Phyllis Bandy's Blog
November 20, 2020
How I Wrote My Thriller Light Series
When I began writing my Light series, I planned on writing only one book called Killing the Shine. When I did my fourth or fifth reading of my first draft I began to worry about a lot of backstory in my current story which involved several journals written by a character when she is dying to a character in the main (modern) story. I felt the backstory was necessary to explain why some things may be happening in the modern story. I feared it was distracting to my main plot in the book.
At the time, I used a wonderful editor who lived a half-hour's drive from me and who taught at SIUE (university), to do a developmental edit for me. He and two or three of his students reviewed what I had written, including twenty-two pages of backstory that was interspersed throughout the book.
After waiting about a week, I received a call from the editor. He and his students were unanimous that the backstory was, in fact, very disruptive to the main story. I needed to take an ax to all that backstory.
For my fee, he said he had another idea about the backstory. He said my characters (protagonist and antagonist) were colorful characters, and there was a lot of tension and conflict occurring in all those pages of backstory. He said, if it was him, he would write the story. Thus, I now have a series, including The Light Finder (Book1), Killing the Shine (Book 2), and Dark Dead Room, (Book 3).
At the time, I used a wonderful editor who lived a half-hour's drive from me and who taught at SIUE (university), to do a developmental edit for me. He and two or three of his students reviewed what I had written, including twenty-two pages of backstory that was interspersed throughout the book.
After waiting about a week, I received a call from the editor. He and his students were unanimous that the backstory was, in fact, very disruptive to the main story. I needed to take an ax to all that backstory.
For my fee, he said he had another idea about the backstory. He said my characters (protagonist and antagonist) were colorful characters, and there was a lot of tension and conflict occurring in all those pages of backstory. He said, if it was him, he would write the story. Thus, I now have a series, including The Light Finder (Book1), Killing the Shine (Book 2), and Dark Dead Room, (Book 3).
