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Wow. I loved reading all the backstory for your characters @Sarah-inkdragon! They are so wonderfully detailed. Great job!

I am only in the beginnings of working out how to use all these educated techniques before I start to write a story rather than relying on my developmental editor to help me fix it later. Thankfully, she is a patient soul! =)

@Karthmin – Actually writing out and thinking through the back story is probably the biggest game changer in my writing lately. I have primarily been a ‘discovery’ writer. (That sounds so much more official than pantster. LOL) But the final book in my series has a huge laundry list of story beats it has to hit – meaning – **cue quiet sob** I HAVE to plan and plot to make sure I don’t leave any gaping holes.

I followed K.M. Weiland’s outline workbook, and found I truly enjoyed the process of thinking through my characters’ deeper motivations and delving into their backstories.

In the case of my MC – He has really been the hero of the entire series even though he has been ‘off stage’ a good 95% of the time. When I started building his ‘on stage’ persona, I realized he is very resentful and angry. I dug into what I already knew about him from what had happened and been revealed about him in the previous stories, and was stumped why he had such an attitude when everyone loved him! The answer jumped out at me when I asked one of Ms. Weiland’s questions: “What lie does this character believe?” He believes 1) the only reason people want him around is for his skill set (resentment), and 2) trust gets you killed (anger).

Understanding both of those things, AND knowing where I needed his story (and the series) to end, enabled me to build his positive change arc, and structure the story scenes and beats the way I needed to in order to make sure I didn’t miss anything important or wander off track.

This is a whole new approach to writing for me, and I am struggling to get ‘into’ the story because I already know what happens. As a discovery writer, I like being as surprised by what my characters do as my readers, and I sort of feel like I have ‘spoiled’ my own story. LOL!

What I am going to try to do is put all this ‘planning’ aside and write as though I don’t have any of it. I suspect that all the work I have done building the profiles, voices, and plotting means the story line will come out the way I need it to with a few surprises I didn’t expect.

We shall see. =)