When people ask me how I got into writing I answer: "Because King Arthur commanded me to", and literally mean it.

Let me explain.

Many years ago, as a young lass not much older than my protagonist is throughout most of the story in Firebrand and Recruit, I saw the movie "Camelot" for the first time. It was a defining moment in my life and the beginning of a decades long obsession. The movie ends with the refrain: "don't let it be forgot . . ." and Arthur looming large on the screen. I was young, and took the king at his word. I went home fascinated by what I had seen and in awe of the concept of the Round Table. And wondered what I would find at the library about this cool subject. Good thing I love to read because I haven't run out of materials yet.

I also wondered--What if Arthur had a daughter? What would she be like? How would she fit into the story? My character, Lin, was conceived that night. Well. At least the idea for Lin. She was rather boring in her earliest incarnations--too much of me in her, I fear. But that was when I knew I wanted to write my own version of the King Arthur story. It just eventually morphed into his daughter's story instead.

And over the course of many years her character evolved through pure trial and error. Mostly error. I knew that as Arthur's daughter, she would need to be pretty special. No way could she be a sedate medieval princess whose only purpose was a dynastic marriage. Which is how she was initially. I don't mean to imply that such a story would not be worth writing--women of history were often silenced and identified by the male they belonged to at the moment. Daughter of . . . Wife of . . . Sister of . . . With no name of their own. It might not have been my original intent, but it seems like Lin has become the voice for all those women as well as slaves and the poor who were never written into history--properly or even at all.

So how did Lin evolve from a medieval princess to a slave and then to a soldier in Arthur's army and beyond? In the early phase, while she was still that medieval princess, I thought--she's in Camelot, surrounded by oceans of testosterone--let's make her a tom-boy. She would probably want to be knight. She would definitely hang out around where they practice. She would thrill at the jousting, rooting for whoever was her favourite. Would she disguise herself as a boy?

That did have promise, but she had to be extraordinary. And that premise was rather cliché. I went back to the proverbial drawing board and in the meantime kept getting her name wrong. I wanted her given name to be Helin because I like the name. In my writings, she refused to accept it. Every attempt I made to write something in the third person point of view with that name failed.

OK. But what if she did not grow up in Camelot at all, I thought. There was the question I needed--the right spark to develop Lin into the character I know and love so well. If not in Camelot, where? And why would she be in that place instead of her rightful home? And how would I get her back where she belongs when necessary? And make it all believable? This was the heart of her character and storyline. The two are impossibly intertwined. I can't have or talk of one without the other now.

As I was working out the answers to those questions, my second main character introduced himself. My husband was still in the Air Force at the time and we were living in England, quite close to most of the Arthurian sites I'd been reading about for years, especially South Cadbury, my setting for Camelot. I was out walking one afternoon--I did a lot of walking in that year in England! And as I walked I kept working through how Lin wound up in slavery and how she finally learned the truth, when I "heard" another character--Dafydd. Of course she would need a "side-kick" to draw on the Hero's Journey format. Dafydd gave me a different perspective of Lin, especially when he called her Lin not Helin. No wonder I kept getting things wrong.

Funny, now I realise I had their personalities partially reversed at first. I started to cast Dafydd as the older brother/protector, with some of the defiance Lin now has. Lin was much more docile then!! But that year in England was when things began to work out for me and began to write Lin's story. And once I tried first person, things just took off.

And I think that "what if" process holds true for every writer--beginner or professional. And it does help, but only up to a certain point in getting the creative ball rolling. Then the writer has tools to help the project take shape. There are too many to cover in one brief article, so I settled for something basic that those who are beginners here will have something they can use to get started. Pam McCutcheon in her excellent book, "Writing the Fiction Synopsis" uses the "Straight Line Method" developed for screenplays.

Every story has 5 primary plot points that carry the story forward.

A--The Ordinary World B--A New Direction C--The Change of Plans D--The Black Moment E--The Resolution and End

In your ordinary world you set up your characters and setting. You show their accustomed way of life because a reader won't know the significance of the change the characters are about to experience. We need to give context for the reader. That's Point A.

Then something happens. The character is jerked from his ordinary world and is propelled in a New Direction--whether he wants to go or not. Point B. This should be fairly close to Point A.

Tension and conflict should continue to increase as your characters work through the problems originating from the New Direction until something really major happens at Point C that sends them in another direction. It changes the conflict. Gives them a new goal. The Change of Plans. This is an important point in the novel. It gives the writer something to build toward, then something to react to afterwards and that keeps readers interested.

Your characters' reactions and actions from this point will carry them through to the Black Moment of Point D. You've thrown everything at your characters. It cannot possibly get worse for them. They're feeling hopeless, beaten. But they resolve the conflict--happy ending or tragedy as needed for your story. But all the loose ends are tied up at Point E, the Resolution and End.

It can also be illustrated with the bell curve as well to show the rise and fall of the conflict. One example from Pam's book is Star Wars, the first movie in the trilogy. (read from the book, plotting the bell curve.)

This is bare bones plotting! But it's a sound skeleton to then build a story.

For my own novel, FIREBRAND, the model would be this:

I set Lin up in the slave hovel of Orkney as a child with her brother Dafydd. Their mother dies and the siblings learn to take care of each other in the hostile environment of slavery. Point A--Ordinary World

Then Dafydd turns 12 and receives his slave collar. It angers Lin and she starts to see things differently. She questions and "attacks" the overseer. She no longer accepts quietly. Point B--New Direction

Two years pass. Lin turns 12 and gets her own collar. Her defiance begins to escalate as Prince Modred enters her life as her master.

She fights, he punishes, Dafydd tends her wounds.

Then Prince Modred attacks Dafydd. Lin begins to question what she's been doing. Her defiance doesn't just affect her. Prince Modred has absolute power over her and all the slaves. Anyone she befriends and cares about could be hurt or sold just for spite. She's thinking of relenting and accepting slavery. But Dafydd has reached that point himself. He's been telling her to stop her defiance, it's hopeless. But he also realizes that it is in Lin's nature and that she is right to question. Point C--Change of Plans.

Lin and Dafydd now walk the tight-wire of their lives, supporting each other until on Modred's command they are sent to the slave market in the village outside the fortress. Lin and Dafydd are sold and separated. It is their darkest moment. It can't get worse for Lin, losing her beloved brother. Point D--The Black Moment. Well named, huh?

She winds up being taken to Britain's mainland, where she is reunited with Dafydd--they'd been on the same ship all along. Dafydd had been taken to serve the captain, Lin was with the other "cargo". Along with the other slaves, they make the trek to a rich market town. The auction is set up and Lin and Dafydd face separation again. Arthur's own foster brother Cai enters and calls a halt to the proceedings in the name of the Pendragon. Lin and Dafydd are freed and taken to King Arthur because Lin resembles her mother. Arthur interviews her and recognizes his daughter and tells Lin the truth of her parentage. Point E--Resolution and End.

I know that's a hand of god/coincidence sort of resolution. And people have asked me why I didn't have Lin try to escape and lead a rebellion which would have led to a different sort of ending--one where Lin is active in it. Believe me, I tried to take her down those paths. They just weren't as powerful as all the scenes I wrote of Lin standing up to Modred and refusing to call him master. And forcing her to stay in that situation. In fact, I do give her an opportunity for escape. But at the time, Dafydd is still within the fortress, and Lin is outside. Do you really think she'd leave him behind? Not a chance. I had no choice either.

I will always love the mysterious process of writing and getting to know these wonderful characters as I continue to create more of the story. They're always giving me insights to their personalities that I didn't know about. I'll be typing and from nowhere someone, not just Lin, will "say" something on the page that I had no advance warning for. (Dafydd is most famous for this.) I have no idea where it comes from, but it's a true blessing when it happens.

If there were only one secret to it, I think that would be--care enough for your characters to really get to know them. Talk to them. Listen. Believe that they are real, flesh and blood people who could walk into this room at any moment and sit down next to you. Of course the next step is translating that onto the page! And I gave you something sound to begin that process with the 5 primary plot points.