After spending this summer mostly focusing on the kids, day job, and catching up on sleep, I was relieved to find my writing mojo again. I’ve had a story idea gelling for quite some time. Not all the components were there, but enough that the characters were beginning to do that demanding to be heard thing characters are so good at. Over the last weeks, I finally was able to get their story down in outline format and get quite a bit of the first chapters out. The story is a single-title suspense with lots of twists and turns. This is the genre I started out writing and is also the one I still love to most read and write.

Unfortunately reality then had to dawn in the form of a deadline for another story. This one a contemporary erotic romance novella. To say there is a difference in my process in writing one to the next is vast is putting it mildly. Yes, I still need to invest some forethought into writing the novella, but since the story isn’t focused around a suspense angle and I know my editor mostly wants sizzling heat packed into those very limited pages, I feel like I’ve gone from cramming for a final exam to taking a pop quiz.

Of course, pop quizzes have never been easy for me. In truth, I do better with final exams. And I find the same is true in regards to writing the full-length story with lots of twists over the shorter one that is mostly based around the heat and emotion that centers on a short period in two character’s lifes. Where after cramming for months on the suspense, I was then able to jump right in and get out pages I loved in short order, I am now struggling to find an opening I love and that doesn’t feel cliche in some mode or manner with the novella. I keep hungering for the big story, the grand concept, the endless twists and turns. Not to mention a hundred or so pages to build a relationship before my leads hop into the sack.

On a good note, one twist did surface with the novella that I never saw coming and I do like how that is working with the story. On a not-so-good note, it still isn’t on par with the twists in the suspense, and I find myself wanting to return to the suspense instead of writing the novella. Well, that isn’t something that can happen, since the novella is under contract and due shortly, and the suspense merely a proposal to be shopped around. So for now I am soldering on, bumbling my way through this pop quiz and hoping the result doesn’t read nearly so bumbled in the end. And then, too, reminding myself that a shorter story with less twists and turns can be very nice indeed.

Having said that, I then think, geez, is it? What do you think? Do you enjoy a shorter read with a fast and relatively fun plot? Or is the longer, more gritty tale more your cup of tea? For me, it generally comes down to mood on any given day, though in the end, I would have to say the longer, grittier story almost always wins out.

~ jodi

www.JodiLynnCopeland.com