Friday How She Does It - Lyncee Hillard

Today Lyncee Hillars is talking about how she writes her stories.


1. How do you create your characters? Do you have a specific process?




I love creating characters. They are the heart of my writing. When I'm creating my hero(s)/heroine(s), I make a list of weakness and strengths. Also do this for my major secondary characters so I have pages of character sheets before the writing even begins.



2. Do your characters come before the plot? Do you sketch out your plot or do you let the characters develop the route to the end?



I'm definitely a character driven writer and create plots for them to fit into. I have a direction that the characters are going in. For The Night Of The Gryphon trilogy I just finished, I knew where I wanted everyone to end up and which of their strengths and weakness would get them there.



3. Do you know how the story will end before you begin? In a general way or a specific one?



Depends on the story. For my trilogy, I knew where each of the books would end as far as character growth but wasn't sure of the event until I had written them.



4. Do you choose settings you know or do you have books of settings and plans of houses sitting around?



Again this depends on my story. For my romance suspense I do mix places I know with those I've researched. One of my recent releases was set in the Amazon jungle – never been there but read tons of articles and looked at the amazing pictures.



My trilogy however is a fantasy so I created everything! It was a blast to makeup the animals, the races, and the landscape.



5. Where do you do your research? On line or from books?



Both. I have a subscription to a travel magazine that is wonderful for jump starting where I may want a story to take place. Once I've decided on the location then I surf the Internet then if I feel I still need more detail on specifics I'll look for books.



6. Are you a draft writer or do you revise as you go along and why?



I'm a draft writer basically because I'm a pantser…trying to transform into a plotter. But I really struggle with 'shiny object' disorder so I'm having trouble keeping the excitement of a project going after I'm done plotting. It's like – oh, I know what's behind every tree why bother.



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