Evolution

Here's the scene: Police Chief Tom Wesley (name subject to change) finds his office unlocked one night and his father waiting inside. Tom has just left a violent crime scene and his father is the last person he wants to deal with tonight. There's all that history between them, that power struggle that never gives Tom any peace, that anger. And then there's the question of how he got into his locked office.

That was a week ago. Since then, the person waiting for Tom has morphed from father to embittered former police chief to controlling mayor of the small, rural town where the story is set. Heck, for a micro-second, he was Tom's father and the former police chief!

I'm pretty sure the evolution of this scene is complete and if/when you read this book the mayor will be waiting for Tom to arrive, but you never know.

I started this book with a crime in mind, a good idea of my protagonist, and a setting I felt strongly about.

That was it.

While interesting ideas come to me at unexpected times (taking a shower, lying in bed, on the treadmill at the Y), much of what I write comes as I (figuratively) put pen to paper. For me, the physical act of writing starts the flow. I could spend time coming up with a whole cast of characters, motives, emotions, unresolved tensions, plot twists, and put it all down in some sort of outline , but that outline would become obsolete as soon as I started writing. That's because every word I put down takes me down a path. Put down a different word and my protagonist could be headed in a whole new direction.

And that's fine with me. It's always an adventure to see what's waiting just around the bend.