Step 2: Discover the characters

For this I use one of the myriad worksheets given out at conferences and workshops by romance writing teachers. Learning who the characters are is an extremely important part of the prewriting process.

But here's the important thing to remember about the worksheets: These will help you develop character backstory, and you'll use about 10-20% of that backstory in your novel. One of the most common tendencies in new writers is to stop their story at chapter two and then dump half a chapter of backstory in. Backstory isn't important until it serves to either illuminate motivation or develop character relationships.

The interesting trick to backstory is that it's for you, the author, not the reader. You, the author, need to know that Simon was dangled by his older brother from the attic window when he was four years old, but the reader needs to know only that Simon is afraid of heights -- until the moment in the story when Simon is faced with either climbing out on a railroad tressle to save a child or confronting his older brother about his callous attitude toward the weak. But until that moment comes, Simon will be doing things whose origins are obvious to you, the author: shying from balconies, feeling anxious in attics, showing kindness to children.