The Best Bits

I’m in the most stressful stage of a book (for me): planning and beginning to draft, which always feels like wandering around in the dark. As each book comes out, this process grows more complex. Not only do I have my own eight (!) books in the back of my mind, but my knowledge of other books in the market has grown exponentially since mine have been published. I have the type of brain that analyses everything in as much detail as it can, so perhaps swimming in ideas is a better description than wandering in the dark.

The problem is not the complexity: I have two characters, already quite well-formed; I have a setting; I have a plot framework. My problem is distilling all of this into something that could be a book blurb. My editor does the actual blurb writing, but I need to produce something with a core idea that will encourage readers to buy it. Since I prefer to operate in complexity, narrowing down these ideas into a single, marketable hook is REALLY difficult, but it helps focus my writing to have a clear idea of what that hook is.

For some of my books, the hook arrived in my mind almost ready-made and the story just flowed from there, but others I needed to chew on for a while. Add in that I try not to repeat ideas or types of characters across books (which, if you look at the market, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I still can’t bring myself to do it), which also means all of my previous books ‘haunt’ the process.

As I’ve been thinking about my books and what makes them unique and what puts them into a particular market segment (which is still blurry and vague to me!), I was thinking about the small details of each book that stay with me just as strongly as the main hook. It often happens that a small moment – maybe only a sentence – becomes something I look back on with satisfaction, which is downright bizarre, given that each book is about 90,000 words long!

So what are these little bits of each book? Let’s see if I can think of one for each.

In Italy Ever After, the second time Lou and Nick sleep together, he has to rush back up to the school kids and there’s this little sentence about him sheepishly doing up his trousers and weirdly that moment just encapsulated their relationship for me. They just couldn’t keep their hands off each other despite the inconvenience of the situation and the potential for embarrassment!

In My Christmas Number One, there is a tiny moment in Cara’s narration when she observes Javi wearing an old T-shirt and imagines what it would feel like to wear it herself. She’s nowhere near actually starting a relationship with him at that stage, but that little thought captured something about their growing attraction and stuck with me. Perhaps that one stuck with me even more because my editor initially suggested taking it out, but I reworded and asked to keep it!

In a Match Made in Venice it has to be Piero’s tiny swimming trunks! My beta readers wanted me to take them out, but instead of deleting, I added stripes! I loved putting him in skimpy swimmers on New Year’s Day! He’s proud and unashamed and he didn’t care if they were super skimpy!

In We’ll Always Have Venice I always loved the bit near the end where Norah and Gianluca sit next to each other in the train to the airport and gradually touch more and more (that whole section is some of my favourite stuff).

In Twenty-One Nights in Paris, it’s probably the little moment where Sacha sings along with a rap song in the back of the car! I thought of taking that scene out at one point because of pacing and just not being certain if it fit, but I liked it too much to take out!

There are probably a few Tiziano moments I could choose from in a Taste of Italian Sunshine, but I’ll pick the second time Jenn sees him, when he’s drinking beer on his terrace in just his underwear and he actually burps. Tiziano is my favourite anti-hero (actually Piero is up there too). I know some readers were expecting a suave Italian gentlemen, but I don’t regret giving them Tiziano instead! He’s a bit rough around the edges, but when he falls in love, he falls hard, and he’s got a heart of gold. A close second for Italian Sunshine would be when he takes Jenn’s hand after they run into his friends at the river. I love a hand-holding moment!

I like the bit in Snow Days With You when they’ve already slept together once, but without necessarily any expectations of a continuing relationship (because they both know they’re not in a position to commit). There is a really sweet scene where Yannick wants to see her, but he’s not sure if he’s supposed to ask her on a date or come up with some other kind of excuse. He’s so cute and confused in that scene.

And for book eight, it’s the moment when the main character Jo undoes the knot of Adrian’s tie in front of the whole congregation during a wedding!!

I would love it if all my readers had their own favourite moments.