I love Michelle's writing, and I'm in total awe in how quickly she can write a novel. So, I asked Michelle what her writing process was like for Last Chance.
The Why and How Behind the What
by
Michelle Birbeck
Everyone has a story behind their book. The why behind the writing. The reasons for putting fingers to keyboard and slogging through hours of editing, marketing, and formatting.
For some it is the thrill of the chase, a challenge to create something new, explore different ways of describing a fictional world. For others it is a love of the characters that brings them back to their worlds again and again.
When I started writing Last Chance, I had one thought in mind: there is more to the story. More than the romance in The Last Keeper, and more that the world I had created had to offer.
After the world building of book one, and with the stage firmly set, it became time to play. Everything is now in place: the races, the weaknesses and strengths, the love story. Everything is there, ready, waiting, and just begging to be played with.
The question is, where to start? With a world filled with five different races that span the breadth of time and where anything is possible, how exactly do you start playing?
My answer, and the start of the book, was simple. How far can someone be pushed before they break? What are the limits of someone who has been there, seen it all, and lived through the death of everyone she loves? After all, everyone has limits.
This is where I have to reign in my excitement. Being able to play with the characters, torture them, push them, and put them through hell, is what I live for. I am absolutely in love with taking things as far as they can go, and then throwing my characters off the proverbial edge and straight into the abyss. With me, the abyss doesn’t so much as stare back if you look too long, as crawls out and visits you in the night.
During my English Literature A Level our tutor told us of a theory states that without the bad in life we can never appreciate the good. If our lives run along the same level of good/bad then we don’t appreciate how bad things can get and how good everything can be. This is something I took to heart and applied to everything I write. In both directions. From being happier than my characters have ever been and tearing it all apart, to them waking up in hell and ending up in love.
And that is the premise behind Last Chance. That is the reason I sat down and said, I’m going to do this, and this is how it is going to go.
But I didn’t start with a plan. There was no list of events that were going to happen of list of chapters that I wanted to write. When I started writing the book I had one image. The records had been stolen. Family trees with all the information of every Keeper alive, missing.
From there I had to think how, why, who, and what was going to be the outcome of this theft. However, most of the intricate details of the book came as I wrote it. Little bits that crop up I had no idea about until I was actually writing them. As is the case with most of what I write. It is rare that I have any kind of chapter plan until at least half way through the book.
My mind churns when I write, going over all the possibilities and outcomes of every decision. There are twists and turns that present themselves that never make it into the book, and those that do. Either way, the writing process for me, and for this book especially, is an exciting one. Almost as though I am a reader reading the book for the first time, gasping at all the shocks, crying at the emotions, and cursing when the reveal finally happens.
One part that comes to mind in Last Chance specifically is a scene later in the book where Serenity is looking through someone’s memories. I sat at my computer, eyes closed (I touch type and one of my party tricks is writing with my eyes closed), writing the scene as Serenity follows someone’s memories through the trees.
Suddenly there was a face. I could see the setting in my mind. Towering trees clustered together. Feet pounding beneath me as I watched the memory along with Serenity. And bam! There is was. A face in the trees.
I jumped.
Sat at my computer, so focused on a fictional world that to me it was no longer fictional, and the shock of seeing that face there had me pausing because it had startled me so much.
Yet I wouldn’t change my methods for the world. It means a lot of editing sometimes to make sure all the stories are straight, but being able to live the world right along with my characters and see what they see as they see it… It’s what makes writing fun.
As for why there was a face in the trees and whether that made it into the final cut, you’ll have a long journey with plenty of ups and downs to get there.
Buy Lash Chance now at Amazon.
