What good intentions do you have for this week?  Or should we just bag this post and stick with Good Sunday and Good Book Thursday and then Watching Wednesday whenever I have something I really like to share?  Up to you.  It’s really your blog, I just type here.

What good stuff happened to you this week?

Three of the books are Alice books, which means they all have ghosts:

“Spooky Alice” is a novella about Alice at fifteen, but it’s really about Southie falling for Alice’s art teacher.   The guy deserves an HEA.  I have most of this done, I just need to work on the romance.

You Again is my homage to Agatha Christie: a novel about a bunch of people snowed in a big house on the Ohio River, including Alice at 16 and Isolde.   Again, Alice is a supporting character; this one is about Zelda, an expert on poisonous plants, and the equally toxic family (not hers) that fills up the house for Christmas.  I have a full draft of that, but it’s not good yet.  I know how to make it good, but it’s not there yet.

Haunting Alice is Alice’s story, about going back to Archer House, accompanied by the guy her brother hired to help her, Ethan Aldridge.  Yeah, Nadine’s Ethan.  They’re fighting a duplicitous parapsychologist and Aunt May again.  And Dennis and his bolster are along for the ride.   I think I have about 20,000 words of that done, but I’m still excited about it.

And then there are the fairy tale stories.  These are stories that began as collaborations with other writers, but we were all busy to collaborate, so I just keep going on my own.  I love them.  I have starts on the first four novellas, the first one almost finished, and a good chunk of the novel done.  They’re alternate history settings, set in an alternate turn of the century, and they’re all based on fairy tales as a starting point, full of magic and spells and other fun stuff (well, it was fun to write).

First up is the Paradise Park series of novellas:

Zo White and the Five Orphants
The Frog Principle
The Goose Guy
The Rubber Bridegroom
The Twelve. Missing Princesses
The Wolf and the Witch

Followed by a novel, Monday Street.

But more probably it’s the next three Burney stories with Bob.  The most I have for those are titles and premises:
Yellow Brick Road Kill: The town gossip’s twin sister is killed in a hit and run.
Blood Curdling Green: Somebody is poisoned at the grill.
Blue Blood: Turns out Cleve was murdered.  Who knew?

OR the Rocky Start books, which I don’t even have titles for, let alone premises although I’m pretty damn sure Max gets Maggs back.

Anyway, that’s what I’m doing behind the scenes here.  I have plans.  Big Plans.  I’ll be updating the Works in Progress pages with the beginnings of some of these as I update this blog in general.  There are over 4000 posts on here, half of which I put back into draft form when the blog got hacked.  Most of them need reorganized and recategorized so they’re easy to find.  Obviously this isn’t a high priority–the current series books and Argh posts are, the old posts not so much–but it needs to be done. This place needs cleaned up, so that’s my winter project. (In case you were wondering, there are 232,826 comments on this blog as of August 29, 2026, 21,556 of which are mine.  You all are keeping Argh Ink alive and I’m grateful.)

Anything else you want fixed here?  Even if you asked before, ask again so I can keep the list of fixes organized.  I know there was something about the comments listing, the way they’re listed?  I did ask the web mistress to fix that back when you asked, but nothing has happened, so I will need to go back and prod.  Tell me what you need and I’ll give her a list.

And now back to Anna.

However, because I’m a sprained plotter, I have developed all kinds of coping mechanisms and theories for the rewrite.  They don’t always save me, mostly Bob does that now, but they work for me.  I should make it clear that these are not rules, they’re not even guidelines.  They’re just some of the theories that help me analyze a plot to the end in the rewrite without imploding. (I have a lot of theories.)

1. Stability to Stability:  When I’m looking at how to plot a book, I start with stability.  The protagonist’s situation might be awful–it’s definitely not right for them–but it’s stable, the protagonist knows how life works and is not in danger, both feet on the ground.  And then Something Happens (also known as the Inciting Incident or the Day That is Different) and now the ground is unsteady under the protagonist’s feet.  The book can start in the moments before the Incident, open with the Incident. or moments (or hours) after the Incident hits, but the Big Start is the moment the Protagonist’s world goes sideways.  And then comes the Plot, events of escalating conflict, until finally we get to the Big Finish and in the aftermath of that, the protagonist’s world is stable again.  The best place for that is the final scene, the denouement, the safe space for the reader to take a breath and know that everything is okay again.  Not the same okay/stability the protagonist has at the beginning; this stability is new and brighter, in part because the protagonist has grown through conflict, but the person we’ve been following through the upheaval is okay.  So I look at “Where was this person at the beginning?  Where is this person at the end?” and make sure the arc–plot and character–is inherent in those first and last scenes.  The “get that guy” scene is the end of the conflict, the new stability at the end is the end of story.
2. The Doppelgänger Effect: I really love this one.  The relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist has to be a close one, even if they aren’t close personally (although that’s always more fun to write).  The reason they’re in conflict is because of who they are and what they need and what they’re willing to do to get it.  And one way to get that on the page and arc the story is to make them the same person in the beginning; that is, the same flaws, the same goals, the same biases.  And then, through the conflict, show the protagonist growing, getting smarter, connecting to people, essentially maturing into the person they’re going to be at the end.  The antagonist, not so much.  Driven by their needs, they don’t see the people around them, can’t let go of the goal they’re obsessed with, and so, even though they might have been smarter in the beginning, they lose because they can’t change, and the protagonists win because they can.  The best example of this that I know, the one that made me realize what a lifesaver this can be if my plot is creaking, is Raiders of the Lost Ark.  At the beginning, it’s clear that Indiana Jones and the French archaeologist are the same kind of person: they’re both stealing religious objects from cultures they don’t understand or respect.  But at the end, when the French guy opens the Ark, Indy tells Marion not to look because there are things they’re not supposed to see, which means they survive while the French guy melts like ice cream in the sun.  (I used this example at Ohio State once, teaching a creative writing class, and got a lot of blank looks.  One of them finally said, “That movie came out before we were born.”  That was the first time I realized I was old.). So anyway, just like I track the arc from stability to stability in the rewrite, I can track the arc of the protagonist learning while the antagonist doesn’t and use that to show why the protagonist wins.
3. Character Arc in Event: The big thing I have to remember in arcing a character is that it’s all well and good that they realize things, have insights, change, but the important thing is the event that makes them change.  It can’t just be the character having this amazing epiphany for no reason; some actual event has to jar them into the realization, give them insight they hadn’t had before.   The basic cheat sheet for this is turning points, but turning points also have to be events, not just realizations.  First something happens, bodies in motion, and then the character changes.  Or to put it another way, if nothing happens, the character has no reason to change.  So I can look at the events of the plot in that character’s life, see how they get stronger, hit the character harder, and then make sure the character changes because of that, tracing the arc through events.  Because I rely so heavily on dialogue, I really need to make sure those events are in there and that they arc smoothly to drive the character growth.  Or as Bob once wrote me, “Are these people ever going to DO anything?”  Why yes, let me show you how the events arc.  The other thing about events?  They should be the result of the protagonist’s actions driving the antagonist to action.  In other words, the protagonists can’t just be standing around getting hit by the antagonist’s bus over and over again.  They have to engage, power the action, spur the antagonist to fight back harder, take greater risks.  You know.  Character arc.  And why is that important at the end?  Because character arc is where they prove they deserve the win.  No lucky breaks, no unexplained saviors, no gods in machines coming in to save the day.  The Big Finish is the proof they earned their victory.

Okay, so at the end the protagonist is stable again, has grown and smartened up, and defeated the antagonist (again, in my books, your endings may differ) by causing the Big Finish event.  Do all the plot threads have to be tied off at the end?  I think that’s actually a bad idea.  In real life, one event doesn’t solve all the problems in the protagonist’s world.  A meteorite did not take out the awful parents in Bet Me, they were just something Cal and Min were going to have to continue to deal with in the future.  Di and her idiot fiancé did not reconcile, so Di was alone at the end.  Liza and Tony broke up, amicably.  Real life is messy.  (So why did the last chapter do a recap of the future, something I had never done before or since?  Because Bet Me was designed as a fairy tale, and fairy tales end “And the all lived happily every after.”  That’s why the last chapter is the last chapter and not an epilogue; the story isn’t done until the “happily ever after.”)

So what can you leave unexplored?  For the stuff that I write and am now forcing Bob to write: minor stuff.  The main romance plot has to end in a solid connection.  The main action plot has to end with the Big Bad defeated.  Anybody we like who is in trouble or in misery had to be seen to at least have hope, not be finished.  The future looks bright.  Nothing but good times ahead.  Enough, in short, to leave the reader feeling that the worst is over, their lives have stabilized in a better place, and all the major questions are answered.  Minor questions can be left unanswered because, again, real life isn’t neat.  So did rehab work for Peri’s mother or is she going to regress?  I have no idea.  Does Max ever get Maggs back?  I have no idea.  Did Brenda ever get out of prison?  I have no idea. Are Shane and Agnes happy and committed to each other?  You betcha.  Is Max done walking the Appalachian Trail and home with Rose?  Yep.  Leaving little things unfinished is realistic.  Leaving Big Questions unanswered in the climax is just sloppy. (This, by the way, is the reason so many of the modern cliffhanger-ending books get thrown against the wall.  From a monetary point of view, it seems like a good idea: make the reader buy the next book to see what happens.  Except that the readers buy the next book because they liked the first book, not because it left them feeling frustrated and angry.  Always put the reader’s needs first.)

So Anna’s endings.  The first one is a big fake engagement party.  That is, Nate and Anna have told everyone they’re not engaged, it was a joke that went wrong, but her mother wants to throw a party, and of course it’s at the museum, and of course there’s violence and gunfire (Hi, Bob).  Anna wears a great black dress. Nate brings the wrong flowers.  The good guys win.  We get to stability.  Some Bads are removed from the plot, the protagonists advance, the world is stable at the end. Are there unanswered questions?  Some, but they’re lurking in the background.  The reader knows everybody is safe.  Take the win.

Then the Stealing Nadine ending.  New characters have arrived to complicate things, there a big party at the museum, there’s violence and gunfire, Anna wears her black dress again, Nate brings the right gift. The good guys win, some Bads are removed from the plot, the power structure shifts, our protagonists have huge changes in their life and work, and we’re stable again.

And then Tempting Nate. More new characters (Bob needs cannon fodder), there’s a big party at the museum to open the new collection, there’s violence and gunfire,Anna wears her black dress again, Nate brings an even better gift, the good guys win and are in a better stable place again.

So the plots all end in a new stability, and that stability is what we start the next books in.  It’s a different stability, and of course it’s attacked and threatened right away by the bad guys, but it isn’t lost.  They keep what they achieved in the previous book, and the future grows brighter in each ending because they’re solving problems, not fighting the same battles over and over, different threats in each book, bigger threats because they’re fighting for a better future each time.  That is, at the end of each consecutive story, the protagonists have a lot more to lose. The climaxes arc.

And to tie in all that stuff I wrote above: Anna moves from stability (a job she loves, friends she can count on, a mother who loves her) that is disrupted when her safe boyfriend turns on her and threatens her job, and then to a new and better stability at the end which I’m not going to tell you about because spoilers, but you knew things would work out, this is one of our books.

The doppelgänger bit works in both the romance plot and the action plot.  Anna and Jason are good at their jobs, invested in their work, careful in their life choices, always following the rules.  Anna arcs and Jason doesn’t, Jason loses.  Nate and his antagonist are in many ways the same person, but Nate changes and wins (I know, lack of detail, but again, spoilers).

And the events of the plot lead to the win at the end.  This is where the two plots, Anna’s and Nate’s, really come together.  The relationship grows, they change each other through the relationship, they become a partnership, and those changes mean they’re different people at the end and can kick antagonist butt, not only because of their character change but because they’re together, have each other’s backs, know they’re not alone in the fight.  It takes two to get to a new stability in both romance and action plots.

And that’s what I’m doing now, with excruciating slowness.

And that’s why, if we decide to do more books in the previous series, we’re going to have to do some serious talking about those romance plot climaxes.  We left both series with the protagonists in solid relationships, and I am not going to mess with that, they earned those endings.  So now what’s the romantic plot conflict?  Loads of things, of course, relationships are always tricky.  But I’m not going to have them having spats and making up, that’s just annoying.  So three more arcing climaxes to conflicts that I don’t have a grasp on yet.  If we do sequels, Bob and I are going to do some serious Big Finish discussions.  (His are easy: somebody Bad comes to town and his protagonist shoots them.  Sigh.)

Bob and I had an argument once.  (Well, we’ve had many arguments but we only had this one once.). He said the beginning of the story is the most important because that what hooks the readers, makes them want to keep reading.  I said it’s the ending because that’s what makes them feel it was a great story.  Actually, of course, it’s the beginning, the middle, and the ending, but we were zeroing in on the most important part.  Why do I know I was right?  Did you ever read a book with a weak beginning, but you kept reading and it picked up and suddenly it was really good and the ending was fabulous?  How did you feel about that book?  Did you ever read a book with a great beginning, hooked you right away, you were completely enrapt throughout and then the ending cheated out, clunked, left you feeling disgusted with its weakness?  How did you feel about the book.  Beyond that, which book did you reread?  Which author did you look for again?

Or to put it another way, lack of great climax is unsatisfying.  And unsatisfied readers tend to say “not tonight” to reading more from the author who let them down.

It’s the finish, people.  Which is what I must go work on now.  I wrote one once, but then my laptop died (Apple said I’d spilled something into the keyboard) and the hard drive got wiped, so now I must write it once again.  Before Bob drives to Pennsylvania and stands over me with a gun to get it done.

I’m thinking of adding ice pirates.

So what did you read this week?

Sometimes you just want to veg and watch.

So on some Wednesdays, not all, I’ll be putting up things to watch.  This is not Film School.  This is stuff that I loved.  Most of it will probably be funny.  Some of it will be short (I won’t be putting up movies here) and some of it will be writing about longer stuff (that’s where the movies and TV series would probably come in), but it’ll be all stuff that I liked a lot, that rinsed all the stress out of my brain, and that I could drink Diet Coke during without endangering another laptop.

The Phobia Workshop makes me laugh no matter how many times I watch it.  Cathy Maxwell sent it to me first, which just shows what a great friend she is, and besides the fact that it makes me guffaw all the way through, I love the writing here, the way it escalates in absurdity to the raucous end.  It’s just a great piece of comic writing. (Okay, the ending’s a little abrupt, but I laughed anyway.)

I had a very bad 2025–hospitalized with an asthma attack, hospitalized with heart failure, hospitalized with a cracked pelvis–no worries, I’m fine now, but my writing went to hell. And Bob has had the patience of a saint, even while he bombarded me with ice pirates, mafia romances, and zombies.  So we’re regrouping now, finishing the Nate and Anna series (because I have FINALLY got my act together), and talking about where we go next.

That’s the key to collaboration: Keep talking.  Discuss everything.  If you’re doing the two-authors-each-with-their-own-character thing, the only rule you have is that each author has total control over their own character: If Bob says, “Nate would not do that,” I rewrite so Nate doesn’t do that.  Everything else we negotiate on.  I think I wrote about this before, but there was a time toward the end of Very Nice Funerals where we butted heads.  Usually when one of us disagrees, the one who cares less gives in, a kind of “This is not the hill I want to die on” decision.  Rose was in danger and Max was on the other side of the Little Melvin, and Bob wrote that Max waded across the stream to save her.  I pointed out that the Little Melvin had almost killed Max earlier in the book, so he was not wading across it now.  So I wrote him jumping in Rose’s Pathfinder to save her.  Bob pointed out that he’d never get there in time.  And we argued.  A lot, both of us sure we were right.  Because we both were.  So Bob said, “Let me handle it,” and when he got back to me the next day, he’d written the perfect solution, based on stuff we’d written earlier.  I told him he was a genius.  That’s collaboration for you.

And then there’s the plot division.  When we met, twenty years ago, Bob was a science fiction/thriller writer and I was pretty much all romcom.  Big divide there.  Then we read each other’s latest novel–we hadn’t read each other before then-and the next day he said, “Lotta dialogue,” and I said, “Lotta violence,” but he wanted to learn to write romance and I wanted to write mysteries where people died in ways other than falling off of something high, so we agreed to collaborate.  It took us awhile.  I remember on the first book sending each other e-mails that crossed in the mail. Mine said, “Are these people ever going to TALK?” and his said, “Do these characters ever DO anything?”  Fortunately we learned to pull each other to the middle and I cannot speak for Bob, but I’m a better writer with him now.  And I’m grateful.

So where are we now?  Here’s a conversation from yesterday, trying to figure out a way to not make the same mistakes we made in figuring Nate and Anna out.  (No it’s not funny, we’re serious about this writing thing):

And that’s how we collaborate.

The rest of the time, I am trying to arc the damn romance, which is not easy because Bob likes short-time plots.  Like Anna takes place in a little over a week.  Starts on Friday with the one-night stand and ends in gunfire a week later on a Saturday night, with a nice denouement on Sunday morning at breakfast.  Insta-love?  Nope.  More “This could be the start of something great.”  This is why I like series.  I have two more books to arc the romance over.

So after Arresting Anna comes Stealing Nadine.  A week has gone by.  The museum has taken some heavy damage (see above re Bob and gunfire), and they’re getting things back to normal, and then Nadine shows up, a catalyst to the romance plot, an outside observer who looks at Anna and Gracie and after a night of drinking says, “WTF are you two doing?” romantically speaking.  So Nadine’s book is Anna going to Nate and saying, “WTF are we doing?” and Nate saying, “Haven’t a clue,” but doing his best.  That is, Book Two is pretty much a romance-in-progress plot, no big misunderstandings but a lot of confusion, some arguments, and some tentative plans.  And then Book Three, Tempting Nate, is just that, the romance tempting Nate to take a turn in life and take himself and his future seriously.  Anna has always taken herself seriously, so her turn goes the other way; maybe it’s time to just take a chance and jump into a new future?

Keep in mind, while I’m struggling with this, Bob is blowing things up and shooting people, so I’m not getting a lot help there, although once he buckles down and writes Nate-PoV romance scenes, he does a great job.  Much better than I do at shooting scenes.  I mean I wrote a great scene where a car blew up and he made me cut it.

Where was I?

Right, writing romance arcs.  So the time problem kneecaps me here.  I’m trying to talk Bob into a bigger gap between Book Two and Book Three, like maybe three weeks, but even so, that means when Book Three starts, it’s been just over a month since they met.  Granted it’s been about five weeks full of gunshots, helicopters, assaults at sea, kidnappings, bodies in sarcophagi, and Anna’s family, but still nothing that intelligent people would build a future on.  I keep thinking of that last scene in Speed when Keanu Reeves tells Sandra  Bullock that relationships formed under stress never last and she says, “Well, we’ll just have to base it on sex then,” and then Keanu is gone in the sequel.

Yeah, there has to be more there.

So I need to build in foreshadowing.  That is, I have to pack in enough clues that the reader can reasonably assume that this is going to last.  such as:

They trust each other enough to tell each other things, and the other person reacts in a way that reinforces the connection.  Not necessarily in the way expected, but the connection is stronger.  (During the one night stand, Anna asks Nate about changing her hair color as Jason asked; she has no intentions of doing so, but she figures if she asks a stranger if it’s really that unprofessional, he’ll tell her since they’re going to part in the morning.  And he says, “This is the ex, right?  Never go near that asshole again.”)

They stand up for each other and protect each other, even though they’re not yet committed.  As one of my characters that I now cannot remember says to the other, “Yeah, but you’d save anybody, that’s what you do,” and the opposite number says, “Nope, I save you” with the unspoken “because I need you.”  That may even be in this book; my mind is tapioca at this point.  (Another example: the dueling parent dinners in Bet Me.  I wrote those because they were fun to write, but they also foreshadowed an HEA.)

They have shared experiences that lead to in-jokes, common reference points, same language usage. (Humor. Har.)

They see the same things going wrong that others miss; their eyes meet when something is off, checking with each other; they turn in different directions when something is funny but it would be inappropriate to laugh because they’ll set each other off.  They know they share each other’s values.

And they each know what the other needs; the gifts they give and the favors they do are not easy generic things, but things that show that they pay attention to the other’s needs.  (Like the air conditioner for Agnes, not the most romantic gift, but it made Agnes weak-kneed.)

They never hurt each other on purpose.  People lurching around at the beginning of a love affair often say the wrong thing, but once they’re really looking at each other, they never inflict pain on purpose.  That’s one of the reasons I hate the Big Misunderstanding.  It’s always about hurting each other because of the misunderstanding, and by the time that horrible trope shows up, it’s near the end of the story, the Last Test, and by then if they don’t know each other, care about each other, want the best for each other, what’s the point?  Mistakes, sure, but if they don’t value the relationship enough to talk about it, I don’t believe in the HEA.  Also, they’re idiots.  (I had a good time with that with Vince and Liz; they got mad but they talked.)

And they change for each other in small but significant ways.  Jason tells Anna to get rid of her dog.  Nate thinks the dog is mess.  But by the end of Book Three, he’s bought Johnny an FBI vest and takes him on rounds at the museum, mostly to amuse the patrons and horrify Jason, but he really is good with the dog.  (This is news to Bob, but he will cope.  As I’ve mentioned before, I jump around writing things in all the books, he starts at the beginning and goes till he gets to the end, but at the end of Tempting Nate, Nate and Johnny will be pals. No, Bob, you cannot shoot the dog.  We’ve discussed this.)

So the romance arc.  At the end of Arresting Anna, Nate and Anna are strongly infatuated with each other, limerence, but that’s not love-for-all-time, that’s immature love, which is how all mature love starts.  But mature love takes time–six months to three years, yes, I researched this a while back–and so all I can put on the page is infatuation with clues/foreshadowing for mature love.  Then in Stealing Nadine, they have things to work on, communication, goals, common needs, all that stuff a couple has to learn.  There are no big misunderstandings, but there are some fights, some compromises, and the basic message of the second/middle book is that neither one wants to walk away.  They stick when things get sticky.  And then the third book is them getting serious about the relationship and the future.  Even at the end of the third book we’re still about three months into the relationship, so what I need to do there is foreshadow the hell out of a good relationship with shared values, good communication, and a real need to be together.

Romance.  If you think it’s difficult in real life, try writing it so people believe in it.

(Well, he’s obsessive about the number of spaces between sentences, so it’s all just math.)

One of the most difficult things about writing story is pacing.  The story needs to move smoothly, without the reader saying, “Wait?  What?  This is too fast, I’m missing things” or “My god, this is slow, I’ll have to skim.”  It’s the reason every story needs beta readers that will be brutal enough to say, “I know you love this part but it’s boring.”  I once wrote a novel that had thirty pages of three women discussing art deco china.  No, you never read that scene, I cut almost all of it because it was death to pacing.  And I’m lousy at pacing.

And now I’m doing Parts instead of Acts, so I have to adapt.

My usual plan for pacing is to divide the story into four acts, each one shorter than the last.  Yes, I know readers don’t do word counts, but they do notice, if only subconsciously, big events like turning points (aka the ends of acts) and when those turning points start coming closer together, the pace has picked up.  And if each turning point has a higher stress potential than the last, I also have escalation.  Please note, I do all of this in rewrites, never in early drafts.  The early drafts are all for swinging wide, damn the topedoes, let’s do thirty pages on art deco china without guilt.  But then it has to be a story people want to read, and I start looking at acts, turning points, and word counts.

Except Anna is done in Parts not Acts, so I’m re-figuring word counts.

Part One of Anna is A Very Bad Day, essentially intro for Anna and Nate, but with a lot of escalating action.  In other words, even in Intro. Important Stuff must happen.  So Part One is

Chapter One: Anna at the Museum, her day going to hell.  2636 words.  That’s too many, but it’s the first chapter and I might be able to get away with it.  That’s what beta readers are for.

Chapter Two: Nate and the SWAT gone wrong. 1821 words.  That’s a good chapter length.  Also Anna talks a lot and Nate doesn’t, so the fact that Bob’s chapters are shorter actually reinforces character.

Chapter Three: Anna goes to AC and sees Nate. 2375 words.  Still too long.  I like chapters under 2000 words.  Again, see what the betas say.

Chapter Four: Nate goes to AC and sees Anna. 1661 words.

Chapter Five: Anna picks up Nate. 1227 words.  That’s short, but that’s where this scene sequence should escalate, so I’m good with it.

Chapter Six: Nate says yes. 920 words.  Short, but the man has a hotel room to get to.  Love the escalation there.

So as a scene sequence, Part One works for me because the chapters get shorter and the tension heats up.  I also like the way the Anna/Nate stuff plays off each other as we get to the Meet in Chapter Five.  Anna’s Chapter One and Three are too long, but I need to stop faffing around here and get this done.

So Part One is the intro and meet and Part Two is the One Night Stand.  Part One, by the way, is a total of 10,681 words, and I usually allot about 10,000 words of my Act Ones to intro/set-up, so that works for me.  Except for those two long chapters . . . MOVE ON, JENNY.

Then there’s Part Two, the One-Night-Stand.  It turned out to be 5676 words which is more than enough for a sex scene sequence.

Chapter Seven: Anna being nervous and babbling.  1334 words.

Chapter Eight: Nate trying to figure out what’s going on. 623 words.

Chapter Nine: Anna. Sex. 1330 words.

Chapter Ten: Nate still trying to figure out what’s going on and trying to sleep.  374 words.

Chapter Eleven: Anna.  Sex. 1986 words.

Okay the fact that Nate has so few words works for me.  There’s no blood in his brain.  Anna’s chapters are longer, but she has more to think about, obsess about, wonder about.  But that last chapter has to be shorter.  Again, I’ll ask the betas.  That’s what they signed up for.

And then we get to Part Three, which is the aftermath.  Breakfast at the hotel, they say good-bye and both go back to work where they have the meetings from hell and find out that Nate’s quarry was Anna.  Part Three ends when Nate and Carter show up at the museum to question Anna and possibly arrest her, which throws the story into Part Four which starts the whole building of the combined FBI and museum teams, which echos the building of the Anna and Nate relationship.

See, we have a PLAN.  It’s the execution that’s kneecapping me.  (Not Bob.  He’s great at execution. Bodies all over the place.)

But this is why I need word counts.  They’re my guardrails for pacing and escalation.

Plus they annoy the hell out of Bob who’s obsessing on two spaces between sentences.  So win-win.