We all know there are six elements of fiction. Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. I believe the first five lead to the sixth which for me is plot. What's your take on this?
For me, it’s usually a scene or a person who I start with – most often a scene. Things come to me in a flash of inspiration and I take it from there. Sometimes it’s a situation and sometimes it’s a character. For the Dragon Descendant series, once I used a scene I’d written for a group but it was too short so I expanded it. The cover came next and from there it expanded into a short story. For the subsequent short stories, the characters came to me as the world was already set up. So my top two would be who and where. Often the what and why show up later sometimes at almost the end of the book. The how of a story – this unfolds as I write.
How do you create your characters? Do you have a specific method?
My method is to listen to my characters and write them the way they tell me to or else. I always say my characters tell me the story. Marelo was stubborn but Bandor told me all about his love and how much he needed his mate. For Solana it was the opposite. Solana told me how much she loved the dragons and how difficult it was for her to cope with her fated mate to be so standoffish. Ariana and Winnod gave me a mix. Ariana told me of her heartbreak and her loneliness after Winnod ran away from their early connection. Winnod told me about how much he loved her even when he knew he shouldn’t. I felt his desperation for even a scent of her when he was in the mountains. With the last book, the mates found each other but Zonlet came through first with his worry and his concerns. He wanted her to have play time but worried about her impulsiveness. When they experience a difficulty, it shocks Bryony and from there, she spoke with me more than Zonlet.
2. Does your beginning arrive fully developed or do you spend a lot of time making the right approach to scene 1?
My openings can be as little as a one liner or as long as a chapter. With the Dragon Descendant series, I didn’t start out to write the final three. I’d written Marelo and planned to write the other three later – like next year later but they sparked something in me and one led into the next and so on. Ironically I kept saying to myself – oh I’ll just putter on the story tonight before I go back to the current WIP. Every night I’d share how I wrote a couple thousand words. Once I got started, the words tumbled out as if I’d opened a faucet on full.
3. Do you know how the story will end before you begin? In a general way or a specific one?
Almost never. I rarely see the end except in a few cases. When I wrote my Wayfarer series, I saw the last four books in a big overview and as I wrote each one the ending became really clear. With the Dragon Descendant series, I didn’t see the endings of the short stories. I knew a little on how the series would end but it was broad strokes. When it came to Bryony, I got to a point where I knew things had to change and then an idea popped and I knew how it would end. Once I did, I realized I’d have to go back and add hints of it to the stories.
4. Do you choose settings you know or do you have books of settings and plans of houses sitting around?
Because I write a lot in scifi and fantasy most of what I do is world building. If it’s a new world or new species, I have to create all of it from scratch. I’ve had to describe ships and try to avoid what has already been used. In Dragon Descendant stories, I had to create a whole planet and describe how the people were different from each other and why. Each location becomes a balance between how much do I describe and how much do I let the reader make up what they imagine.
5. Where do you do your research? On line or from books?
My research is generally online or with people who have experience with the topic. My standard is to work on my laptop for writing and use my cell phone to go in and Google for information. However, there are some topics which I know someone who can explain things to me better than what I read on the Internet. I use them shamelessly. When I needed to set up the financial part of an entire race, I texted a friend who was an accountant (Wayfarer series). Recently I worked on a shifter series (Puma Pride due out next July), I needed information on genetics. My youngest daughter has participated in genetic research so I called her. Many conversations later, I believe I came up with something believable but not too sciency.
6. Are you a draft writer or do you revise as you go along and why? Do you sketch out your plot or do you let the characters develop the route to the end?
My process is to write and then the next time I go in, I’ll read over what I wrote last time (sometimes I reread the whole thing) and edit and adjust as I go. Sometimes this means I spend more time editing/reading than writing. It depends on how much of a gap there is between writing sessions as I often work on multiple projects at a time.
7. Where can we find you on the net?
