[GUEST BLOG] Bethany Wiggins on Plotting

This is a stop of the official Stung tour schedule. Here you will find a guest post by Bethany Wiggins, information on her books, and a giveaway link.

So, you want to know my views on plotting? Well, I’m one of those people who doesn’t exactly know the details of the manuscript I’m writing until I type The End. I know HOW it will end, just not quite how I’m going to get my characters there.

Example: the fastest way from point A to point B is a straight line, right? Not when I wrote Stung! If point A was page one, and point B was page 304, there were about 5,000 different routs between the two and I had to pick the twistiest one. It was hard. It made my brain hurt some nights. I got stumped sometimes.

I remember being about 100 pages into Stung and getting totally lost, so I sat down with a trusted creative person (my husband in this case) and told him Stung‘s plot so far, told him how I wanted it to end, and then begged him to throw out some bizarre plot scenarios. 9 out of ten I would disregard, but every tenth or so idea he had got my brain working. It all started to come together.

When I finally wrote THE END of Stung, the dots didn’t quite line up, and I knew it! Grrr! There was something missing. I sat down, mapped out the whole story, and then I wrote the chapter in the very middle of the book (in the shadowed alley, with the raiders). And THEN it was done.

So that’s how I plot!

Prize: Signed copies of Stung (number TBD) and honey sticks! (Read the book to understand!)
Link
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Bethany Wiggins
Stung (Stung, Book 1)
Bloomsbury (US: 2nd April 2013; AU: 1st July 2013 UK: 4th July 2013)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Fiona doesn’t remember going to sleep. But when she opens her eyes, she discovers her entire world has been altered – her house is abandoned and broken, and the entire neighbourhood is barren and dead. Even stranger is the tattoo on her right wrist – a black oval with five marks on either side – that she doesn’t remember getting but somehow knows she must cover at any cost. And she’s right. When the honeybee population collapsed, a worldwide pandemic occurred and the government tried to bio-engineer a cure. Only the solution was deadlier than the original problem – the vaccination turned people into ferocious, deadly beasts who were branded as a warning to un-vaccinated survivors. Key people needed to rebuild society are protected from disease and beasts inside a fortress-like wall. But Fiona has awakened branded, alone – and on the wrong side of the wall…

Bethany Wiggins
Cured (Stung, Book 2)
Bloomsbury (UK: 2nd January 2014)
Buy (UK) Buy (Worldwide)

Bethany Wiggins
Shifting
Bloomsbury (US & AU: 27th September 2011; UK: 6th December 2012)
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After bouncing from foster home to foster home, Magdalene Mae is transferred to what should be her last foster home in the tiny town of Silver City, New Mexico. Now that she’s eighteen and has only a year left in high school, she’s determined to stay out of trouble and just be normal. Agreeing to go to the prom with Bridger O’Connell is a good first step. Fitting in has never been her strong suit, but it’s not for the reasons most people would expect – it all has to do with the deep secret that she is a shape shifter. But even in her new home danger lurks, waiting in the shadows to pounce. They are the Skinwalkers of Navajo legend, who have traded their souls to become the animal whose skin they wear – and Maggie is their next target.

Author photo from BethanyWiggins.com

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