Friday's How She Does It featuring M. S. Kaye

.      How do you create your characters? Do you have a specific method? Put simply: my female characters are women I would like to be, even with their flaws, and my male characters are men I could fall for (if I wasn't already married, of course).

 

 

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?

 

Sometimes a story is built from a character, and sometimes it's built from a circumstance. Fight Princess was built from the idea of a female underground fighter, who also comes from a high society family. Conversely, my upcoming book Once was built from the idea of a young woman falling for a man about to enter the priesthood.

 

 

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

 

 I know generally how it will end...usually. Sometimes stories take unexpected turns.

 

 

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

 

 I have a background in architecture, so I tend to design and build houses around my characters. As far as the city, I decide what the circumstances call for and pick a location from that. Fight Princess, being that it involves an underground fight ring (that I had a certain vision for), had to be set in a big city, and it also had to take place someplace that's cold in the winter. I added all that together and came up with Chicago, a city I've visited before.

 

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

 

Both. Quick answers come from Google, and more in-depth research comes from books.

 

 

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

 

 I revise my outline as I go, and my first draft is usually pretty close. Then I do at least four more rounds of editing (and then however many more the publisher wants).

M.S. Kaye
FIGHT PRINCESS coming soon!
An estranged high society "princess" fights in an underground ring.
Published by Liquid Silver Books.