Characters, Scenes, Narration, Plot

I recently had a developmental edit done by Danielle Dyal (highly recommended, you can find her here: thejohnfox.com/book-editing-services) on my first novel. Well, second novel, I shelved my first because it wasn’t very good. Anyhoo, what came out indirectly from her feedback letter was that I don’t really plot. This is not what Danielle wrote, as she couldn’t know if I was a plotter or a panster, but her detailed analysis forced me to go back in time. As I began to reread the scenes and characters through Danielle’s eyes, I remembered that the original plot was different. My completed book did not finish how I had planned it to finish. Not only that, but much of the second half of the book was different than how I remembered it. I don’t keep old drafts and my notepads are a mess, but I do remember a distinctly different ending. I reread Danielle’s letter again and I began to develop a theory.

Danielle wrote that I had really great 3D characters and had done a good job of balancing scenes with narration. She also wrote that she wasn’t sure if it was because of intuition or study. Since I’ve never studied creative writing, I excluded study. I thought about intuition, and I wasn’t sure if that was quite it either. I thought about the plot, confused as to how it could have changed without me realizing it. After a while of pondering I think I figured it out.

Here’s my theory; since I can see the scenes playing out in my head, the characters (many based in part on real people) feel absolutely lifelike to me. When I put characters into scenes, a natural tension begins to build without me planning it. As I write, I get the feeling of what a character would do and thus the scenes shape the overall plot. If I tweak a character’s bio, it can throw a wrench into the works and force me to make major changes.

In a nutshell, I come up with an idea, then I populate the story with characters, then the characters interact within the scenes, and the plot is driven forward. If the character interaction helps the plot that I have in my head, then the plot remains. If their interactions don’t, then the plot is forced to change. True, it’s still me doing everything, but it’s the lifelike characters that make the twists and turns happen.

Pretty magical, huh?