Searching For New Writing Challenges

Every time I write something new I set myself a challenge to do something I’ve never done before. As an artist, I like pushing myself past my comfort zone. I like experimenting and seeing what works (and what does not).

Writing is like other forms of art in that once you think you’ve got it all figured out it’s time to put it away. I don’t want to limit my writing in any way. I want to allow my imagination freedom, and I want to grow as an artist. One way I accomplish that is by setting myself new challenges with everything I write.

Challenges When Writing a Series

I discovered many challenges while writing the Loving Husband Series. With Her Dear & Loving Husband, the challenge was figuring out how to work the past and present storylines together in a way that made sense yet kept readers on their toes as the storylines began to intertwine. I had never written a story with past and present storylines before, and it took some time (and help from a great beta reader) for me to figure out how to take the story I saw in my head and get it down on paper.

The challenge for Her Loving Husband’s Curse was to keep everything readers loved about HDLH while expanding the story into new territory. Her Loving Husband’s Curse was the most heart-rending book I had written to that point, so I had to learn how to write a story that was properly heartbreaking without leaving readers cold.

There was also a new historical background, the Trail of Tears, to bring to life. There were similar challenges with Her Loving Husband’s Return in that it had a new historical period—the Japanese-American internments during World War II. Mainly, the challenge for the final book in the trilogy was my intention for readers to be pleasantly surprised with the, well, surprise at the end. I wanted to leave enough clues so readers wouldn’t be blindsided, but I also wanted people to say “Look what James did!”

Down Salem Way Needed Something Different

With Down Salem Way, the main challenge was that I never intended for this book to exist. Strange, but true!

I had planned James and Sarah’s story as a trilogy, and when I finished Her Loving Husband’s Return I felt that the story was wrapped up. Somehow (thank the literary gods), the Loving Husband Trilogy found a devoted audience of readers, and many readers sent emails, left messages on this blog, and contacted me through social media (keep the messages coming—I love them!) asking, pretty please, if there would be any more James and Sarah books.

For awhile, maybe as much as a year, I said no, the story is wrapped up, that’s all folks. Then I realized that maybe there was more to say about James and Sarah, so I started writing Down Salem Way.

When I began thinking my way through Down Salem Way, I imagined it as part prequel, as in it would take place partially during the Salem Witch Trials, and it would be part sequel, taking place after Her Loving Husband’s Return. I don’t want to say too much about that storyline because I’m going to turn it into another Loving Husband story (yes, readers, there will be more Loving Husband stories after Down Salem Way).

I wrote a first draft of the prequel/sequel. I wrote a second draft. After wrestling with the second draft for a long while I realized that the story, in that format, wasn’t working for me. I put Down Salem Way away, knowing that I needed to rethink what I was doing. I’ve talked before about how sometimes we need to set our writing aside so that we can look at it with fresh eyes.

Finding Inspiration From Outlander

Like many of you, I like the Outlander series, both books and TV show. I discovered both in 2014 after the TV show premiered. I guess I had been living under a rock since I wasn’t familiar with the Outlander phenomenon until after I started seeing publicity for the TV show.

After I put DSW away for a rethink, I went onto Amazon to buy the next book in the Outlander series and I noticed the Outlander novellas. I bought Virgins and I loved it. As a writer, I loved the concept behind it—seeing an aspect of Jamie’s life before he met Claire that had been touched on in the books but not described in great detail. And then I thought—you can do that? You can go back and add more about something that had only been briefly touched on in the book? And that was my lightbulb moment.

Even when I was writing Her Dear & Loving Husband I knew I wasn’t delving into the Salem Witch Trials in as much depth as I would have liked, but there wasn’t room for it in that story. Her Dear & Loving Husband is about how James and Sarah find their way back to each other.

Her Dear & Loving Husband is a love story, and the history serves as the means through which James and Sarah find their way home. After reading Virgins, I thought, well, why not go back and visit James and Elizabeth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692? Why not look at the life that James and Elizabeth had before the madness of the witch hunts? And why not examine how the madness affected them?

When The Story Takes on a Life Of Its Own

In Down Salem Way we watch a wealthy merchant’s son and a poor farmer’s daughter fall into such a passionate love that it transcends time. Loving Husband Trilogy fans know what I’m talking about. DSW is strictly an historical novel—it takes place in 1692—so there’s no jumping back and forth between the past and the present as in the other Loving Husband books.

It’s also told entirely in first person point of view—James’ POV, in fact. The other Loving Husband stories were written primarily in third person POV, with flashes of first person from either James or Elizabeth, but James is the right person to tell the story of Down Salem Way. The novel is his diary, after all. John, James’ beloved father, plays an important role in Down Salem Way. Geoffrey and Miriam also make appearances.

While Down Salem Way has the main element fans love about the Loving Husband stories (namely, the love story between James and Elizabeth/Sarah), it is also its own being. I was asked recently if Down Salem Way is a stand-alone book, and my answer is yes, I think it is. I think it adds some depth to James and Elizabeth’s story if readers have read the Loving Husband Trilogy, but I don’t think it’s necessary for understanding.

I had never written an epistolary novel before (simply put, an epistolary novel is a novel written as letters, a diary, or a journal), so that became my main challenge in bringing James and Elizabeth’s story to life. Writing out James’ journal has been my greatest joy in writing Down Salem Way. I’ll have more to say about writing an epistolary novel in a later post.

For now, I’ll say that writing an epistolary novel is indeed a challenge, but it’s one I’m glad I took on. I’m learning so much along the way.