I haven’t been keeping up with my blog. Used to be, every other day I was here posting and every day I was visiting other blogs. I’ve fallen out of the blog routine… but for pretty good reason, I think. I’m plotting.

I’ve chatted here often about the various workshops I’ve taken and how they inspire me. Storyboarding, W-Plot, Character Diamond, Fatal Flaws and Book-in-a-Week. Well, I’ve sorted those workshops into a specific build-upon order and as I work through them, I review what I’ve already done so I keep true to the characters’ personalities, needs, desires, downfalls.

That brings me to the Fatal Flaw. Laurie Schnebly-Campbell gives this class and it is one I cannot recommend enough. I understand everyone plots differently and what works for me might not work for you. BUT… what I find about this particular set of lessons and assignments is that they build the character in astonishing ways. Showing the needs they have and why they have them. Showing how the character will react to overcome those needs or to fulfill them. It brings out their quirky habits and explains them in a way so logical, you can’t help but remain true to the character as you plot out the events in the story.

And yes, that’s the part I’m up to. Plotting the events. I’ve got the characters down – and am thrilled and amazed at how everything fits. The hero is one way and is headed down a certain path. The heroine is another way and headed down her own path. Those two paths cross every now and then. Sometimes hero and heroine just breeze by each other (in scenes of understanding) and other times they smack into one another (conflict) and neither will give up the path without a fight. Thing is, the individual paths they’re on will meet further down the line and continue as one. Whether they walk side by side on that path or fight for the lead is up to them… and me. And the Fatal Flaws.

Knowing the characters this intimately will, I hope, help me form the events in their story in such a way as to challenge them, keep the reader intrigued and fulfill the needs of all as they grow, change and find love.

Yes. I, myself, am falling in love. With my newest characters… though I do still love the one I just left behind. Ah. Such is the fickle life of a romance writer.