Trying Something New

At anytime a story idea will come to me. I could be on the bus reading a book or at a church service. My genre is usually romance, but one day another kind of story idea came to me and I had it in my heart to write it out. It would be written in the first person point of view. It is a young adult fiction.

The youngest characters are teenage girls between the age of 16 and 18 and it has been a  very long time since I know what that was like, yet I wrote as the Lord leads me.  WHen I finished, I sent it to an editor and she told me I need to get to know my characters. Write everything down about them. I never do outlines and I felt stumped. What do I do? More importantly what I have gotten myself into? At that point I felt I wanted to give up yet a part of me said, "No."

I asked in a group if they can tell me what their teenage daughters are like. It's called research, but a few of the writers had other ideas: Volunteer in a youth group, get to know them. Right now I am having problems believing it could be possible because we are transportation dependant. We don't have our own transportation to get to church. If there is no one who could take us to church during the holiday season, then how will I be able to volunteer? There must be some other way to delve into a teenage's life. At this point, I am very dependant on God to help me through it.

If you are a parent of a teenage girl, would you be willing to tell me about your teenager?

Part Deux of What if..

As I was sharing with you the other day about "What ifs", I left you with a cliff hanger. Don't you just love Cliff hangers? Me neither, but I wanted to leave you hungry for more.

As we know, my story could have gone a different way. My last blog ended with him begging her to return. He loves her! You know I have an author friend whose hero has some flaws and so does mine: He has a heart of gold when it comes helping his friends and that was what got him in trouble. Eric is not the villain. Although he did not murder the man, he helped bury the body and that made him a criminal in his girl's friend's eyes.

Here is another What if:

What if he didn't help his friend?  Suppose he said to his friend on the cell phone,  "Hey, Craig, wish I could help you, but I am on a date." I can see many females applauding "YAY" and not only that Julie would be smiling ear to ear, but she would be concerned.

       "What did Craig want?" She asked as she popped a popcorn in her mouth.
       "It's nothing," He said caressing her face as he contemplated whether or not he should pop the question. "You look beautiful tonight."
        She blushed. Julie loved hearing how beautiful she was.

Now you may think I would not have a story. They are happy, but what if Julie is unhappy? In my book, she mentioned that Eric doesn't want her to influence him. She never talks about Jesus and this leaves her unsatisfied. She desired more in a relationship and she leaves him the next day.

This would be a whole new story. Instead of her leaving him because of what he did, she leaves him because he was hindering her Christian growth. I suppose I could write another version where he looks for her and the conflict would be whether or not, he would change his life for her or accept her decision and move on.

Eric and Julie are meant for each other, but the fictional god in my story (which is me) calls Julie away so that she could develop her relationship with Jesus-- the lover of her soul.