In this "Behind the Keyboard" interview, we get writing, publishing, and book marketing advice from traditionally-published author Kait Ballenger, author of Original Sinner and many other books.

Interview Transcript

J. G. Gates 

Hi and welcome to Behind the Keyboard where we explore the writing process of some of our favorite authors. Today we have Kate Ballinger with us. Kate is an award-winning author of dark romantasy and paranormal romance. She is obsessed with tales of morally gray, sometimes villainous heroes, and can't resist a spicy redemption arc. When Kate's not busy writing kinky paranormal fantasy, she can usually be found with her nose buried in someone else's naughty books. She lives in Florida's Bible Belt with her husband and two adorable sons, and she will gladly use that belt to whip you.

Kate, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Kait Ballenger 

Thanks so much for having me.

J. G. Gates 

So let's dive right in. So my first question is kind of open-ended, deliberately tell us a little bit about your writing process. Just like walk us through what it's like for you to approach a book from beginning to end.

Kait Ballenger 

So it's definitely changed over the course of my career. I tend to be more of like a discovery writer or a panster as some people call it. I like discovery writer because it sounds like nicer. But I will say at the beginning of my career, I would plot out bigger plot beats like before I even started, right? Looking at like what's the inciting incident turning point one, right?

J. G. Gates 

That's true.

Kait Ballenger 

I can go through some of the bigger story arc structure and only then would I start to put pin to page. But I've leaned into my discovery writer-ness. we have a cat  appearing with us. Welcome, pet friends. But I've leaned more into this discovery writer even more as I've started.

J. G. Gates 

Good. Embrace the cats, please. Of course.

Kait Ballenger 

…Continuing in my career. And so for the original Sinner series specifically, this was very much a joy project for me. It was a passion project. So it just was like, I was going on vibes at the start of it. Like I had like a couple songs that were like, you know, sparking inspiration and like varying ideas for scenes. But when I sat down, I was really just kind of letting it free flow. I do tend to edit a lot as I go. So like once I drafted a scene before I move on to the next one, the following day if I come back to it I will go through and I will edit the previous scene as a means of almost getting back in the mindset of where I was previously. So there ends up being a lot of like iteration in the process even though I'm a discovery writer so my drafts really come out relatively clean at the end because I do so much editing, but it just kind of helps me get back in the mindset of where I was going with the story.  But, very much a panster.

J. G. Gates 

I love that. And it's so interesting, because I feel like that's one of the pieces of advice that you see people say is like, never edit as you go, right? Like always, like get it on paper, get the whole thing done. Don't worry about editing as you go. But I think, you know, what you're saying makes sense to like when you sit back down again, it takes a minute to get back into the world. So like, you know, why not reread that past scene, do a little revision on it, and then you're like fully back into the world to continue ahead.

Kait Ballenger 

Exactly, , and like and I definitely do that in like chunks too because like I follow basically the W plot method and so like and I love using that and so I break the book basically into four acts and so like I Iterate the pages like as I'm writing the first act of like okay I'm editing and I'll go back to stuff that I've already edited even and kind of read through it like make little notes like as I'm going and then once I get to the end of that section and that section's polished then I go on to the next section. And I know a lot of writers definitely give that advice of like, don't edit as you go, but for me, it helps me get back in the mindset, it helps me continue on in the story, and then when I'm finished, I have a really polished draft that is like basically ready to go off to my editor.

So for me, the writing would not go faster if I didn't do the editing. The editing is a part of that process. I don't know if you're familiar with Becca Syme and her Write Better Faster courses, but I always just, I trust my intuition on that. That's the way it works best for me. And so my advice to writers is always to just go with, find what works best for you, trust your intuition, because it's going to be different for every writer.

J. G. Gates 

That's so true. There's really as many varied processes as there are writers out there, right? You mentioned the W plot method. Can you tell us what that is a little bit? Because I'm not familiar with it either. I haven't heard of that myself, so.

Kait Ballenger 

Yes. So, it's a plot structure that like it's very visual. It looks like an actual W, right? And so you start with the inciting incident is like the start of the W. And then as you're going down and you're getting like the problems are deepening for the main characters, right? Until you get to another like the bottom of the first part of the W would be another turning point, right? And then so your midpoint is your midpoint high and then you've your black moment which is like the major low of the story going up into the resolution of like the height of everything being resolved and so it's frequently used in screenwriting I would say and I love the visualness of it because what I don't love as much about other plotting structures even though a lot of them are very similar is that it I feel like other plotting structures don't really

give you the right rise and fall visual of the action, right? Because like when that inciting incident happens in the story, like everything's gonna get worse for the character up until they decide to basically accept that they need to go on this journey, right? And so I love the visualness of like the the downward spiral of things going bad for the hero or heroine and then you reach that turning point and things start to get better for a little bit. They start to think that it's figured out into they hit the climax and then  no maybe I don't have this figured out the way I thought I was going to. So it's a very visual like plotting method with basic like turning points on it.

J. G. Gates 

That's really true. mean, as I think through what you're saying, it definitely, my outlining process is very, it's like a Frankenstein mishmash of all different theories of plot, but all of it's kind of the same in a way, right? And it does sort of follow that. And I think I do like that visually that really points out the midpoint in the story that is important. So, that's great.

Kait Ballenger 

Midpoint is so important and so like, oftentimes like, it helps me because then I know that like, okay, the midpoint, my character really has to feel like they're on top of the world and then I've got to just rip the rug out from underneath them. Yes.

J. G. Gates 

Right, right. , they've been developing that mastery or their plan or whatever and it's like, finally did it....