by Hallee Bridgeman, @halleeb
When I am teaching, I am often asked what comes first, plot or characters.
For me, I write character-driven stories. The characters and their conflicts and motivations are what drives the story more than the plot. I talked about that in greater detail here: Creating Motivations and Conflicts in Characters
When I go into creating the conflicts and motivations, I do have a general idea of like the big picture of the story, just no details. Once I have the characters firmly established, then it’s time to bring in the details of the story.
I sit down and think about chapter 1 and ask myself, “What happens in this chapter?” Then I let my creative brain relax and I picture my characters and how I envision the beginning of their story to go.
I only type a couple of sentences. In my upcoming release, Honor Bound, here is what I wrote:
Warlords overrun the village. SF team suppresses them.
There’s a lot that happens in chapter 1. You’re introduced to both main characters. You get a brief glimpse at the supporting case of the Special Forces A-Team. You start to see a little bit of their motivations in the midst of a pretty major conflict. But, I knew that when I wrote that line as to what happens in the chapter. I didn’t need to elaborate.
I take each chapter as it comes. “What happens in this chapter?” Later in the book, I type this:
VP tells Cynthia that if she doesn’t agree to come home willingly, their host country will revoke her VISA. She threatens to stay anyway, because she’s so remote. He tells her that the host country will boot her mission organization out. She doesn’t appreciate the threat and leaves the office he’s in angry.
The thing is, by the time I’ve created my characters in Pinterest (Using Pinterest to Help With Character Creation), and developed the conflicts and motivations, a lot of this plot is already in my head. This process just fine-tunes it.
I use Scrivener to do this; however, you can use anything including the old handy pencil and notecards. I like Scrivener’s system and the way it looks when it’s done. But I first started, I used Word and gave each chapter a paragraph. In Scrivener, I use the corkboard view overview of the manuscript, which lays each chapter out in a grid as if it were an index card. I like it because I can click and drag and move chapters around. I can look at the book as a whole and decide if I need a filler chapter here, more plot there, a richer character development scene over here. Like I said, you can do the same thing with paper notecards with the same effect. In fact, the dragging and dropping requires much less of a learning curve (ha!).
When it’s time to write that chapter, I’ll glance over the brief “what happens here” note I’ve made and know exactly where I intended to go with that chapter, which makes writing it so much easier.
Daisy has had a crush on Ken since high school, so going on just one date with him can’t possibly hurt, can it? Even if she’s just been painfully dumped by the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with, and whose unborn baby she carries? Just one date?
With nearly a million sales, USA Today bestselling author Hallee Bridgeman writes action-packed romantic suspense focusing on realistic characters who face real-world problems. Her work has been described as everything from refreshing to heart-stopping exciting and edgy. Hallee has served as the Director of the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference, President of the Faith-Hope-Love chapter of the Romance Writers of America, is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), the American Christian Writers (ACW), and Novelists, Inc. (NINC). An accomplished speaker, Hallee has taught and inspired writers around the globe, from Sydney, Australia, to Dallas, Texas, to Portland, Oregon, to Washington, D.C., and all places in between. Hallee loves coffee, campy action movies, and regular date nights with her husband. Above all else, she loves God with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength; has been redeemed by the blood of Christ; and relies on the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide her.