Leia Howard - Author

When writing multiple series set in one world, keeping track of details can become difficult, especially if the main characters in one series are secondary characters in another.  My process for keeping track of events, timeline, characteristics, and conversations is old school. Basically, I open all of my previous books as pdfs (easy to toggle to and not so easy to accidentally type over).  I have a rough idea of which book holds which details, so I can quickly flip to the pdf and search for a word or phrase and reread the passage.   I also keep a written world bible filled with characters in each book and their relation to main characters and each other.  Did I meet a police officer from such-and-such, can I use them again in later books?  What about mentions of friends and family members?  Places that characters grew up?  Etc. For instance, I have several police characters that my main character in Touch of Gray interacts with in the first book...

My books occur in one world.  My main series follows one character while I also have short stories about other characters interspersed throughout the main series.  Keeping track of the details between books can be daunting.  I've written a previous post about tracking details within a book.  Now I want to focus on following through from previous books. A big part of writing a series is planting seeds in your current work that will not come to fruition until later books.  I do not want to drop the ball in setting something up or forgetting to carry it out.  Here are techniques I use to follow through with plot points, character teases, dropping hints about future antagonists, etc. Write ahead Before I published the first book in the series, I had already written the second book, plus I plotted the third book, and I made plans for a short story with another character.   By writing ahead, I know if I need to go to a prior (unpublished) work ...

Writing, for me, is a very individual endeavour.  I don't mean writing individually versus writing as a duo.  I mean that each writer has their own process, ritual, timetable, schedule, etc.  I've posted before about how I research .  Some writers love to research and spend more than half of their time researching while other writers want to devote their time to creating characters, building worlds, and/or developing intricate plots.  They agonize over the correct words to use to paint pictures in the readers minds, wanting everything to be just right. I, however, am a full-time student in a doctorate program.  I have a limited amount of time to write so I cannot afford to do extensive research nor other creative tasks, no matter how much I may wish to.  So fair warning, this 'How I Write' is based on my writing process and will not work for everyone. After I've done my preliminary research, I switch to writing mode.  Anything I may need to go...

First up, a new episode of my podcast "An Indie Author's Life" has been published.  Feel free to check it out. Now on to the topic at hand. I am by no means a writing technology guru.  I've tried Scrivener but I became frustrated not knowing all the tips and tricks to get the software to do what I wanted it to.  I felt that I was wasting valuable time trying to look up how to do something rather than writing.  My time is first dedicated to school and my studies, then friends and family with only a limited amount of time remaining for writing.  I am sure that with further use, I would have felt more comfortable using Scrivener, I just didn't have the time to devote to learning how. So, I decided to use what I know best, Microsoft Word.  I am very familiar with Word from university as well as years in the business world. I know basics of how to use the Navigation Pane, hyperlinks inside the document, tracking changes, comments, etc.  I have the fo...

Have you ever been reading something and had to reread a prior sentence, paragraph, or section to keep up with what is going on? You read a sentence and think, "Wait, I thought it was morning time," or "Wasn't Character Q on the other side of the room, did they move?" or something similar. That is just as a reader, imagine being a writer. For big picture stuff between books, I reread my previous books in the Touch of Gray (TOG) series prior to writing a new story. This is to refresh my memory of prior events, character details, and perhaps I planted a seed for future story and I need to jog my memory. Though I may be writing the books months apart, a reader may be reading the books back-to-back and inconsistency in small details like the color of the wall or what type of vehicle a character owns would give me pause. I know some authors never reread their books, or they focus on one section if they have to recreate a scene. I prefer to just reread everything. L...

Some writers loathe research, they created their world and they just want to write it. I love research, sometimes a little too much. I have to force myself away from looking into anything further, I start out wanting to know what flowers are present at a certain time of year in a particular location and end up reading about spring festivals in the area or about a cross-town rivalry in high school American football or something. Prior to writing Out of Touch (OOT), the first novel in the Touch of Gray (TOG) series, I had two extensive research periods. The first when creating the world and characters (world building fun), then after plotting OOT and discovering what more I needed to know to write the first book. Subsequent books and short stories only require me to research stuff for that particular book or story, thank goodness.  I greatly admire writers that have multiple series in multiple worlds going simultaneously. The amount of research needed for just the world creation al...

I am a very organized person. I have written prior posts like how I World Build and all the little things I do behind the scenes to expand the details of the world I create. I have maps, calendars, character sheets, a history of the world, Gray's timeline of events before and after arriving in her current location, etc. All of this I developed before writing the first draft. You may wonder if I outline my book before writing the first draft? You would expect that as organized and detail-oriented as I am, I outline extensively. In fact, I don't outline, at least not traditionally. I actually just list major story beats and then timeline it. It may be similar to how television writers, screenwriters, or playwrights write their scripts or plays. I do not write like they do, narrative versus scenes, but I may create the structure of my story similarly. In more detail, here is what I do. First, I construct the main plot or mystery. This can pertain to a police consultation or i...