Kelly asked Kaje Harper:

Would you consider writing a novel based on a character (or two) developed by someone else but a plot you decide?

Kaje Harper What you're describing is either a form of collaboration (ie. the characters are new and not yet released anywhere) or fan fiction - using someone else's published characters in a new story.

In my past (way past, like 40 years ago) I wrote a fair bit of fan fic. I did Starsky/Hutch, Kirk/Spock, rewrote the end of "The Persian Boy" to make it happier, gave Frank Hardy a boyfriend, etc. I put a lot of other people's characters in my own stories, and had fun. Some authors still do a fair bit of that (Lisa Henry's Sterek is excellent.) But I'm not taking the time these days to turn any fan fic drifting through my mind into actual written stories.

As for collaboration - I'm probably too possessive of my writing to actually collaborate jointly with someone through a whole book. I have done a lot of stories from picture and word prompts. The prompt for "Nor Iron Bars a Cage" for example, gave me a bit of the desired character's voice and psychology, from which Lyon's story was born. I actually enjoy the challenge of writing from someone else's prompt.

The way I write is very organic, growing from a fairly hazy idea of what the characters are like and what will happen. The more complete details I have ahead, the more constrained the story would be. The M/M Romance Group will probably do a new writing event in the future, and I may take on a prompt, but I do like one with enough room for the story to develop. (The event also clearly gives all story rights to the author, not the prompter, a concern when you start using someone else's ideas.) Outside of that group event, I have lots of stories queued up in my head, It would take a very special character to push their way into that queue. I'll never say never.

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