When your characters toss your plot out the window
I know I said I wasn't going to blog until tomorrow, but I've come up for air on Chapter 30 of The Trouble With Demons, and decided to post. Plus, I missed you all. ; )
If you want to be in the contest for tomorrow's drawing of a signed & personalized copy of Magic Lost, Trouble Found, email me today at lisa@lisashearin.com and put "MLTF contest" in the subject line. I'll be drawing the second winner tomorrow, with two more winners to come on the next two Saturdays. It's my way of counting down the days until Armed & Magical comes out.
Only 18 more days until Armed & Magical is on the shelves -- I simply cannot wait for you all to read it!
As I near the end of writing Raine's third adventure (The Trouble With Demons), once again I'm grateful that I had a complete plot syopsis to work with. Well, almost complete. There's all that critical stuff I've found that happens "between the lines" of my synopsis. But the synopsis I had was priceless for keeping me on track -- and keeping me sane. Most writers plot out their books to some degree. Some go with a loose sketch, others know exactly what happens from A to Z. I'm glad I'm not the former, I envy the later -- I fall somewhere in the middle.
But sometimes you have to toss it all out the window -- or at least occasionally go with the flow.
Say you're happily writing along, everything going according to plan. Character A is behaving perfectly. Then Character B -- or even a character you've never met before -- suddenly enters the scene. Everything changes. Dang it! So much for reaching the daily page count, right?
Wrong. It's become my experience that this is a very good thing. It means that your story is taking on even more of a life of its own. It means that your muse is in residence, and she's just vetoed your plan, staged an intervention, whatever you want to call it, to keep you from doing something stupid that you'll regret later.
Whenever this happens to me, I've learned to run, don't walk, after the interfering Character B. That character knows what they're doing and why they're there even if you don't. The key here is to go with the flow. Some of my most fun characters have come into existence by crashing my plot party. In a book, party crashers are always welcome. For me, they're either being pulled into a dark alley, or pushed out of a bar. I've learned to pay attention to these people. They're worth watching -- and listening to.
Be sure to come back tomorrow for the book contest drawing.
And I'll be leaving for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention next Wed. and will be there through Sunday. I will be blogging live from the convention. And if I can't post photos then, I will be posting them when I get back.
It's Friday, people! WOOT!
Lisa
If you want to be in the contest for tomorrow's drawing of a signed & personalized copy of Magic Lost, Trouble Found, email me today at lisa@lisashearin.com and put "MLTF contest" in the subject line. I'll be drawing the second winner tomorrow, with two more winners to come on the next two Saturdays. It's my way of counting down the days until Armed & Magical comes out.
Only 18 more days until Armed & Magical is on the shelves -- I simply cannot wait for you all to read it!
As I near the end of writing Raine's third adventure (The Trouble With Demons), once again I'm grateful that I had a complete plot syopsis to work with. Well, almost complete. There's all that critical stuff I've found that happens "between the lines" of my synopsis. But the synopsis I had was priceless for keeping me on track -- and keeping me sane. Most writers plot out their books to some degree. Some go with a loose sketch, others know exactly what happens from A to Z. I'm glad I'm not the former, I envy the later -- I fall somewhere in the middle.
But sometimes you have to toss it all out the window -- or at least occasionally go with the flow.
Say you're happily writing along, everything going according to plan. Character A is behaving perfectly. Then Character B -- or even a character you've never met before -- suddenly enters the scene. Everything changes. Dang it! So much for reaching the daily page count, right?
Wrong. It's become my experience that this is a very good thing. It means that your story is taking on even more of a life of its own. It means that your muse is in residence, and she's just vetoed your plan, staged an intervention, whatever you want to call it, to keep you from doing something stupid that you'll regret later.
Whenever this happens to me, I've learned to run, don't walk, after the interfering Character B. That character knows what they're doing and why they're there even if you don't. The key here is to go with the flow. Some of my most fun characters have come into existence by crashing my plot party. In a book, party crashers are always welcome. For me, they're either being pulled into a dark alley, or pushed out of a bar. I've learned to pay attention to these people. They're worth watching -- and listening to.
Be sure to come back tomorrow for the book contest drawing.
And I'll be leaving for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention next Wed. and will be there through Sunday. I will be blogging live from the convention. And if I can't post photos then, I will be posting them when I get back.
It's Friday, people! WOOT!
Lisa
Labels: plot and character
posted by Lisa Shearin at
7:56 AM
2 Comments:
I agree about following the characters. Often they take your story into an intriguing new direction, but sometimes they pull you into a dead end street ... with a host of angry wizards blocking the way back. :-(
Then you get the "fun" of figuring out how to get past those angry wizards. ; ) I write myself into tight spots like that all the time.
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