Character-Driven Novels

Novels are either character-driven or plot-driven, and mine are definitely character-driven. When I start planning for a novel, the setting and the characters come to me about the same time. I live with them for quite a while and visit with them often before I ever start writing their story. By that time, I know them well.

Let me use my Appalachians Roots series as an example. I wrote Sown in Dark Soil, but Emma, Luke's grandmother, wouldn't leave me alone. Even before this book was finished, she kept telling me I needed to back up and tell her story, so that's what I did. Her story and that of her son, Clifton, became Cleared for Planting, the first book in the series, leaving Sown in Dark Soil as the second one.

I'm putting the finishing touches on the third book, Uprooted by War, now. Hawk was another character that wouldn't retire. I actually cried when I wrote the scene of him walking away that morning, and I continued to tear up every time I reread it. My husband couldn't help but laugh at me. Well, Hawk comes back in Uprooted by War. Ivy also surprises everyone, even me, when she comes back to the mountains, something she'd vowed never to do.

I really don't have full control over what happens in the books I write. My characters share control, but, that's what makes writing so much fun for me. When I begin a book, I never know exactly what's going to happen in it, and what I do know might change. I write, just like I read, to see what unfolds. My readers tell me they do, too, and many have a hard time putting the books down. Now that's what I like to hear.

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