What to write?

My weekly post at Sisters in Scribe.

I'm working on a new YA novel and I'm doing a few firsts with it. Fun, refreshing, but also a challenge. I'm not big on outlines, but I plan out the basic plot points in a notebook. Right now, I'm struggling to find a good way to get my characters from one point to another and I'm wondering, how do you decide?

**pausing this blog post to make a "red heart-shaped cookie" on a piece of paper for my tiny human**

Do you let your characters choose the path, or do you lay it out for them before they "come to life" on the page? Have you ever found that they just don't want to do what you've laid out?

That's a big part of the adventure of novel writing. You can plan it all out, but your characters are people too, for all intensive purposes, and they have thoughts of their own. You can't force someone to do something that doesn't make sense to them.

Yes, I realize that makes me sound crazy. But we're all a little bit crazy, aren't we? We are, right?

I believe Valerie had a post on characters and the choices they make. So at least I know she's crazy too.

Anywho, this WIP has a bit of a mystery in it and mystery is HARD! Making my characters solve the mystery in a progressive way is a pain in the asterisk right now. The Edgars are tonight and I am cheering for Saundra Mitchell, author of SHADOWED SUMMER! Visit Saundra on twitter @saundramitchelle and cheer for her too!

1 comment:

Roland D. Yeomans said...

No, you don't sound crazy. Say, you sewing a dress. You start with a pattern. But then, you see where you can this frill here, that tuck there. And what do you know?

Your dress is distinctive, unique from what following the pattern slavishly would have given you.

Go Zen with your writing. You'll have fun, and your book will turn out fresh not contrived. Roland

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