'The characters stand tall'

‘After finishing 1st draft of a novel, I have the characters, dialogue, scenes, and a plotline. I used to think this meant I knew where the story was going, and what the book was about.

I have learned over the years, this ain't so.

As I work through its 2nd draft, characters start to nudge each other. The story itself takes its first soft and shallow breath, and one could imagine he hears a little bit of a heartbeat. Passions deepen, and emotional threads start to weave through what had earlier just been little more than a sequence of events.

On the 3rd run through, the characters stand tall. Some break free of my earlier concepts of what they were all about, what they wanted, how they related to each other, and where they were going.

From then on, THEY set the pace, and I do my best to honor them in becoming what THEY choose to be.

From then on, my friends; we have a story!'

Edward Fahey, author of The Morning After, The Gardens of Ailana and The Soul Hides in Shadows