First the idea. Then, perhaps, a plot summary. Add him and her, them and they, a couple “extras” for good measure, and you’re on your way to telling a story.

I have friends whose tidy whities are always in a snit, bunched, scrunched, or all of the above. They make graphs, charts, mini summaries, maxi summaries, and general all around watch-your-step outlines. Do NOT color outside of those lines!

For me, I’d feel like I was inside of a white, sterile surgical suite. My characters would be so stifled, they couldn’t turn around without my say so.

Can some folks write this way? Absolutely, but for me, it would be wrong this way.

My very first attempt at storytelling taught me that my initial characters were cardboard. Two dimensional beings who did exactly what I told them even when it wasn’t in their best interest. However, one brave soul who wasn’t important enough to be a secondary character, reared up, bared his teeth, and said, “I did it. I’m the villain. Betcha didn’t see that coming, did you?” And he was right, I didn’t. And yet, once he pointed it out, the antag could have been no one else.

He was bound up way too tight, initially. I had pulled his voice out of my head. The problem was, I didn’t listen to what he had to say. Once I did, he became more sinister than even my imagination could have supplied him.

While my seat of the pants isn’t for everyone, for me, it’s the only way. I want my characters to have room to grow, to tell me who they really are, to change and evolve exactly the same way real humans change.