The way in — developing story

You can’t make a story happen. Or at least, I can’t. Sometimes though, all the wrong directions and false starts and pounding against the locked door are what it takes to break through.

Tonight I figured out how to get the protagonists out of town. I figured out how one protagonist can use her powers for well, not really good, but at least not evil. I figured out the antagonist’s back story and motivation. I don’t know everything that’s going to happen — remember, I can’t outline — but I know it’s about to be fun.

And as a bonus, I came up with the epigraph.

In the first book, it’s:

Behind every great fortune is a great crime. — Attributed to Balzac

For this book, it’s:

It’s not cheating if there aren’t any rules. — Attributed to Butch Cassidy*

I’m at 8,000 words. The writing is fun, it’s fast, and while I know the middle-of-the-book suck** is lying in wait, I’m prepared for it.

*made up by me, and yes, it comes from a particular scene in the great William Goldman screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

** Just like it sounds. When the writing is really hard, and the inspiration that powered you through in the beginning is gone.

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