Boy, my characters in Runaway Choices have thrown me for a loop this week.

Usually I write in order… A leads to B… B heads into C and D brings up the rear… followed by the rest of the alphabet. However, there are times when Z needs to be written… Like with Runaway Choices.

One day a few months ago, my characters weren’t speaking to me very well. I would start, then delete… start again, then delete more. Finally frustrated, I was about to close my WIP when I realized I could still write… the ending!

It’s not very often I write out of order… in fact I can count on one hand the times I have done it, but this instance was going to work out just peachy. Because regardless of how the characters acted during the A-Y sections, we would still end up at Z.

Now we come to this week. I had written through sections M-N-O-P and was headed for Q when I realized I forgot a small detail in M… I went back, edited it in, and then read through the sections to make sure I didn’t miss anything… All of the sudden, from right field I was broadsided by MC2! Not only does he throw me a wrench but he also throws me a bone. He decides to doing something completely different then anything I had written thus far in section M! Furthermore, it now wouldn’t match up in N-O-P. I paused, thinking about how I could work this out, if it could really be where the character wanted to go. Matched it up with Z and BINGO, it would work perfectly.

However, that meant I had to write new words, while deleting others. Which meant instead of my word count going up… it went down, down, down…

Not all for loss though… it’s a better story this way when I follow the characters lead. More emotional because of this scene, and yes it’s suppose to be emotional, it’s Women’s Religious Fiction… so umm, yah, totally got the heartstrings with this one.

Thanks MC2… ;)

So yes, I am a character driven writer. Plot seldom drives my words. Though, in Mandorian Prophecies 3… it might have to. Because I have to tie up all the loose ends. We will see.

Off to adventure with MC1 in Runaway Choices some more today… she is in her final 15,000 words of her journey, which is panning out nicely :)

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Jamie (@VarietyPages)

Well the dropping word count kind of sucks, but congratulations. Sounds like it was still very much forward progress. :-)

I'm a very plot driven thinker, so what throws me for a loop is when I want the plot to go one way, but my characters just wouldn't realistically *go* that way...at least not how I'm trying to get them there. My constant challenge is devising ways to manipulate my characters into the plot *I* want, but making it their story by moving through it their way. Takes much time and thought sometimes, but man, the payoff is stellar. :-)

Good luck...not far for you to go now!

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