One of the most, I don’t know, magical?, parts of writing for me is the characters who just show up to come and play. I was trained as an engineer. I don’t believe in magic. I’m not superstitious. But damned if characters don’t show up unbidden.

I’ll be writing, following my outline, knowing happens next, then a voice enters. A wholly new point of view, a new back story, a new angle.

Maybe this is the core of storytelling, putting a voice to an idea, bringing a narrator to an idea.

I’m halfway through drafting the second book in my new series and I had to put it down to finish final line edits in the first book. Always helps to put a story down and let things percolate, but this particular pause found a new character. I had this vague idea of a bad guy, but he materialized with a name, a back story, a hacker handle, and a voice.

Matt Cost and a few other Maine Crime merry pranksters and I did a Making a Mystery at the library in Bar Harbor a few weeks ago and Matt asked us where our characters come from and I sort of glitched, because my characters come from all different places. This new character came from circumstance. I had a bad situation, and someone showed up to own it.

I’ve come to realize that this happens in every story I write. The primary characters I have locked down. But the cool secondary characters? They just show up to the party.

I’m not quite enough of a nerd to know the brain science of this, but I know the basics. The brain distracted continues to work, and work hard. Give it a task, even implicitly, and it’s toiling away. As a writer, that’s plot problem-solving and character creating.

Shower time also helps for that. Drive time as well. Same with going to writer’s conferences. I’m on the plane right now on the way back from Killer Nashville, and I’ve already written two scenes for that next novel on my phone, sitting on the tarmac.

It isn’t magic. But it is really cool.

In edits for my next book, so I’m still reading Cool Machine, Colson Whitehead, 2026.

Next up in my TBR is Shadow Friends, Tess Gerristen, 2026. Just saw her speak in our local Tenants Harbor library last week. So good!