I’m 22,000 words in so far, and it’s looking like this will be a substantial story.

I say that because I’m starting out by having eight important characters tell their backstories (not just one after another – there’s plot advancement in between too).

If I’m going to have that many important characters, I want each one to be unique and real to the reader before I get going. All too often I read a book and someone’s speaking and I think, “Who’s that character again?”

So far, I’ve had:

• Berry, the shepherd’s daughter and traumatised ex-shaman-apprentice, and the assault that led her to break her oath and flee to the city
• Patience, the Countygold (Countess), and the youthful boating tragedy that shaped her political ideals
• Dignity, the mad scientist son of radical revolutionists, and what he learned from being imprisoned throughout his late teens and early twenties.

Five to go, and even if they’re all relatively short, I’ll easily hit 30,000 words before that introductory part of the book is done. So, assuming a beginning, middle and end of roughly the same size, about 100K.

I’m looking forward to what Hope the strikingly beautiful commoner magus, Windknower the shy, scruffy werewolf, Learned Vigilance the very serious religious scholar, Tranquil the lower-nobility statistician and Rain the docklands social worker have to say.

I also want to do cards (or Evernote notes, at least) for each of them outlining what they want, why they can’t have it, and what they will (and won’t) go through to get it. That’s what is going to drive my plot. One of my faults as a writer is that I’m too softhearted towards my characters. I give them what they want instead of making them work for it. Well – that stops now.

UPDATE: Just finished Hope’s story, another couple of thousand words. I had her down as a good girl, but she surprised me with how much trouble she got into. I never know what these characters are going to do ahead of time.

Mike Reeves-McMillan

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Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.