Characters drive the plot!

I read once, that an author doesn't write the characters, the characters write themselves. This is so true of both Francesca Marten in The Greatest Gift, and also Madeline Lane in A Fairytale Christmas. Both characters took me in completely different directions to what I'd expected when I first started writing their stories, but it became so addictive that I couldn't wait to find out where they were going and what they would be doing next!

When I finished writing The Greatest Gift ten years ago, I really couldn't see me revisiting the characters in that book because I thought I'd finished telling their story. I've written lots other characters since that I've not been so invested in, but then Maddie Lane came along and I couldn't wait to write about her, and I realised that she and her family could also offer me an opportunity to touch base with the Martens again and find out what's happened to them in the past ten years.

Maddie's story isn't over yet, and I know there will be at least one more Fairytale book in 2020, and there might just be more from Francesca and her clan too!

#reading #writing #characters