As I work my way through another story, I am trying to figure out the rhyme and the rhythm of it. It goes beyond the basics. Basics are things like who is telling this story? Who are the main characters? Is it told in first person point-of-view, third person? What tense works? How many character viewpoints should I have? 

The questions are endless. And even though I consider myself to be writing pop fiction, I still ask all those questions. I write a chapter and then sometimes scrap it, knowing it doesn’t work. I try different things, not for the sake of experimenting (though that is fun). I do it to see if it fits THIS particular story. 

Each novel I write has a personality, like it or not. And I try to fit the story around that personality. I know that might sound a bit crazy, but it’s not. How long or short are the chapters? Does the book have sections in it? Are chapters broken down in shorter sections? And again, whose POV is the story told from? What feelings and emotions need to be sorted out? 

I figure out the characters, who they are and what they want (usually I figure out what they want–or at least I do that in rewrites). And I start to find their voices–their goals and their passions. And all this fits into the personality of the story. 

It’s a lot of fun. And believe this–the story takes on a life of its own. You get to a point soon enough with your novel-in-progress that you have to let go of its hand and let it make their own way. You have to stop holding the bike and let the story fly down the street on its own. Sometimes it falls–but you’re there to help it back up and get it going again. 

I’m currently figuring out what this story is like and where it’s supposed to go. I love this process. I love writing the first part of a story and the last part. It’s the middle that I find hard going. But that’s writing.