In Part One of this blog series, I talked about how I come up with my basic ideas for my series romance books. Once I have my basics down – my hooks, my conflict, and my character’s arcs – it’s time to figure out what actually happens in the book. 

Series romance is a funny beast for plotting. I’ve read incredible romances that, outwardly, have next to nothing happening in them – because the story is actually the internal journey that the characters take, rather than the external one. 

It takes a pretty incredible writer to pull of a story where the characters go nowhere and do nothing – except fall in love – but it can be done. 

Probably not by me, though, so this is where I start figuring out some action for my plot. 

First off, I dream up the following key scenes: 

Opening image

Usually, by this point I have an idea where my story starts. In fact, that’s often the first thing I have. Whether it’s a bride trying to climb out of a window until her best friend shows up with another way out, or a pregnant heroine turning up at an Earl’s castle to tell him he’s going to be a father, or even a desperate woman stranded in an airport in Rome, about to get a job offer… However my story starts, I know it has to be a moment of change. The point at which my hero or heroine’s every day existance gets turned upside down – usually by the person who is going to change their life forever. 

For Road Trip with the Best Man, my starting point was a bride getting jilted at the altar and going after her groom to find out why – only to find his brother, the best man, insisting on going with her because, unbeknownst to her, he thinks she’s a gold digger. 

Turning point

The next three key scenes are the ones that the story turns on. This first turning point is the point of no return. The moment the hero and heroine both realise they’re in too deep to turn back now. But it’s also a moment of action. For Dawn in Road Trip with the Best Man, it’s when she shoves her wedding dress in the bin and takes over the driving. She’s all in on this road trip, even now the prosecco has worn off. Cooper is stuck with her. 

Basically, I want this to be a scene where the hero and/or heroine both have a chance to walk away from whatever situation is holding them together – and they don’t take it. They’re in this now. 

Midpoint

This is the halfway point, as the name suggests. If my characters are going to get all the way to their happy ending, they have to pass through here. But this can’t just be any old scene, it needs to matter, more than almost all the others. This is the point where the story tips. My hero and heroine have already committed to the story – but now, they realise they’re in far deeper than they thought. 

Often this can be a first kiss, or a moment of closeness in a previously fraught relationship. The moment when the hero and heroine look at each other differently – and realise they’ve been looking that way for a while now. 

For Cooper, in Road Trip, this is the moment he realises that Dawn is nothing like his ex-wife – and that his brother Justin was wrong about her. She’s not the gold digger they both assumed she was – which means that Justin had no reason not to marry her after all. 

Dawn’s midpoint comes in the following chapter, when a conversation with Cooper about marriage and expectation makes her realise that she would never have been happy as Justin’s wife. 

The stories they’ve been telling themselves have changed, and everything looks different now. 

Black moment

The last of the three turning point scenes is the black moment. This is the all is lost, down in the hole with no way out scene sequence. It’s the point where that conflict I worked out between my hero and heroine comes to the fore – along with whatever lesson it is they have to learn.

This is the showdown between my hero and heroine. Where they throw all their cards on the table and show exactly why they can’t be together now – because at least one of them hasn’t learned that all important lessons yet. 

In Road Trip, this black moment comes when, having found Justin, he convinces Cooper that Dawn is just like his ex-wife after all, and only after him for his money. Dawn tells him he still can’t believe that anyone could love him for anything but his money – that’s the lesson he hasn’t learned yet. And because he hasn’t learned it, she leaves. 

Realisation

This is the moment they learn that lesson that’s been holding them back their whole lives. Often, one of them will learn it before the black moment, but at least one still needs to be clinging to their limiting paradigms as we hurtle into that hole. 

In Road Trip, realisation comes for Dawn when she acknowledges that it doesn’t hurt to know that Justin never really loved her – because she knows she didn’t show him the real Dawn, only the woman she thought he wanted her to be. The only one who sees the real Dawn is Cooper – which is why it hurts like hell when he turns her down at the black moment.

For Cooper, it comes straight after Dawn walks out in the BM, when Justin realises what he’s done and tries to make amends. He admits to being a coward, for not wanting it to be his fault when he called the wedding off. But if Dawn isn’t after Cooper’s money, she must want something else – his love. 

The lesson falls into place, and they’re ready for each other at last. 

Closing image

This is the happy ever after. In a romance, this always involves the hero and heroine coming together at last, completing each other. In the case of Road Trip, I knew I really wanted that to happen at the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine. Just because. So I made a note of that. 

Once I have these basics more or less set, it’s time to fill in the long stretches of story between them. For this, I come up with the following: 

Can’t Wait To Write It Scenes

These are the scenes that have been buzzing around in my head since I first dreamt of this story. They’re also the ones that fulfil the promise of the hooks and tropes I’ve chosen. 

Because Road Trip was, well, a road trip story, I knew that I wanted it to include things like an overnight stay in a motel that only had one room left, stopping to eat in diners, and a conversation about naming the car. 

I also wanted to include some of the weird and wonderful sights to see along the journey from California to New York – including, but not limited to, the world’s largest polar bear (stuffed) and the world’s biggest time capsule. 

Also, I knew I wanted the scene where they finally catch up with Justin to be an important one, and that I wanted them to spend a night together in New York at Cooper’s apartment. 

So I made a list of these scenes – aided by a map of the US with attractions marked – and used this as my starting point. 

The Inbetweens

With all my turning points and key scenes laid out, along with my list of scenes I can’t wait to write, the next this is piecing it all together. This includes the scenes that need to exist simply to join up the others in a logical manner. Of course, the important thing about these scenes is that they can’t just be filler – they need to matter. Something in the story, or my characters, needs to change because of them. 

The Synopsis

The synopsis is where I turn that list of scenes and turning points into an actual story. Basically, I take them all in chronological order and write out what happens, why, and how everyone feels about it. It takes ages, and I usually end up with 3-5,000 words worth of story summary, but it shows me where the holes in my story are, and where I’m going to flounder when I start writing.

When I have the synopsis as tight as I can get it, with all those holes filled, I’m ready to start writing!

(Which is, of course, when everything goes off the rails and I start making new discoveries that change everything I had planned. But that’s writing for you…)

How do you start plotting your stories?