What do you do with a side character in the story who draws everyone’s attention whenever they are on the page? Dorothy A. Winsor had a big idea about that, which is how her new novel Dragoncraft came about.
DOROTHY A. WINSOR:
The idea for Dragoncraft came from a character named Addy, who appeared in the previous book, Glass Girl. Addy was the love interest for the point-of-view character, Emlin, so he wasn’t central, and yet my writer group told me that every time he appeared, the page lit up. As it happened, I, too, was fond of Addy, so, I wanted to write more about him. I suspect many writers create characters they want to write about again. That’s one way we get book series.
But, of course, an engaging character is not enough to sustain a book. In this situation, the challenge for any writer is creating an interesting plot that makes the most of what’s appealing in that character.
Because, here’s the thing. The distinction between character-driven and plot-driven books is a weak one. In reality, plot and character are two sides of the same coin. The plot happens the way it does because the character acts in a characteristic way; but, ideally, plot events then change the character. To write more about a character, I needed a plot that matched and used the parts of the character that readers were responding to.
I found I needed to ask two questions: What vulnerabilities did Addy have that a plot could exploit? And what strengths did he bring that could, in turn, shape the plot?
Mind you, I didn’t think up these questions ahead of time. I discovered them as I tried to write. It’s only in hindsight that I can see what I was doing…
Dragoncraft: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Kobo
Source: The Big Idea: Dorothy A. Winsor
Recent Comments