Plotting the Character-driven Novel

In Plotting the Character-driven Novel, Linda Rodriguez turns her sought-after writing course on using depth of character as a springboard to a strong plot into a book designed to help the aspiring writer who wants to tell a story made compelling by the truth and complexity of its characters. She provides examples of actual documents she has used in creating her own award-winning books to demonstrate the methods she teaches. Great plot springs from character and the motivations each character has for taking or not taking action. How do you use character as the springboard to a strong plot that draws its complexity from the motivations of its characters? What are the hidden fears and desires of each major character, what happens when these are frustrated, and how do they intersect and conflict with one another? What are the secrets this character is hiding even from him/herself? What will this character tell you about her/himself if given the chance? Through asking these kinds of questions of your characters, you will learn to create an exciting and complex plot, building from the integrity of the characters you create.

Linda Rodriguez' has published Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, three novels in the Skeet Bannion mystery series, Every Hidden Fear (Latina Book Club Best Books 2014 and a Las Comadres National Latino Book Club selection), Every Broken Trust (International Latino Book Award and a Las Comadres National Latino Book Club selection), and Every Last Secret (winner of the Malice Domestic First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition and finalist for the International Latino Book Award) with the fourth Skeet novel, Every Family Doubt, forthcoming in June 2017, as well as two books of poetry, Heart's Migration (Tia Chucha Press) winner of the Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and Skin Hunger (Potpourri Publications; Scapegoat Press). She edited Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertorriquena Poets Look at Their American Lives (Scapegoat Press), second place, International Latino Book Award and co-edited with Diane Glancy the poetry anthology, The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East (forthcoming February 2017). She has also published a cookbook, The "I Don't Know How To Cook" Book: Mexican. Rodriguez received the Midwest Voices and Visions Award, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships, among others. She is the 2015 Chair of the AWP Indigenous/Aboriginal American Writers Caucus, immediate past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, Kansas City Cherokee Community, and International Thriller Writers. Learn more about her books and events at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/