Lois’s answer to “Hello! I loved the Sharing Knife and Chalion series, but Sharing Knife really resonated with me. …” > Likes and Comments

Lois, what make a character matter to you? How do you think of them, or do you just always get ambushed by your backbrain?

Hi Eleanor --

Main characters pretty much march into my brain whole, but shadowy; I have to write the book to discover more about them. They tend to strenuously resist any proposed book developments that are not right for them, so they must possess some kind of inherent integrity to start with, even if I can't see it consciously yet. They do seem to assemble themselves from many sources, never just one, including, of course, my own life experiences.

Minor characters may be grabbed out of the prop box to fill a scene, but they tend to quickly develop opinions of their own upon the proceedings, and can grow into major characters over time.

Ta, L.

Neat. So how do you write the first scene of the first draft? Is it the protagonist doing something that matters to them? Or do you just sort of pick something to describe?

(Continuing...)

I generally have worked up something like 50 pages or more of penciled notes, about the character/s, setting, backstory, and incipient plot (or at least, starting situation) before the first scene comes clear to me. Sometimes the first idea or vision I have for a book ends up somewhere in the middle. So it's a very global process and decision. I generally need to know some of both deep and recent backstory before realizing that, while events have been proceeding for some time, _this_ is where the story starts. The opening section must capture the minimum necessary backstory for going on with as well as putting the character and reader in motion going forward.

You could, I suppose, pull out several of my novels and compare the first scenes, and see for yourself.

Ta, L.

Huh, so you build it in your mind and the first time you write an actual paragraph it's the first paragraph? So it's in chronological order? Actually, going back I think I phrased by question nonspecifically. I meant it to be about the first paragraph of draft that you write, chronologically in your own IRL timeline, not (necessarily) the paragraph that eventually is printed on the first story-containing page of the book.

Thanks for answering all these!

Way more often than not, the first paragraph written is indeed the first paragraph-final. Not invariably, however.

Back in my first novel I tried writing some scenes ahead, only to find that by the time I connected the story up to them, they no longer fit, and had to be rewritten or discarded. After that, in the interests of efficiency, I pretty much stuck to straight chronological.

A couple of rare exceptions have been when I was writing a multiple-viewpoint tale, and jumped ahead to follow a character who had his part ready to go while waiting for the scene in between, from another character's PoV, to finish forming up. But those tended to be short jumps.

Ta, L.

I just want to say that the Sharing Knife series are my all time favourite books. Knowing that your stories are character driven from the start does not surprise me, since those make the best stories, IMHO.

@ Rita C

Mostly they are character-driven from the get-go. But _Ethan of Athos_ started with the cool tech-gadget idea, went on to the setting, and then generated Ethan, but the story didn't start to move until he had formed up, taken shape, and started to breathe on his own.

Makes sense. I also find that if I don't like the protagonists I cannot finish the book. Your books all have fully fleshed out characters that I get interested in very quickly. Brava! :)

I would settle for a short story about Sparkle but a novel would be wonderful.