I've been struggling with a character detail for a few days now. She's an important secondary character, and this particular detail will be closely tied to the story's main plot. I thought, if I could just get her to tell me* this bit about herself, then the plotting would start to fall into place. But she wouldn't give it up. I'm very eager to start the actual storytelling for this new project, so today I decided I would just push ahead with the plotting and hope that this character detail would fall into place that way, instead.

Voila! Within (I'm not kidding) ten minutes of opening my mind to plot ideas, I had the character idea nailed down.

It's good to remember that stories are not formulas. They are living, breathing, fluid mysteries that need to be coaxed out of our minds and hearts and onto the page.

*I'd like to note, for the record, that I enjoy speaking about my process this way however what I really mean when I talk about things like negotiating with my characters for information is that I was wrestling with my own mind to produce an idea worthy of the story. That's just not as fun to say. But I do believe strongly that the writer is in the driver's seat of the story and the characters, however real they may seem and feel, are still fictional. I do not believe in The Muse. I do not believe in Writer's Block. I believe in the power and creativity of my own mind (and yours!) and I believe in my ability to make mistakes and plow ahead for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of words, ignoring said mistakes until I finally hit a wall and my mind refuses to produce anymore words until I fix the mess I made.