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You are here: Home / Archives for Saving Emily

Saving Emily

A Q&A about Saving Emily

October 22, 2014 By Lynne Leave a Comment

In keeping with The Spontaneous Reader Book Blog highlighting Saving Emily, I’m posting the answers to some of the questions I’ve been asked about one of my most popular books.

Q – Where did the story come from?

The basic concept for the story came from an overheard snippet of conversation. Two of my friends were discussing the problems of trying to date while being single dads with daughters. One told the other to just wait until his daughter turned thirteen. He stated that thirteen year-old girls were the most judgmental people on Earth. His daughter said everyone was either too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, and picked apart everything from their makeup and hair to their clothing choices. I immediately wondered what would happen if he brought home someone five to seven years older and the kid said something rude and he yelled at her. What would happen if the kid then got into some kind of trouble and the only person who could save her was this woman? And what if the woman wasn’t exactly the kind and nurturing type? I knew within thirty seconds that this would make it to paper.

Q – How did you create Janice Bracken?

A – The same evening I heard the conversation, I turned on the television after returning to my room and Lethal Weapon 3 was on. Rene Russo plays an absolutely kick-ass cop in that movie. I figured if she could beat up five guys in a garage than Janice Bracken could be just as tough and cool. I wanted to write about a woman who lived her life to the beat of her own drummer. She’s very “male” in her attitude about work and sex. If this was a James Bond book, he’d have gone ahead and had sex with the gym owner at lunch and still gone home with the love interest that night. All the male readers would have cheered. But my female characters can’t do that. There’s a fine line between free-spirited and sluttish. However, I did make sure to let Janice at least think about it.

Q – If Janice was created based on a Rene Russo character, was Mac created based on an actor or character? Do you normally write with actor’s in mind?

A – I don’t normally write with an actor in mind. I have friends that pin pictures of an actor/actress to a board and write to their appearance and style, but I write to fit the story. Most of the characters that I create begin as personalities and then I simply choose the look and style of the individual. In Saving Emily, Mac needed to be all man, but out of his depth when Emily is taken. I needed him to be lost and dependent without being emasculated. I “felt” like he had a Gary Sinise “look.” How’s that for helpful?

Q – Isn’t Janice a little older than your average heroine?

A – She and Evie Duncan from A Shared Fear are both past their fortieth birthday. The older I get, the more I see forty as young. I don’t know that many twenty-two year olds that have it all together. I prefer that my characters have had some life experiences and made some mistakes. Realism matters. Plus, women and men with a few years and some mileage are much more interesting to me than all that new and innocent stuff. My people have real problems to overcome and the brains and skills to do it.

Q – This is one of your shorter books. Do you plan for a specific length with your novels?

A – I don’t generally think about length. My goal is simply to tell a story. Some are shorter than others. In this case, I wrote the book during National Novel Writing Month (NaNo Write), November 2011, and I was shooting to get past 50,000 words in thirty days. I ended around 63,000 on the first draft by 29 November. I set the book aside and worked on something else for two months before going back to it. Saving Emily was pretty rough and contained things like. “Janice walked into the gym. Describe the gym in detail.” And, “Janice and Mac have sex here.” By the time I finished the rewrites and edits, the book finished out at 72,500 words, which is just under 200 pages.

Q – Did you know who the killer was prior to writing the story?

A – Not a clue. And thank you for not giving anything away. All I’ll say at this point is that once I wrote the ending, I then had to go back and make sure I included enough clues so it wasn’t implausible. I hate reading those murder mysteries that end in a gotcha without any clues along the way. If I did this right, you should be in suspense until the reveal, but not pissed off afterward. I’d tried my hand at this with A Shared Fear, but this book took it a step further. I learn something each time I try.

Q – You’ve said that this book was fairly well plotted in advance since you did it for NaNo Write. Were there any surprises for you when you wrote this book?

A – The character of Oscar Islas and his role in the story were completely unexpected. I never planned on Janice feeling a connection or being interested in Oscar. He was simply a plot mover – the guy she could address her age and conditioning with. But in writing the section, Oscar took on a life of his own and things changed. He became important to Janice and thus important to the story arc. He provides an interesting bit of speculation about what her future will be.

Q – I see at least one person in the reviews asking for more from Janice Bracken. Any thoughts of writing additional stories with this character?

A –If there was one of my characters to take forward in a series, it would be Janice, but she hasn’t spoken to me since Saving Emily. Series writing is not as easy as it sounds, so I’m okay with where I left her for now. I have other stories to tell, but who knows, she could come back someday if the right circumstances presented themselves.

Filed Under: Saving Emily, Writing

Baby Steps

August 13, 2014 By Lynne Leave a Comment

Writing the book is the easy part. It’s what comes after publishing that has always frightened me. It’s not enough to write a good book. Someone has to find you among the 6,000,000 other offerings and choose to buy your novel as opposed to another. You’ve heard me say before that the whole self-promotion thing is painful. Every time I try to do any of it, I begin to act a lot like my dog Daisy does when she hears thunder – there’s a whole lot of panic in the eyes, some spastic twitching, and the primal urge to run into the bathroom and hide in the corner until whatever it is goes away.

I’ve decided that I have to make the effort to promote myself, so I’ve committed to researching and reading about just how one is supposed to do this. There are a ton of folks selling books and services to the cowardly (like me). I’m kind of cheap, so I’m currently working through all the free advice offered. One of the best blog items I’ve read so far is: HOW TO PROMOTE YOURSELF AND YOUR BOOKS ON SOCIAL MEDIA WITHOUT FEELING LIKE A SOUL-SELLING, SLEAZE-SUCKING SLIME-GLOB by Chuck Wendig.

Mr. Wendig approached the problem humorously and has some realistic suggestions that made sense. There are a lot of other folks who specialize in social media marketing and a surprising number of them offer freebie information on their sites. I’ve downloaded quite a bit of it and made notes on some of the things I’m willing to try. I’ll be using my Lynne Scott Facebook page more than I have in the past. All 27 of my friends who have liked the page will probably be highly annoyed by the increase in usage.

My first step this week was the toughest. I asked for help.

Why is asking for help so hard? It’s not something I normally do even though I have great friends with big hearts. But this week I screwed up my courage and asked four people who regularly buy and read my books to read Vapor Point and write a review of it for me. You know that time in junior high when it was girl’s choice and you had to ask the guy you liked to go to the dance with you? You know the drill – you put it off, made a couple of abortive passes in the hallway that culminated in “Hi…” followed by a blush and run as you got all sweaty and queasy. Yeah… this felt just like that. I think I wrote four different messages before I just blurted out the question. All four were quick to agree and they actually seemed enthused about it. Maybe putting it off until after happy hour was the right thing to do after all.

The other thing I did this week for the first time was ask a Facebook friend who had just finished reading Saving Emily to say so in a Facebook post. She did more than that. She posted a short, sweet, and very cool, 5 star review on Barnes and Noble – “Saving Emily grabs you from the start! A little passion, some mystery and a strong female character. I loved it.” and followed it up on her Facebook page with: “If you’re looking for a great summer read… I recommend Saving Emily by Lynne Scott. Loved, loved, loved it!” Three of her friends posted that they were buying the book and a fourth added it to her Kindle Wish List. Her fifteen seconds of kindness has introduced me to four new readers who might never have heard of me otherwise. How cool is that?

Is asking people to review my books or mention me on their Facebook page hard for me to do? Yes. I feel like I’m imposing my business on our personal time and space. And yet, I ask people to share a recipe or a restaurant recommendation, so why shouldn’t I ask them to say something nice if they liked my book?

Is it a necessary part of low-budget marketing? Yes. People think that because I have 11 books out there that I must be making money. No book sales – no money. If you don’t get seen – you don’t sell books. That would be where I’m at.

Do I feel any less a soul-selling, sleaze-sucking slime-glob? I’m not sure how I feel. Kinda queasy, sweaty, and scared. But whether it’s a good or bad thing, I don’t know yet.

I have incredibly nice friends so the first steps have been much less painful than expected. Thanks to them, I’m ready to try a few more things. Slowly… very, very slowly.

Filed Under: Saving Emily, Vapor Point, Writing

Time to get back to work!!!

October 16, 2013 By Lynne Leave a Comment

November is National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org), known affectionately as NaNo to those of us crazy enough to participate. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month and perhaps complete that novel that you’ve always dreamed of. No self-editing, no rewriting, and no worrying about anything but getting the words on the page. I’ve done NaNo for the last three years and have completed it for the last two. Yup! That makes me a freaking winner!!! In 2011, I wrote Saving Emily from start to finish and blogged about the process here. It took several more months to rewrite and edit before Emily was ready for release. Last year, I went for completing the 50K word count and didn’t worry about finishing the book in the time given – it was too large a project for NaNo. Those words were part of The Embassy Guards. Getting all the words down on the page made me a winner.

I have no idea what the hell I’m going to write this year, but I need to decide pretty damn quick.

I have a couple projects in the back of my head, but I’d been taking some time off. My latest unnamed standalone suspense novel turned into a slog (for me) and I’m inclined to set it aside. I did this when I wrote A Shared Fear. I knew I had a good book but it wasn’t flowing, so I let it set and wrote Blood Link III – The Civilian. Focusing on something else took the pressure off me, and when I came back to A Shared Fear, it rolled right out.

With only two weeks to go, I’ll need to choose the project and lay out the novel. I can work blind, but I’ve found it’s better with NaNo to have a clue where I’m going. My list includes a plot outline and rough chapter schedule so I can meet my major plot points.

The other thing I need to do is alter my personal schedule. If I’m pushing the word count then I should warn my friends that I won’t be around as much, pay the bills in advance so I won’t forget, and warn the girl dog that she’ll have to be much more vocal in getting my attention to go out. I’m not telling the cat anything – she’ll use it against me.

Mr. Scott shall have to be forewarned also. He really doesn’t mind NaNo as my distraction often affords him the opportunity to practice his hunting and gathering skills. None of those skills are particularly healthy as he has a tendency to hunt between the closest fast food places and he gathers way too much Taco Bell than is good for us. This being said, I should also spend a little time in the next two weeks cooking a few things that can go in the freezer. And you should all buy stock in bag-o-salad since I sure as hell won’t be spending time making my own.

Oh!!! And names for my characters – yeah – I definitely need names. Something short and quick to type… like Ed or Sue…

Filed Under: A Shared Fear, Blood Link, Saving Emily, The Embassy Guards, Writing

The Freaking Process – The Idea

January 23, 2013 By Lynne 2 Comments

I’ll be doing a short series about the writing process. I’ll try to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked and explain how I get from idea to novel.

The number one question that I’m asked is – Where do you get your ideas?

I have an overactive imagination so I have lots of ideas. Most of them would make truly lousy novels. But every once in a great while, something decent percolates out of the mud and I grab onto it. Those ideas have been kicking their way to the top of the heap, and I have come back to them time and again like a terrier to a bone. The idea for Stuck in Korea Time was well ahead of the idea for A Shared Fear, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. But it just wouldn’t go away. Those are the ones that mean something.

Sometimes, the initial idea comes from a conversation that I overhear.
Guy #1 – “It’s hard to date when you’re a single parent.”
Guy #2 – “Dude, you have no idea. Wait until she’s a teenager. Thirteen year old girls are nothing but judgmental divas. Mine complains about anyone I date. Too tall, too short, too fat, too thin. It’s like they’re trying on some bitchy new personality.”

My immediate thought was, “What the hell would she say if you brought home someone five years older than you?” That thought was followed by a scene playing out in my head of an offended daughter making a snotty comment after coming home to find her darling daddy canoodling with the older woman on the couch.

My second thought was, “What if the woman she was so rude to was now the only person that can keep her alive when she is kidnapped?”

Saving Emily began with that overheard conversation and those two questions.

Ideas also come from goofing around. I was practicing for a speaking engagement, and I was playing with my laser pointer. Yes, I’m easily amused. I pointed it across a dark room just to see how far the light beam would go and when it appeared on the far wall, I thought to myself, “Wow! That looks just like a laser target dot. I wonder if it would fool anybody.” The scenario that popped into my head was an ATF agent confronting a group of bad guys with no backup. His girlfriend, hiding behind something puts the red dot on the leader’s chest and tells him she’s got them covered. I didn’t wind up using the laser pointer idea, but that’s how A Shared Fear actually came into being.

Sometimes, the idea comes from the things that scare me.
My biggest fear when I was in the military was that I would let someone down when they really needed me. That if we deployed to the wrong place at the wrong time, someone would get hurt because they were trying to take care of me instead of taking care of themselves. During my career, I heard literally dozens of stories about the problems during deployment. Diverted personnel, the wrong personnel, the wrong equipment showing up, equipment that never showed up, lost paperwork, no medical personnel, no rations, being stranded and being ignored. Protecting Parker was the sum of all these stories.

[By the way, if you think things like this don’t happen – you’re wrong. I can show you examples from every war where the wrong people and equipment are sent to the wrong place. The example I most frequently use is from Vietnam and the Battle of Ngok Tavak. When you read the sanitized version on Wikipedia, (it appears in a section about the Battle of Kham Duc and begins in the section marked Prelude) you should keep in mind a couple things. #1 – Captain White requested assistance in extracting his Mike Force. #2 – A Mike Force is supposed to mobile. They are best at the hit and run. #3 – A howitzer is NOT really mobile. #4 – The 33 Marines dropped into Ngok Tavak with their howitzer were artillery guys, not a trained recon unit or special forces. And just to be crystal clear – these types of things still happen.]

I can trace each of my books back to the basic idea or concept they came from. What I can’t explain is exactly why I couldn’t let one particular idea or image go. I simply know that when I can’t – it’s usually going to be a good book.

Filed Under: A Shared Fear, Protecting Parker, Saving Emily, Stuck in Korea Time, Writing

National Novel Writing Month

November 1, 2012 By Lynne Leave a Comment

Well, here we are back at 1 November again. You all know what that means – it’s time for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo (this still sounds like some kind of fantasy beast from the African plains) is all about making yourself (and your family) insane for thirty days as you frantically try to get 50,000 words down on paper in one month. Theoretically, those words create an actual novel.

I did it last year. 64K in thirty days. Those words became the rough draft of Saving Emily. It took several months of edits, beta reader comments, rewrites, and enough curse words to fill up several swear jars before Saving Emily was ready to go. The outline, timeline, and synopsis had been useful, but as always the story led me where it wanted to go. Saving Emily eventually wound up being about at 72.5K words and I’m extremely proud of this book.

So what’s the plan for this year? I’m not sure. I have no outline, timeline, synopsis, or anything else. What I have is a germ of an idea. Once again, I’ll be writing out my butt since I think my hero is in a career field (non-military and non-law enforcement) that I know nothing about. But he’s a guy, there’s a girl, there will be cops, border patrol agents, murder, contract killers, illegal immigrants, horses, dogs, a cat, a musical instrument, and a kitchen sink.

I’ll post random updates as I go. My goal this time is the word count of 50K, not the completion of the novel. This one will take a little longer, but NaNoWriMo will give me a really good start on the novel.

Now if I only had a name for my hero…

Filed Under: Saving Emily, Writing Tagged With: NaNo

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