s going.  Sherri and I brainstorm so it’s not like she is writing blind, but she does not read the plot or outline before she writes on the story.

We have no set program for collaborating other than I like to start the stories because I like setting up the opening that is often a black ops operation for the BAD or Bureau of American Defense Agency series.  Sherri and I stop at random places to change off – middle of a scene is normal.  We both edit each other’s writing to give the book the feel of one voice.  We have one rule – No sacred cows.  We both edit at will, because the story is all that matters.  Sherri doesn’t like to know the exact details of the ending, but she knows where it’s going.

We have different processes, but both understand where the story is going.  Something I explain to new writers who are pantsers is that Sherri is not just a gifted writer, but she’s been doing this her entire life.  She’s way past the learning curve of figuring out what has to happen to the characters and the plot to end up with a powerful story.  If a new writer is willing to put in those years of writing constantly they will also reach that learning curve at some point.  What Mary and I offer them in Break Into Fiction® is a shorter learning curve.