I'm having a bit of a bad time of it trying to write the next Flirting Games book just now because we are in the middle of moving house! Trying to settle down and even do a first draft is difficult because my mind feels as cluttered as my desk (which is currently a pile of cardboard boxes stacked next to a bean bag) and I can't seem to think through any sort of plot.
What plot you ask? Well you might have a point there. My Flirting Games books are character driven and nothing all that exciting happens to any of the people in them, except for meeting each other! There are no evil villains trying to kill them, or interesting/sexy supernatural beings. There are no magical doorways into other worlds or visitors from other planets. Just a bunch of kids at an English boarding school.
In every book I have introduced new characters, but the old ones nag at me to be included. Especially Ellie. She's such a personality that I want to write her back in again and again. But to do what? I don't want her and Nate to break up, so she really needs to just go away and be happy.
On the other hand, people just going and being happy is killer for my storylines. Readers ask me all the time "What happened next to Sophie and Jack? Or Grace and Ben?" and I think to myself "Oh dear, not a lot happened, they got together, they were happy, there's hardly any storyline in that..."
It was almost a huge relief, when I was drafting Book Four, to find out that Flora wasn't all that happy with Michael after all, and still hankered for Gabriel. I genuinely thought her story was finished and was a bit sad about it, but no, she nagged me mentally until I gave her and Gabriel a lead role again in book four, and I was so happy I did.
So now what? I know I ought to think about Rose and Leo's wedding, but they can't get married until they are 18, and do I want to jump forward that far in time? Toby Falcon (Rose's brother) has mentioned to me that he would like a girlfriend at some point, but he's quite a bit younger than Rose, so am I writing about 18 year olds or fourteen year olds? Because it is quite a different stage of life.
Michael Brenner is also asking for a come back. He feels hard done by at being cast as a villain, he just wasn't right for Flora, but is there no-one perfect for him as well?
You can see my thought pattern as I try to draft book five. It's all over the shop!
So tell me, dear readers (if you have gotten this far through my procrastinating), what would you most like to see happen? Who would you most like to see back? Give me a push...
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