One of the questions I occasionally receive is whether I plan everything before I begin writing a book.

The answer is both yes... and no.

When I started writing The Crimson Legacy, I had an outline. I knew the major story arcs, the destinations, the conflicts, and many of the adventures that would eventually unfold across the seas. I knew where the story needed to begin, and I had a general idea of where it might end.

What I didn't fully anticipate was the characters.

Some authors carefully plot every detail before writing a single chapter. Others discover the story as they go. I seem to live somewhere in the middle. I create a roadmap, but the characters often have ideas of their own.

If you've never written a novel, that may sound ridiculous.

After all, the author creates the characters. How can they possibly refuse to follow the script?

Yet many writers know exactly what I mean.

Sometimes a character walks onto the page and immediately becomes more interesting than you expected. A minor character suddenly demands a larger role. A conversation takes an unexpected turn. A relationship develops naturally where none was originally planned. Before long, the carefully plotted route begins to shift.

The story still reaches its destination, but the journey changes.

More than once while writing The Crimson Legacy, I have sat down intending to write a particular scene only to discover that a character simply would not cooperate. The dialogue felt wrong. The decisions felt forced. The scene no longer matched who that character had become.

So I listened.

Oddly enough, that is often when the best moments happen.

Characters grow as the story grows. They experience loss, friendship, betrayal, triumph, and failure. Over time they become more than names on a page. They begin to develop personalities that feel consistent and real. When that happens, forcing them to act against their nature rarely works.

Readers can sense it.

The strongest scenes are often the ones I never planned.

A single conversation can change the direction of an entire chapter. A character who was meant to appear briefly can become someone important. An unexpected decision can create new opportunities that never existed in the original outline.

Some of my favorite moments in the series happened exactly that way.

What began as a carefully plotted adventure gradually became something larger—a story shaped not only by my plans, but also by the personalities that emerged during the writing process.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I continue to enjoy writing these books.

Even after spending countless hours with these characters, they still manage to surprise me.

As I continue working through edits and revisions for Book Three, I find that the process hasn't changed. New characters continue to appear. Existing characters continue to grow. And every now and then, one of them politely ignores my outline and heads in a completely different direction.

Fortunately, those unexpected detours often lead to the most memorable adventures.

And as any sailor knows, sometimes the most interesting discoveries happen when you leave the charted waters behind.

Until next time, Lovelies!

Always

Ambrose Fider