Plan or Make It Up As You Go Along?

A Literal Literary Loser Talks Plotting Strategy

Back at the turn of the century (this one, not the last one; I’m old, but I’m not that old), the editor who edited my first published novel, a Regency Romance, emailed me to say that another editor at her new publishing house (remember, I get abandoned by editors and agents - a lot) was looking for a writer who knew about figure skating.

Editor #1 remembered that I had worked for ABC, NBC, ESPN and TNT in their figure skating coverage department and recommended me. (This, by the way, was an editor who had recently turned down another romance pitch of mine, so you can never assume what any professional relationship will yield in the long run.)

Editor #2 hired me to write the biography of Sarah Hughes. I did, and then sat white-knuckled at the 2002 US National Championships as “my” skater barely made the Olympic team, coming in 3rd. If she hadn’t qualified, the book, which came out December of 2001, would have hardly been relevant.

But then, Sarah redeemed herself by coming out of nowhere and winning the 2002 Olympic Games. “Sarah Hughes: Skating To the Stars” went into a second printing, and I assumed this was the luckiest thing that would ever happen to my publishing career. (It was not, but that’s another story for another time.)

Because the Sarah Hughes book did so well, my editor was willing to entertain my pitch for a fictional figure skating mystery series.

Because I’d worked behind the scenes at so many skating competitions, readers would ask me, “When are you going to write your tell-all book?”

And my standard answer was always, “When I am sure that I never want to work in figure skating ever again.”

I could not write what I knew as non-fiction. But fiction… fiction I could do.

So what would my first figure skating mystery be about? I wrote up a proposal for a competition which took place in Russia, featuring as many Russian characters as American ones.

“No,” the editor said, “cozy mystery readers don’t like books that take place in foreign places.”

So I wrote up another proposal, this one taking place in the US, about a promising Junior skater who mysteriously disappears right before the national championships.

“OK,” the editor agreed. But she didn’t sound particularly enthused.

And then, at the same 2002 Olympics where “my” Sarah won the gold in the women’s event, we got the scandal in the pairs event, where judges were accused of colluding.

That same night (a weekend), I sent an email to my editor with one line: The judge who gave the gold to the Russian over the American is murdered.

Her reply came back: YES!!!!

There’s the enthusiasm I’d been looking for!

“Murder on Ice” was published in 2003, followed by “On Thin Ice” (the one about the Junior skater), and then “Axel of Evil” (the one set in Russia).

While I said I wasn’t going to write a tell-all book about skating, I did write a non-fiction title, “Inside Figure Skating,” a coffee-table book.

In it, I interviewed Doug Wilson, ABC’s legendary skating director. He told a story about how he originally intended to start Brian Boitano’s 1988 Long Program with an overhead shot, emphasizing how alone he was on the ice. But, at the last minute, the camera he needed wasn’t available, so Doug improvised, focusing on the dramatic head turn at the beginning, which ended up becoming one of his signature images.

As Doug said, “This just goes to show you, if you work hard and plan… you never know how lucky you can get.”

It’s the same for writing. Plot and plan… and then you just might get lucky. Like I did.