Let’s talk all about your writing style first…
What comes first, the plot or characters?
KB: This can change with me from book to book, series to series. I write like a soap opera with carry-over characters, so it is usually the characters that lead the way. However, there are times when a storyline is in my head and I’m able to line a character up with that.
Where is your favorite place to write?
KB: I like to write at my dining room table when I want to feel connected with my family. When I need to have silence, then I write at my desk in my office in my finished basement.
How much ‘world building’ takes place before you start writing?
KB: As I stated before, I write like a soap opera with carry-over character, environments, and storylines. Some of my stories, do not have a whole lot of world building. I might mention the environment but it’s not that big of a deal for the story. With my current project (Falls Village Collection), it’s been huge. The collection focuses on the town so there was a ton of world building. I have various authors from RomantiConn also writing in the collection, so we needed to coordinate our characters and the town shops…it took a few excel spreadsheets and a map.
How do you come up with the titles to your books?
KB: This changes with me as well. My first series, The Stone Series all start with the letter S (Sliding, Stoned, Siblings, Second Chances, Screen Play, Stealing Home, Surrender, Starting Over, Silence, and Survivor…the Holiday edition is called A Stone Family Christmas *insert shrugging emoji*).
My doctor trilogy was originally titled as follows: Anatomy of Love, Dissection of Love, and Sutures of Love. I named them with “medical” terms. Once scooped up by an online publishing house, they required that they be renamed as Anatomy of Love Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3. I also kind of like the AOL shortened version.
Vines of Ivy (VOI) was named that because it’s about friends attending an Ivy League university.
The Compatible Companion Trilogy was named after I fell in love with the song You Are the Reason by Calum Scott. The first book is You Are My Reason. Not really sure how I landed on My Forever Maybe or After You for the second and third book. The trilogy is the CC trilogy because it’s named after the dating company opened in VOI.
My new project (Falls Village Collection) is named after the town I created called…Falls Village. So far, I have named my books in the collection: The Rest of Forever, From Then Until Forever, Promise Me Forever, Forever To Go…see where I’m going with that? The other authors in the collection are not using Forever as their title motivation.
