Lives of their own

Mike is sitting in the passenger seat of a ’79 Datsun, watching the empty Alaskan road open up before him. Driving the car is a woman named Helen who until twenty minutes ago had been a waitress in a fifties diner. Her young son has the backseat to himself.

And they are all running, even though Mike is the only one who knows what, exactly, from.

Welcome to a scene from my newest book – the scene that almost wasn’t.

As a general rule (broken on occasion with usually satisfactory results) I do no not outline a book before I write it. I start with a general idea, a bare bones story with a good character or two. Then I run with it. In this case Mike was supposed to have been a minor character – someone whose only purpose was to get the important characters to where they were supposed to be, doing what I needed them to do. In fact, Mike was supposed to die very early on.

But something happened as I wrote for Mike, as I fleshed out his character. I realized that it was Mike who was the main character, the person who would hold the book together, and who will probably change more than any other character as the events of the story play themselves out. Right now, I couldn’t imagine this book without Mike as the lead and I’m satisfied that I have not compromised my original vision for this book.

I’m not sure it would have worked out that way had I outlined the book. Mike would probably have been killed, we would never have met Helen and one of the best things I’ve ever written (a scene involving middle-aged mimes at the aforementioned fifties diner) would never have happened.

Am I advocating free-form writing in all cases for everyone? Nope. Like I said, I’ve written with a detailed outline and I’ve been pleased with the outcome. You simply have to trust that your creativity on the front end (the outline stage) leaves you with something that you can work with. But I think I like the open-ended, the possibilities, the undisciplined nature of my prose. I think it gives paper characters lives of their own – a depth I couldn’t have outlined.

Now I have a choice for Mike to make, one that has not been pre-recorded between staid Roman numerals.

1. Do Mike and Helen make a run for Canada?


2. Does Mike steal a more reliable car to aid in their getaway, dragging the innocent Helen into his seedy world?


3. Does Mike freak out at his impulsive decision to take Helen and her son with him and drop her off somewhere safe?


4. Do I kill Mike off, only later than I had first intended?


5. Or…. Put anything you want here.

At this moment I don’t know the answer and I think I like the not knowing.