When Characters Take Over

I realized that although some of my series books became more difficult for me to write, I am finding that the Haunted Hotel series continued to flow and there were more and more ideas to expand the world and the series.

The frustrating part of the other series books was that no matter that I liked the idea, I hadn’t connected with the main characters. I had also, in all cases sort of created a set of characters work with and none of them really came alive for me. They did what they were told when they were told.

Olive doesn’t do that. Maggie does a bit more but she can still surprise me. I enjoy writing these two because I don’t always know what will come out of Olive’s mouth until it’s there on the page. Which means I can react as Maggie and the story goes from there.

This means that the stories come out new to me and I learn things about them each time I write.

As to what I’m reading now, I’ve found some Caro Ramsey books about the police in Scotland. It requires, sometimes, that I use the dictionary in my Kindle because she uses a lot of slang that doesn’t translate over to the US. Still, interesting reads though they are a few years old.

What’s on your summer reading list?