Chapter 18 - Letting Your Characters Take the Wheel

When I began writing The Clay Lion I had an outline of the plot but didn’t know how I was going to end the story.  It was as if I was going on vacation, map in hand, knowing only where I was starting out and a few places to stop off along the way.  What I didn’t know, however, was where the ultimate destination was going to be.  After the first few chapters I thought I knew where I was headed, but the more I got to know Brooke, the more she began taking over the direction of the story.  Places I wanted to go were not necessarily the places Brooke wanted to take me, so instead of fighting her, I surrendered to her.  At one point in the story, I was writing at the kitchen counter and my husband was baking brownies.  I started crying and he asked me what in the world had set me off.  I told him I was upset because I didn’t know that what I had just written was going to happen, which of course made me sound as though I’d officially gone off the deep end.  “If you’re the one writing the book, how do you not know what’s about to happen?” he asked.  “I didn’t do it,” I replied.  “Brooke did.”  And that’s how it was for the remainder of the manuscript.  Brooke was in control.  I just wrote what she told me.