Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Expectations and Plotting

As you guys know, I'm a plotter.

With my current MS, I had a general idea of my characters and their story but I didn't actually write down specific plans of where I wanted this to go (besides a few notes to remind myself of important things).  About halfway through, I knew where I wanted to take the story, so I wrote one sentence plots for each character in each chapter.

Except, as I'm learning, my characters pull me in another direction in order to make sure I tell their story rather than their story through my point of view.

For instance, today, I was supposed to have my MC, Sophie, make up with her love interest Will after a tense fight.  Instead, she basically tells him she deserves better than some guy who runs away when things get tough, who doesn't build relationships with people so he doesn't get hurt.  Will's a good guy, don't get me wrong, and he'll continue to be Sophie's love interest.  But after writing that - being possessed by Sophie's spirit, more likely - I was so proud of her.

One day, you guys will read the scene I'm talking about, and I hope you're proud of her too.  It should be noted, though, that the scene wasn't exactly written in the stars, but Sophie made me write it down anyways.

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