Writing

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  Character Building - Drafting - Editing - Writing

  Lazarus Two: Don’t Hold Your Characters at Plot Point

  October 30, 2025 - By Heather Ashle

  

  If you’ve stumbled upon this blog without reading its first part, “Lazarus One: Why Magic Systems are Important… Even With No Magic,” you may be wondering what we’re all doing here. Either click the link or “Lemme ’splain. No, there is too much. Lemme sum up.” (Please read like Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride.) 

  In an impromptu divergence from a cozy Halloween movie marathon, my husband and I stumbled upon and binged the new Harlan Coben miniseries, Lazarus. It was beyond gripping, and we couldn’t help but finish it all in one unplanned go. However, enjoyable as it was, it mishandled a few storytelling basics that, if properly treated, would have taken the story from great to excellent. This, feeling like a teachable moment for all storytelling creatives, inspired a two-part blog.

  In the first installment, we discussed the importance of having a system that governs the way preternatural things take place within a story. In this one, we’ll cover how inauthentic character choices can destabilize even the most engrossing plotline.

  There. You’re caught up.

  A Study in Character

  If you’ve ever seen me give an interview about my books, you’ve almost certainly heard me yammer on about character. I grew up in the dogmatic study of character, and it affected realm-near every aspect of my life, let alone my writing. People are fascinating creatures, and if you get a good enough understanding of one, you’ll come to realize that you can’t ever possibly understand enough.

  But in some nebulous way, you can smell a lie. Ever ask someone a question or watch someone on TV ask another person a question, and without a shadow of a doubt, you know the answer was a false one? Your spidey senses will do this with characters, too. Even if you can’t know everything about a person or character (often, yourself included), you can intuit when someone is acting authentically or inauthentically. 

  I often talk in interviews (and, let’s face it, casual conversation, in which I’ve coerced my victims into enduring an extended discussion of writing) about how my characters dictate my story’s every move: the length of my books or the series at large, the plot points I thought I was charting, the general goings-on within the pages… you name it, they’re the ones driving the bus.

  The reality of writing, at least for an author who allows characters to drive their stories, is we can set up characters in certain places or situations, primed and ready to watch them handle things in a certain way. But if, as the story progresses, we realize that their authentic choice would lead them down another path, we have to honor that. It’s all instinctual. Nope, he wouldn’t say that…. Yes, that’s something she would do…. And before we know it, they’ve turned left—not right—and we have a new set of plot points on our hands. 

  But it feels real.

  And that’s the magic of writing.

  Because character authors don’t force their characters to do what they wouldn’t realistically do. They can’t; the reader would smell the lie.

  As I said in the first installment of this blog miniseries, other than Lazarus, I have no experience with Harlan Coben. He’s fairly acclaimed, so I prefer to attribute these kinds of mistakes to the television series-making process. Perhaps he got too much push-back, had to abridge things, didn’t have time to noodle things out to the extent he might in a novel…. I don’t know why a #1 New York Times bestselling author would allow these errors into his works. But I think it’s the caliber of the miniseries that allows us to find them. Lazarus is such a near-masterpiece that specific problems can be found to contrast with its overall greatness. On that artful backdrop, the oopsies stand out.

  Regardless, I can only be grateful for the enthralling and enviable work that is Lazarus and the opportunity to pick it apart for all writers’ benefits.

  The Cardinal Sins of Character Misuse

  If not careful, character authors—as I appear to be calling us in this installment of the blog—can fall prey to two deficiencies of character use:

  • • Insubstantial character definition
    • Inappropriate character application

  Lazarus not only exhibited both, but they worked together to create some of its biggest issues.

  In most cases (perhaps not in this one, but we’ll never know), these sins of not staying true to characters usually stem from one of two things: 

  • • the author’s ignorance of their character’s true personality and resultant actions
    • a need for the character to drive the plot in a way that does not align with who the character is

  When my characters diverge from my anticipated plotline, I usually take it as a sign that I was mistaken about our path. My characters often seem to possess better navigational skills than I do (if you’ve gone anywhere with me, you know that’s not hard), and I have come to trust them rather implicitly in these fork-in-the-road moments when I think we’re bearing left, and they turn right. This is often what many refer to as “trusting the process.”

  The Twofer

  *Spoilers and discussion of sensitive subject matter (murder) begin here.*

  But why explain each of the cardinal character sins individually when they entwined so defectively throughout the story? One character who exhibited both was Laura.

  Also a psychiatrist—and in need of a new psychiatrist to replace her retiring one—Laura was referred to Laz’s father but failed to make an appointment before he died. When she shows up in his office, Laz—naturally—believes her to be another murder victim’s ghost. But when he runs into her in a bar sometime later, he realizes she is actually very alive. And pretty.

  The time they spend chatting in his office tells us much about Laura. She wearily admits that the job is weighing on her; that the worry she feels for others’ troubles becomes a burden after a while, and she’s struggling to take her own best advice. When Laz asks her what advice she would give him about their shared profession, she immediately replies, “Leave. Get out of this place.” While she expands on that initially haunting idea to explain that he should go out for a walk or a drink—some kind of change of scenery to “avoid falling into the same patterns,” her initial answer and the more sanitized one that follows it both speak volumes.

  Nearing her wits’ end, she is clearly desperate for change. Her first answer tells us all we need to know about her deepest desire—to leave the profession. Her second one tells us about her intentions—to stick it out.

  What we don’t seem to get, then or later, is the reason for her perseverance. A lonely, single woman, bowing under the weight of the emotional load her patients heap on her, Laura fails to make us privy to her justification for remaining where she is.

  So, after Laz realizes she is alive, commissions her as his own therapist, and then arrives for an after-hours emergency session, only to ask her out for a drink, her response that he is behaving inappropriately makes sense. Of course she’s going to refer him to someone else! 

  • • The possibility of transference has already transcended mere risk. 
    • She doesn’t need more burdens beyond the toxic baggage her clients share. 
    • She has no reason to invite more trouble to her door.

  Yet, when she hands him her colleagues’ cards, she has her coat in her hand… and they go out for a drink.

  What?!

  Look, humans are dichotomous. 

  • • Maybe she’s attracted to messy situations. 
    • Maybe he looks like her college boyfriend. 
    • Maybe she’s so lonely, she can’t help herself.

  But the fact that we can’t even guess at the motivation driving her is, to my mind, a problem.

  Worse yet, Coben could have clarified this with a singlesentence during their first interview in Laz’s father’s office.

  • • “I just can’t seem to give up the job.” (Driven by solid work ethic or the rut of routine.)
    • “I can’t let down my patients.” (Empathetic to a fault.)
    • “I don’t know what I’d do instead.” (This has been her passion or profession for a long time; she may even be afraid to change vocations.) 
    • “But who else would I talk to without my patients?” (Desperately lonely.)
    • “I can’t seem to give up the drama.” (Loves the mess.) 
    • “My mother would never have let her job get to her.” (Her mother was a steadfast role model for her.)

  It could have been anything. The revelation could have happened at any point before he ended up on her doorstep. Without an additional cue like one of those above, we see her simply as overburdened and drowning under the weight of her worry over her patients. Why would someone like that take on more chaos?

  And Laz is, very clearly, in a chaotic place at that point. She believes he impersonated his father during their session in his office until he… sort of… sets her straight about the misunderstanding, while conveniently omitting the ghostly part of the explanation. Yet, this woman with nothing more than the weight of the world on her shoulders, accepts his unprofessional excuses, agrees to take him on as a client, and then pivots to dating him? Certainly, we should know enough about Laura’s character to understand what part of her would acquiesce to such madness. 

  But the reality is: Coben needed her to occupy the lover’s role later in the story to heighten the emotional drama of the ending. I’d have happily gone along with it if he could have made me understand what enticed her to take on one more mess in her overcrowded life. Yet, without that, the choice felt inauthentic to what little we knew of her character—imposed upon her by an external hand (Coben’s) for the sake of driving the emotional plot in a certain direction.

   

  The Slow Burn

  Whereas Coben could have tackled Laura’s justifying personality quirk in a single sentence, I would have needed series-long reinforcement of this next issue to prevent its absence from curdling the ending. 

  Often, what makes a good ending—at least, for the character author’s work—is when the characters meet their fate in an authentic way. 

  • • If this character is so evil, so hated, that he simply must die, so be it. 
    • If that one has searched the entire story for her true love, let her find that person. 
    • But if the other one, bereft of everyone he ever loved, has no choice but to ride alone into the sunset to start his life over, don’t have him stay in town just because they have needed a new mayor since he killed the last one upon arriving.

  See what I mean?

  As everything unravels and the answers to questions are, at least, partially uncovered, we learn that Laz’s father killed his most dangerously psychotic patients in a deranged and perversely motivated version of vigilantism. Moreover, he asserts that the old adage, “Like father, like son,” threatens to perpetuate this dangerous, murderous appetite in successive generations. 

  While Laz adopted his father’s profession and even admits to emulating him, we never see enough similarity between them to believe that he might take after his father’s murderous tendencies. (Although, if we knew he was seeing visions—not ghosts—we might question the psychosis bit, at least…! But I shan’t digress to the previous blog installment.) Furthermore, when we learn Laz has a son, we see few parallels between the three Lazarus generations. Perhaps nurture actually can win out over nature. Seems like good news. 

  But his father insists that Laz must somehow break their murderous pattern. Laz says he no longer wants to be like his father, and the ghost just… obligingly disappears, as if intention were enough to break the genetic spell. Okay, so, new leaf turned and problem—uh—solved, right? 

  Well, it would seem so… until Laz runs into his son at the scene of his (now-confirmed) second murder, and we’re faced with the very problem of lineage that his ghost-father foretold. Where Laz seems like another breed entirely—not predisposed to violence or a need to kill to preserve social order and stop pain—his father and son seem to be two peas in the proverbial pod (although his son appears to kill more out of psychosis alone).

  Now, we questioned throughout the film whether Laz was the murderer in a hallucination-induced divergence of personality. Had this “like father, like son” idea been better reinforced among all three characters throughout the film, we might have believed his father’s hereditary assertions a bit more, and we certainly would have questioned Laz’s culpability more often (leading to a richer viewer experience)! This shared facet of their personalities would have made several scenes more intense, including the final one, in which Laz realizes his son is a born murderer, just like his father was.

  Faced with his boy, who carries an unhinged gleam in his eye and a bloody sickle in his lazy grip, Laz is left in the ultimate double bind: if I kill my son to stop the murdering spree, won’t I be completing the very pattern of familial homicide my father’s ghost warned me against?

  *Insert record scratch here*

  Hold on. Am I wrong in thinking the following…?

  • • Such an impossible choice would be intensified if Laz fought his own homicidal tendencies inherited from his father? 
    • Tendencies, perhaps, that he hoped to teach his son to curb before it was too late?
    • And would this choice not be further intensified if we actually understood whether his father was a ghost or a figment of Laz’s brutally honest imagination?

  I dare say, “Uh, yeah!” to all three.

  There are subtler ways of crafting character backstories and motivations than simply having one character tell the other that he wants to be like him. Adopting his father’s profession was an excellent way to show this for Laz, but more could have solidified their inherited similarities throughout—not just their habitual ones. 

  Virtually nothing linked the newfound son to Laz, either, aside from the boy’s interest in him, so while the kid was suspiciously weird, we saw no connection between them. The lack of visible moral struggle or perverse tendency in either Laz or his son makes it hard to believe in the “bad seed” theory that his father prophesies until his son bears a bloody blade at the end. Then, we can almost believe that tendency skipped a generation.

  Sure, to play devil’s advocate, one might say that is what makes Laz’s decision about how to handle his son all the more damning. If he would naturally never kill, how could he be expected to kill his son, of all people? He’s a psychiatrist; he can work to fix the lad. He doesn’t have to believe some cases are irredeemable, like his father did.

  But you can see in Laz’s eyes that his terror is not in the choice; it’s in his consideration of it. If he shares none of that moral gray-area with his father—despite all he learned about his father’s pseudo-vigilante-like motives for murdering his most psychotic patients—would he even considerkilling his son to fix the ongoing problem? Based on his disgust for his revered father’s choices, I posit: no.

  Unless you think this drives him to it. For you, then, perhaps this is enough.

  Regardless, if this discrepancy can solicit this much conversation, you can see why authentic and consistent character motivation is so. realming. pivotal.

  I Hope You Watch(ed) It Anyway

  Look, if you read my blog about Mufasa, you know I analyze these things not to give some high-handed review of the work but from the viewpoint of a writer using examples of popular media to teach how to hone the craft of storytelling. (At least, I hope that’s what you took from my blog about The Lion King’s prequel.)

  I loved Harlan Coben’s Lazarus. I found it utterly enthralling, artfully acted, and really conceptually interesting. I just wished it would have answered the questions that remained by the end of it. Yes, it could leave the door open for a potential sequel. But if they choose not to go there after all, as was seemingly their original intention, what was the point?

  By the same token, it made for some readily teachable moments. Can’t thank Harlan Coben enough for that—and for the day of fun that accompanied them.

  So, remember, authors: authenticity in character is important because your readers are people who study people. They see them in their daily lives, and they get a double dose in their free time within the pages of their books. People can’t help but know at least a little something about people, and if they’re doubling up with their extracurricular media, they won’t help but be able to smell a lie—to see inconsistencies without actively ferreting them out. Don’t lie to your readers, authors. They won’t like it—or your books.

  -HA

  
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  Character Building - Drafting - Editing - Magic System - Worldbuilding - Writing

  Lazarus One: Why Magic Systems Are Important… Even With No Magic

  October 30, 2025 - By Heather Ashle

  

  In a recent quest to relax after a busy show season, my husband and I booked our Sunday for a cocoa-infused, blanket-wrapped, snuggly Halloween movie marathon. But as we turned on our streamer, Prime suggested Harlan Coben’s Lazarus. We love watching Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy, so I clicked to see if it was something we wanted to check out later.

  We binged the whole thing right then and there.

  The opening was that compelling.

  It started right in the thick of it. A deranged inmate makes oddly specific, supernatural threats. Someone dies offsite within moments, proving his far-reaching karmic powers. And a life fueled by guilt-laden coping mechanisms shifts instantly into the fraying desperation of finding answers.

  You can see how gripping it was from the start. Coben absolutely nailed the suspense and intrigue factors. I’m not sure I’ve been that invested in a show since 24 with Kiefer Sutherland (another actor-favorite of mine).

  Now, I haven’t read anything by Harlan Coben, but it turns out Lazarus wasn’t one of his novels to begin with. He created the miniseries for television and, if you ask me, for the cast, too. They embodied their roles!

  But—and I may be revealing my complete ignorance of the behind-the-scenes world of television here—I do wonder whether it might have had a stronger build and finish if it had been a novel first. (Again, I have no history with Coben; I’m just giving him the benefit of the doubt. He is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, after all.)

  I am obviously divulging my uneducated bias toward written source material, but I know the in-depth process that writing novels requires, and I do wonder whether the same process is regularly (emphasis: more often than not) implemented in the creation of television series. We see so many fall flat at the end—even those derived from solid sources—and it really makes me question the process. Especially since that process is subject to so many more moving parts, including a budget, which author imaginations need not heed in the ink-and-paper business…!

  Now, I won’t say Lazarus fell flat. I honestly still recommend watching it—preferably before you read this blog… as long as you’ll come back to this later!—because the ride is so much fun!

  Despite everything it did right (and the list is almost incomprehensible—it is clear Coben is a master), the miniseries didn’t handle a few things the way I think a good story should, and as a writer of stories, I found a couple of excellent cross-media learning opportunities that deserve consideration.

  Rather than inundate my readers with a long Mufasa-length blog, I thought I’d do a miniseries of my own, covering each of the elements that needed a bit more care in separate entries.

  This first one speaks to the importance of establishing a system of rules that govern a story’s more nebulous inner-workings.

  The Written Rule

  From the paltry research I’ve conducted, I understand that Lazarus was supposed to be a one-off miniseries that tied everything up neatly without need of a sequel season. I’m afraid that—despite how close it came to enthralling perfection—it didn’t quite succeed on that front.

  The single biggest issue with Lazarus was a lack of cohesive rule structure for the preternatural goings-on in the story.

  I can best relate this to my favorite genre. If you’re a regular reader of fantasy, you know the importance of a well-devised magic system.

  Consistent magical rules…

  • • better immerse readers through believable and comprehensible world-building (we mortals know what to expect from our rules of physics, right?)
    • create predictable limitations for the use of magic (and how the characters may wield it for or against each other)
    • clarify the stakes of the story through those limitations (because you can see what is and isn’t possible in the world and how that may affect the characters in it)

  Think of it like a rollercoaster. You may not know what twists and turns lie over that ridge ahead, but you can rest assured that the cart will stay on a set track, wherever it goes (or so you hope!).

  But if the car suddenly disconnected, flew calmly off the tracks to zip around the theme park before dropping you off in the parking lot, and then failed to reanimate to return to the tracks whence it came, you’d wonder why. Like, a lot of whys.

  • • Why did it jump off the tracks?
    • Why was it able to fly on its own?
    • Why did it drop me off here?
    • Why can’t it fly—or even roll—back to the park?

  Readers of any genre don’t particularly care for a bunch of open-ended questions that promise no explanation (or “pay-off”). Fantasy and magic aren’t alone in requiring explicit processes for the way things work. Science (or speculative) fiction and paranormal stories require similar framework. If you, as an imbiber of the medium, can’t understand why something is happening or whether it might (or might not) happen again, the story will cease to be immersive because you’ll just sit there asking questions about things that feel arbitrary instead of planned.

  What Lazarus Lacks

  *Spoilers and discussion of sensitive subject matter (murder and suicide) begin here.*

  It turns out psychological thrillers need such systems, too. In Lazarus, Joel “Laz” Lazarus, a forensic psychiatrist, learns his father, also a psychiatrist, has committed suicide in his office. Although the family remains plagued by the murder of Laz’s little sister twenty-five years ago, none of them became the suicidal type, and the baffling loss sends Laz to his father’s office to try to make sense of the situation.

  Exhausted by grief and confusion, he is accosted by the ghost of one of his father’s former patients, who seems stuck in a reenactment of her clinical session with his father. Unable to question her freely, Laz realizes that he can only approximate his father’s studied replies to learn whatever he can about her within the lived script of their session. When she disappears, he begins rummaging through his father’s patient records, convinced that a dastardly cover-up connects the mounting deaths.

  ***QUICK DIVERSION***

  You might be asking* why Laz even tried to interact with the auto-pilot ghost, and for a moment or two, it may look like nothing more than a dual-purpose device used to make the conversation more sensible to viewers and give us the impression that Laz knows his father very, very well (nicely done, Coben). But! It turns out, this also calls into question something we learn later, so just sit with that one for a moment.

  *However: if you’re an author and failed to ask this question, you are still in the first-draft phase of your understanding of this work—and that’s okay, especially if you’ve seen it (less than) once. But when you hit editing mode in a later draft, you should begin thinking from the reader’s POV and asking yourself, “Would my reader question this?” If so, you need to deal with it appropriately. This could mean…

  • • giving readers the answer to that question then and there (non-mysterious information becomes an instant pay-off for your readers)
    • bringing that back up to answer later (create a little suspense now until there is an appropriate time or revelation to return to this quirky choice)
    • having a character ask—perhaps internally or in later dialogue—why he bothered (create the inciting moment that begs the question either as something that can be answered right then or that will need to be investigated)

  You get the idea. It’s your job as the author to mete out information to the readers in a way that makes them feel like they’re actively uncovering things rather than being led by the nose, constantly in the dark, throughout your story. This was a novice oopsie I made in early versions of An Heir of Realms, an epic fantasy novel filled with mysteries and misleading information, and I’ve striven to avoid this trap ever since my betas—rightly!—raked me over the coals for it.

  ***END DIVERSION***

  Anywho! Returning to the office some time later, Laz is visited not by the spectral woman but by his father’s ghost. The caveat? His father can interact with him. He is not stuck in an unalterable loop of lived experience but can answer questions and speak to his son as if he were not dead. His father explains that Laz will be visited by the spirits of his patients, à la Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and it is Laz’s job to uncover the truth behind their murders—his included. (Duh duh duhhhhhh!)

  Even if we accept that his father’s ghost has special privileges (presumably) by virtue of his connection to Laz and his non-patient status, we as viewers are forced to question why—or whether—Laz is even experiencing these otherworldly visitations.

  • • Are these truly apparitions, caught in the web of time, forced to relive the experiences that led to their deaths for Laz’s viewing displeasure?
    • If his father’s ghost is more sentient, why can’t he tell us who killed him and made it look like suicide? What are his limitations, compared to those of the other scripted victims?
    • Is his father’s knowledge limited because Laz is simply hallucinating him, so he can only know what Laz knows?
    • If Laz is hallucinating, how can he possibly know what happened to patients behind his father’s closed doors?

  These kinds of intriguing mysteries are what draw the viewer (or reader) in, and Coben layered them in artfully. Now, as the story unfolds, building on this system will be what enhances its immersiveness.

  The Build-Up

  Whenever Laz is forced to play out a new ghost’s story, he recognizes that the person was murdered—because that’s what his father-ghost told him.

  So, when someone he recently saw, alive and well in his sister’s kitchen, arrives—younger and engrossed in a past conversation—in his father’s office, Laz (and the viewer) knows she must have died since last he spoke with her.

  This follows the pattern established by the rules set out in earlier episodes. When we see her arrive in the same trance as the other ghosts, we’re as alarmed as Laz is… because, like him, we know this means she has been murdered.

  Our ability to infer, as Laz does, what happened to the character from her eldritch presence is what gives us agency as readers or viewers. We feel like we are a part of the story because we understand the system governing it, and rather than ruin the suspense, the predictability enhances it. We know she’s dead, but now we want to know why because the reveal was such an understandable surprise.

  The Breakdown

  However, issues arise when the rules inexplicably change. Laz only sees the ghosts of his father and other murder victims… right?

  So, what does it mean when he sees the ghost of his younger self?

  The scene where a teenaged Laz approaches his father and begs forgiveness for not saving his sister from being murdered is made horribly poignant by Laz’s enforced role as his cold and unforgiving father. He knows both sides of the conversation by heart, haunted by its brutality since it transpired, but now, occupying his father’s side as he watches his young heart break at his words, he is forced to relive it in the cruelest way possible.

  This scene was genius, and it killed me—just like it was supposed to. (Bravo, Coben!)

  Unfortunately, I was a bit distracted by the broken rules.

  Laz is seeing himself.

  • • Does that mean he’s dead now?
    • Or has he been dead all along?
    • Is this less hallucination and more post-mortem hellscape?

  When all returns to normal in the next scene, and he seems alive and not terribly well, we are left wondering what in the realm just happened.

  • • If he is alive, and no other conditions changed in the rules system, how did he see his past self?
    • Is this simply a metaphor for the death of his innocence, youth, or relationship with his father?
    • Are these scenes not enacted by ghosts but visions Laz experiences in his father’s office?

  Suddenly, the entire rules system is called into question, our understanding shattered by a non-sequitur change. What’s worse, an artful scene that should bring us to our knees in empathy for Laz is disengaged by questions about what is transpiring. (Sure, I’m an empath, and I was able to suspend disbelief while this heartrending scene unfolded. It also reminded me of a less-haunting (pun intended) but similar scene I recently wrote in the upcoming D’Erenellean prequel “epic novella” to the Realm Riders Series, and the author in me loved watching the mechanics of it play out. But as soon as it was over, my Virgo brain shifted into analytical mode.)

  Now, Coben could have rectified this by allowing an earlier, less emotional, non-sequitur encounter to change the rules for us. When Laz engages in a conversation that his father had with his sister right before she died, we realize that not all the ghosts are his patients. This was a good first step in shifting the rules.

  But if we could have also witnessed a past scene with someone who was still alive in present-day before Laz sees his younger self, we would realize that not all the ghostly memories belong to the dead. After Laz has analyzed this change (and perhaps explained it to another character, like his sister) to ensure viewers also understand this evolved rule of connection, then we could feel immersed in the scene between his teenaged self and his father because we are not asking what seeing it really means.

  And this problem isn’t resolved because by the end of the series, we still don’t fully understand how Laz sees what he does in his father’s office.

  About Those Approximated Conversations…

  Remember my earlier diversion in this blog, when I questioned Laz’s involvement in the ghost-patients’ pre-scripted conversations from lived sessions with his father? Eventually, we are reminded of a possible explanation with a replay of an earlier scene that we—by design—thought nothing of (sneaky, Coben!). We know his father recorded everything that happened within those four walls, and Laz has been listening to the tapes back at his sister’s house, often falling asleep while they play in his headset.

  Given his vision of his own past, it seems unlikely that he actually encountered ghosts replaying these scenes before his very eyes. Instead:

  • • It is possible that he just happened to pull the tape of a murdered patient, heard the session in his sleep, and relived it in full, grief-hallucinated technicolor when it resurfaced to his conscious brain as he walked into his father’s workspace. This, perhaps along with his deep understanding of his father, would explain how he knew what his father’s side of the conversation entailed.
    • It is possible that the same thing recurred after he dozed while listening to other tapes of murder victims and family discussions.

  But there’s a hitch in this theory. If you’ll remember, Laz realized that a person in his life died because of the timing of one of these visitations. This leaves us wondering whether that was mere coincidence… or something more supernatural, the latter of which would blow up our tape-recording theory. In fact, no one theory seems to cover it all, and it cheapens the “rules,” relegating them to convenient plot devices that can shift with momentary need.

  Sure, maybe I missed something, or I’m just not smart enough to read the subtext—but if so, I’ll bet I’m not the only one, and that feels like sloppy execution to me (no murder pun intended). I want my readers to understand what I’m trying to share with them—to share in the revelations rather than in the confusion. Subtext is great, but when the main plot device becomes subtext—or worse yet, inconsistent subtext—we have a problem.

  Just remember, authors: mystery is important, but if you never give the reader any answers, they won’t thank you for leaving them with as many questions as they had when they picked up your book to discover what it held within its pages.

  -HA

  In Our Next Episode…

  Coben’s tendency to abuse plot devices in Lazarus also extended to his characters. Find out more in the next entry, “Lazarus Two: Don’t Hold Your Characters at Plot Point.”

  
• 

  Drafting - Editing - Pre-Publication - Publishing - Writing

  Editing Before Your Editor Edits Your Edits

  June 6, 2025 - By Heather Ashle

  

  I’ve said this before: as a writer and an editor, it takes a massive amount of self-control to prevent myself from editing my work as I write it, even if I know it sucks as it drains from my fingertips into the keyboard. Drafts are supposed to suck; their function is to get the raw materials out of your head so you can mold them on the paper or screen before you. 

  And, oh, my raw materials can be rather pathetic at the start. Epically pathetic, one might say, given my genre of choice.

  But what my editing chops provide me is the ability to clean up my work (to a point) before I hand it off to an objective set of eyes that hasn’t been staring at my words for months on end.

  While HB Ink, LLC’s process encompasses a standard two rounds of editing before formatting for print, sometimes pieces benefit from an extra full or partial edit prior to making the manuscript look pretty on the page.

  This is not a fault or a negative.

  It’s another step toward the realization of the author’s vision. Authors hire editors to make their stories gleam. I would rather have an editor tell me it needs more work before I go to print than publish an unpolished piece that needs revamping in a later edition.

  My Books Suck.

  At least at the beginning.

  I edit the realm out of my books before I hand them off to my editor, and while it makes her life easier, it also eases mine. By the time she gets them, my works are less prone to needing extra edits (though not impervious) because I analyze every word several times over before it leaves my hands for an objective scan.

  I can hear some of you asking why I bother. “You’re paying the editor. Let her do the dirty work. It’s her job. Use that time, instead, to write the next book.”

  Hmmm, a compelling counterpoint.

  No.

  Here’s why.

  Certainly, the Virgo perfectionist in me instantly responds to that suggestion with dry heaves, but while she breathes into a paper bag on the couch, let me give more rational reasons for my choice to edit ad nauseum (see what I did there?).

  Besides assuring continuity and adherence to future plotlines, the rest goes back to vision. I have a certain vision for my tale that no one else can have because they’re not in my brain (and for escaping that fate: you’re welcome). 

  I want my book to read a certain way. 

  I want a specific cadence. 

  I select words with pedantic discernment that, in my case, stems from hours and hours of Masters-level literary analysis. (Sometimes I want that subtle dual-meaning to stroke your subconscious along the way, even if you don’t realize it on the first read, okay? It makes me happy to know it’s there for you to find… even if you don’t.)

  Secondarily, polishing is part of my process. Choosing the words that fit my vision sometimes reveals tiny finesses within the tale that I didn’t realize were important. I have seen the alteration of one word redefine an entire scene within my story (which, yes, required a complete rewriting overhaul, but I was in the editing phase at that point, so it was a legitimate action).

  Words are extraordinarily powerful and possess lives of their own. We are privileged to use them, and we must wield their power with meticulous care.

  But we don’t need years of collegiate study to do so (I just happen to have that in my arsenal). So, let me tell you what I do (and you can, too) to help my words do what I want them to. Even if you’re not as picky as I am (and few are!), this might spare you an additional round of editing.

  The Pre-Editor Editing Process

  The basics are requisite to storytelling:

  1. Allow yourself to write a terrible draft. You WILL fix it later. You promise.

  2. Edit the draft. See? You didn’t even have to wait that long.

  3. Edit it again, really, as many times as you want. When this process starts to feel smooth, you can move on to step four.

  The finesses are requisite to better storytelling:

  4. Perform a ReadAloud Edit. Word has a function called ReadAloud that uses an AI voice to read your work to you (other similar programs exist). I like to do this with a grammar bot running to kill two Narxon with one jet of dragon fire, but you can split the two into separate steps if the pair is overwhelming in tandem. (I use the ProWritingAid grammar bot add-in for Word. Some choose Grammarly. You do you.)

  • Let the computer read your work to you while your eyes read along. You will hear the obvious mistakes and see the less-obvious ones.
  • Fix the things the grammar bot tells you to fix (unless the bot is wrong or your stylistic choices require some grammatic fudgery).
  • ReadAloud your corrections, whether you chose to make them or the bot suggested them. They may need further adjusting.
  • Let the computer read your work to you until everything sounds right. Obviously, the bot’s inflection (and sometimes pronunciation) may not be perfect, but if you’re reading along with your eyes, you’ll know if you nailed it, even when the computer reader is a bit glitchy. (The newer voices have come a long way, thankfully.)

  5. Perform a Reading Edit. Now you become the reader bot. Read your story aloud to yourself (or to a friend, spouse, or pet, if desired).

  • Barring any unforeseen emergencies or pee breaks, read each chapter from start to finish without walking away in the middle. This uninterrupted read provides the added benefit of checking for continuity and unintentional repetition within the chapter.
  • This is also helpful if you plan to do an audiobook version (especially if you plan to read it yourself) because you can catch any weirdness or spots that may be tricky to say before you record.

  6. Perform a Paper Edit. (Note: If you’re not a computer person, you may have already completed this step.) Oh, yeah. Old school. Why bother? Seeing your story in a different medium (on paper vs. screen) changes your impression of it; it’s like starting from a clean(er) slate.

  • If you’ve written the entire thing on a computer, burn through a ream of paper and print the whole thing. Then sit with your favorite pen (I use purple ink) and mark it up. (I’m aware of the ecological consequences here; if you wait to do this step closer to the end, you won’t have to do it twice, and printing double-sided or using recycled paper helps reduce waste, too. Please remember to recycle your marked-up manuscript when finished.)
  • You can read it out loud a second time (if desired) or combine this step with your Reading Edit from step five.
  • Transfer your edits to the manuscript, check with that grammar bot again, ReadAloud/read out loud anything that needed serious overhauling, and voila. You’ve edited your book at least half a dozen times.

  The Final Step

  I would posit that an author doesn’t need to be a professional editor (nor spend an inordinate amount of money) to perform these edits. But there’s a caveat.

  When you’re done, hire an editor.

  I’m not saying this because I’m an editor-for-hire.

  I used an editor before I became one professionally and will continue to do so as long as I publish novels.

  But hear me out: after you’ve edited your work six or more times, your eyes cross, you dream in chapters, and you confer with your characters while making dinner or plucking your eyebrows. It’s a bit… [insert eye twitch here] enthralling.

  And you can’t be objective when you’re held in your story’s thrall.

  That’s when you need someone whose soul is not tangled in the tale to find its foibles.

  Even after all these editing steps, you. will. miss. things.

  Guaranteed.

  But if you put in all that effort to get your story as close to your version of perfect as you can, why in the realm would you stop short and let those hairy little typos and oopsies taint your immortalized hard work?

  Because Editors = Cost

  I get it.

  But let me posit this: you will never make up the cost of an editor if your book is frustrating, error-riddled, or unreadable. Because it won’t sell.

  You’ve invested the time. The energy. The love. 

  If you won’t invest the money in your soul’s story—in yourself—what will you invest in?

  Unless you’re publishing not with the intent to share but only so you can hold your book in your hand and say you’ve done it, please…

  edit the realm out of it and then hire an editor.

  -HA

  If I can be of service, check out HB Ink, LLC’s professional editing process at www.hbinkllc.com. 

  
• 

  Character Building - Drafting - Writing

  If You Can’t Nail a Prequel, Retcon It–Right, Mufasa?

  March 5, 2025 - By Heather Ashle

  

  I just returned from a brief stay in New Orleans (hope you had a happy Mardi Gras!), and on our way home, my husband noticed the movie Mufasa was available on the in-flight entertainment system.

  I’ve been stalking this movie like it was prey since I heard (herd!) it was coming out.

  I’m a huge Lion King fan. It played an enormous part in my childhood… and adulthood, let’s be real. I own all the movies, even the 3D version, and saw the incredible stage production multiple times. I had the stuffed animals and coloring books, jewelry and clothes, and the giant stickers adorning my bedroom walls. 

  Nala is my favorite.

  Eventually, when I was too old to play “activity center” games on my family’s old desktop but needed to transition away from crawling on all fours and hissing (I roar quite poorly), I played the PC games for ages 12 and under. (There was one that had a version of Mancala bred with tic-tac-toe…! *nostalgic sigh* I digress.) 

  Anywho.

  Mufasa certainly seemed like it would be pretty—the computer generation looked great in the previews. But I saw the sickly green splotch from Rotten Tomatoes, and I was unprepared to pay the $40 necessary to buy the digital copy during early release. I remained crouched in the tall grass, primed and ready to pounce on its inevitable “March release.”

  And then, after a wonderful reprieve from a dull February winter in Michigan, we flew home from NOLA. In March.

  The plane wasn’t even half-full before we scrambled for our headphones and pushed play.

  I obviously hold an awestruck reverence for the original—its music, animation, voice acting, and the story itself. Tears come to my eyes every time I see the sun rising at its opening, and they roll down my cheeks with certain soundtracks and heartbreaking moments of tragic foreshadowing. I even hold a place for the canon of the sequel. It’s all gospel to me.

  It is, apparently, not so sacred at Disney.

  I go on this (so far, 300-word) rant (hold on tight!) because I’m currently writing a prequel novella to the Realm Riders Series, and the choices Disney made in this seminal story were, in my opinion, grievous. They hinted at everything that was important but sanitized the movie so thoroughly that even some of the lions were bleached (joke—if you haven’t seen it, there is a pride of white lions terrorizing the typical tan-colored kitties in residence). 

  But we all know where this story ends. We’ve seen the original movie. The hate between brothers is so well established that one kills the other. (If this plot element is a spoiler, shaaaaaame on you.) What wasn’t as well established was the why. What sparked the murderous jealousy that drove Scar (apparently an epithet he earned later in life) to kill Mufasa, his brother and the King of Pride Rock? Murder feels like an extreme reaction to… well, a history we don’t know.

  And I would posit that we still don’t.

  Because Disney didn’t tell it right.

  This is not a statement of author arrogance or overzealous fan outrage. Let me explain.

  The reason getting the backstory right matters is because backstory is key to character development and motivation. If you don’t know why your character is doing something, then you don’t know your character well enough to use them in the story. Prequels are all about the justifications for what came afterward—not to make it more palatable through a wishy-washy rewriting of history, but to explain the why of how it all came to be. And we only bother with this when the source material grabs us by the soul and shakes until we demand to be told why we’re being savaged.

  In the case of TLK (oh, yeah, we’re so close, I can use abbreviations), there are characters whose motivations are clear, but the reason behind their character flaws is obscured by the limited scope of the story being told. It’s like Game of Thrones. There is lore because if we started at the beginning, we’d need two series to tell it all (hence, the prequel, House of the Dragon).

  This was Disney’s House of the Dragon moment. And I must say, they nailed it: I found it equally unimpressive.

  Here’s why. (Spoiler alert: I can’t be careful and effectively make my points, so if you don’t want to read on until you’ve seen Mufasa, please press pause now.)

  Mufasa as Outsider

  We (eventually) open on Mufasa and his parents, traveling the countryside in search of their next home. The three are alone on their journey, clearly separated from their pride for reasons that are never explained.

  When Mufasa (separated from his parents in truly traumatic Disney fashion—so they did that right) meets the cub who will quickly become his adopted brother, Taka (our one-day Scar), Taka is hailed as the prince of his pride. Meanwhile, Mufasa, now a seeming-orphan, is considered an “Outsider” and feared by the pride’s pathetic excuse for a king. The king’s mate, Eshe, vouches for the young cub, and Mufasa is “relegated” to live with the females in a power play that King Obasi thinks is necessary to maintain Taka’s primogeniture. (So, Obasi obviously has some insecurity issues.)

  This was all an interesting take on the tale. Never was Scar noted as the completely unrelated “brother from another mother.” Nor were we ever given the impression that Mufasa was not the elder brother and successor to a long line of kings in his royal family. But as these character details were relatively assumed from a history of similar storylines in the genre, I was prepared to abandon my (reasonable) preconceived notions, simply to see where they took it.

  The Would-Be Curse of Obasi

  In his years with Eshe and the lionesses, Mufasa cultivates his sixth sense, becoming the ultimate mix of masculinity and female intuition. Meanwhile, Taka, as he is groomed for the role of king, learns little more from his weaselly father than the fine art of “protecting the others while taking a nap.” Put off by his father’s laziness (not indoctrinated by it), Taka decides to find out what Mufasa is learning with the lionesses and follows him and his own mother—at a distance—when they go on a hunt.

  Eshe and Mufasa come face-to-face with a pair of bleach-blond bullies intent on obliterating any lion who is not a snow-white member of their pride. In the skirmish, Mufasa saves Eshe and accidentally kills the prince of the rival pride while Taka runs for the hills. When they return to report the incident to Obasi, Taka is shamed for his cowardice and sent away, with Mufasa as bodyguard, to start a new pride elsewhere while his family is slaughtered.

  The pride seems to do a relatively poor job of holding off the bloodthirsty Kiros and his lioness assassins. One sudden cut scene later, the murderous pride is on the pair’s tails. As the chase scene closes, Mufasa and Taka meet Sarabi and her new attendant Zazu, who have been similarly chased from their pride by Kiros and his rag-tag band of snow-colored thugs.

  Princess Sarabi

  As the pair pal around with Sarabi, Taka confides to Mufasa that he is in love with her. In true subjugate-Mufasa fashion, he does what he can to tout his royal brother, but Sarabi sees through it all and falls for Mufasa.

  Taka is, well, rather enraged by this.

  In much the same way that Taka stands in line to be king of his pride, Sarabi was princess to her own before Kiros slaughtered most of her now-far-flung ranks. While I love a good Disney Princess, Sarabi’s royal status among her own pride could destabilize the contention between the brothers instantly, if only the writers hadn’t included this canon-defying love triangle between them.

  In TLK, when Scar assumes the throne in his brother’s stead, he offers the position of Queen to Nala, and Sarabi is deposed outright. Now, might one argue that this could be an act of vindictiveness in the wake of her rejection all those years ago? I suppose. 

  But I argue: wouldn’t a murderously jealous Scar be more likely to force Sarabi to remain at his side at his coronation rather than offering the position to some other female within the pride? There were other lionesses to choose from, like Nala’s mother, Sarafina, who were more Scar’s age and whom he might have known better than Nala. 

  Realms, if we’re going to be realistic, as the pride’s King, Scar would get to court all the ladies, right? So, if Sarabi were to rebuff him again, he could simply rule without a specified mate, as he ends up doing in the original movie. (Of course, if we go there, then Simba and Nala might be half-siblings, so it’s probably best to avoid this option altogether.)

  Had the writers skipped the unlikely love-triangle option, then Sarabi’s insistence that Mufasa has what it takes to be king could inspire in Taka a deep-seated fear of losing his kingship to the brother he mistakenly believes will try to usurp him.

  This would mirror Obasi’s tenuous and fearful grasp on his own kingship—which resulted in Mufasa’s relegation to a life with the ladies and a lesson to Taka to maintain power through deception. Like his father, Taka could wallow in the bitter uncertainty of his divine right and cultivate the vengeful jealousy that warps him throughout his life. This, I think, was the kind of justification we were all expecting for Scar’s regicidal tendencies (that is, if you ignore the supposed Scar-is-just-jealous-of-Mufasa-as-the-older-brother-and-king part of the canon). Of course, Taka was put off by his father’s kingly lessons, not inculcated with them.

  Yet, Sarabi’s royal status has the potential to mitigate this formative issue altogether. Taking Kiara (Simba’s only daughter, thank you very much—I’ll get to that in a minute) as our canonical example, if the first-born child stands to inherit the royal role in her parents’ stead, then Sarabi’s claim to her throne could have elevated Mufasa to kingship over a separate group of lions. Obviously, there were many prides throughout the countryside, so both brothers could have ruled their own, perhaps even on bordering territories, and lived happily ever after.

  How did the writers not reason this out?

  The love triangle with Sarabi creates the tension that her royal blood could technically negate through this dual-king scenario, but if she hadn’t been a princess, we wouldn’t have needed the love triangle to create the rulership tension of the original movie’s storyline.

  (What’s more, Sarabi’s royal status is later ignored when Mufasa becomes king in his own right, so her previous standing among her scattered pride is essentially meaningless.)

  But, ya know. Retcon is a cool option, too.

  (Said no one.)

  Taka’s Betrayal

  Realm-bent on avenging his son’s murder, Kiros and his pride stalk Mufasa and Taka through snow-capped mountains (not that their lighter coloring ever gives them the advantage over their prey).

  Burned by Mufasa and Sarabi’s love, Taka meets with Kiros and offers up Mufasa in exchange for his own life. Bereft of his son, Kiros seems to adopt Taka outright (in his creepy and suspicious way), but the pair never bond. Nor does Kiros have much of an opportunity to teach his wicked ways to Taka, who grew up a decent lion, despite his father’s lazy and fear-riddled guidance. Other than his bitterness over Mufasa’s lousy work as his wing man, Taka’s cowardice (which we infer to stem from his father’s example, but it’s never explicitly shown) seems to be his only personality flaw. Suddenly—despite his relatively moral upbringing—he is ready to offer up his self-adopted brother to a band of murderers because Mufasa stole his crush?

  It simply doesn’t track—because they didn’t do the groundwork. Taka’s impatience with his father’s behavior induces him to seek out alternate examples of guidance, and he chooses to watch what the lionesses are teaching Mufasa instead. This is a smart cub who knows, thanks to Eshe and Mufasa, right from wrong. Therefore, his inherent cowardice isn’t enough—we need to see him indoctrinated by his father, even in a subconscious way, so that when his morals fail him, there’s a deep-seated reason for his fall from grace.

  Take young Simba, for example. Even as a cub, he knew he shouldn’t defy his father and go into the elephant graveyard. His ethics were too ingrained by his parents to think his behavior was exemplary. We needed Taka’s morals to be destabilized by his upbringing in the same, albeit opposite, way.

  The Scar

  As the group treks across the snowy mountains, Zazu creates minor avalanches to cover their tracks. So, to facilitate the betrayal, Kiros instructs Taka to use his claws to scar the exposed rockfaces along their path to lead the assassins to them.

  This is an excellent detail. It roots Scar’s future nickname not in a mere facial injury but in a deliberate act of betrayal. His own name, therefore, should, in theory, haunt him—and twist him—for the rest of his days. In this, Disney nailed it (in a good way this time), and I was thrilled by this tortured canonical addition.

  But the way Scar receives his iconic disfigurement left me comparatively cold. Regretting his decision to deliver his brother to the murderous lion pride when Kiros finally catches up to Mufasa, Taka jumps between them, and Kiros deals the blow that cuts across his eye.

  While I appreciate Taka’s act of self-sacrifice that takes a step toward his redemption, and how his own choices inevitably scar him physically, this could have gone another way to further cement his future hatred. What if Mufasa had been the one to scar his face, either accidentally, in a fashion similar to the Kiros incident, or deliberately. Realizing Taka was now against him, Mufasa could have attacked the brother threatening his life. This would give Taka a physical reminder of his brother’s supposed betrayal (either the theft of Sarabi or the throne) and would have had the added benefit of later grieving Mufasa every time he looked at the scar he cut into his own brother’s face. 

  But the other issue here is Taka doesn’t kill Kiros to cement his contrition. Instead, a boulder, dislodged during an earthquake under Pride Rock, falls into the pool of water in which Mufasa and Kiros are battling and plunges Kiros irretrievably into its depths. 

  Taka does manage to dig his claws into Mufasa’s paws (callback!—or is that call forward…?) and pull him out of the water, but because he did little to save his brother beyond taking a single blow to the face, Mufasa is relatively unimpressed with Taka’s change of heart. Frankly, I don’t blame him.

  Had Taka taken an active role in Kiros’ death, perhaps Mufasa could have forgiven his mistake (and it would have made Mufasa’s infliction of the scar even more agonizing). Instead, Taka adopts the name Scar, of his own volition, as a personal reminder of the blemish on his near-perfect record (excepting a couple cowardly choices and the whole betrayal of his brother thing) throughout the film. What’s more, Scar chooses his soubriquet at Mufasa’s disavowal of the name Taka, which he apparently would rather synonymize solely with his brother’s former moral character.

  This creates another fracture in character. Mufasa—angry as he is at the moment—welcomes his brother to stay in the pride rather than banishing him, as other suggest. Yet, he still punishes him with a new and rather plaguing moniker. While all this conveniently rubs salt in Scar’s wounds, the nickname seems to go against Mufasa’s established humility, as well. 

  And because the right-of-kings issue is not sufficiently distorting Scar’s worldview (thanks to the love triangle), all he can do is feel the sting of Mufasa’s half-slight in the wake of his renaming. Scar’s bitterness, therefore, seems to stem more from guilt than Mufasa’s mounting attempts at usurping his rule by denigrating Scar. Guilt—without that anger twisting it into something misguided—doesn’t lead as convincingly to blood-thirsty regicide… or fratricide.

  A Vote for the King

  Before this fateful renaming, the now-named “Milele” pridelands become aware that Kiros and crew are in hot pursuit. Mufasa, Sarabi, and Rafiki appeal to the other animals to help them fight the snow-skinned lions. The animals hesitate, of course, but are eventually persuaded when Mufasa acknowledges their individual gifts as species that, pooled together, could stop the singular and limited tactics of the killer predators.

  Complimentary as Mufasa is in his succinct rallying speech, I find it strange that flattery is what motivates the other animals. These creatures know of Kiros’s reputation. Some have even been chased into this territory by Kiros’s pride, which has been wreaking havoc across the land for some time. Rather than acknowledge that they need to work together to take out the dozen or so bad actors that will spread imbalance, kill heedlessly, and ruin their ecosystem, the animals still make out Kiros & Co. as the lions’ problem.

  On a side note, this is fascinating as a character-building moment for Scar. Flashing forward for a moment: remember when Scar becomes king in TLK? He allows the hyenas free rein to hunt, unchecked by the pride, and the overhunting wipes out their food source. The lands around Pride Rock are decimated by his imbalanced rulership in much the same way that Milele would be if Kiros were allowed to run roughshod over it. (And yes, I know Pride Rock is in Milele, but as we never knew the name of the lands surrounding Pride Rock until the Mufasa movie released, I’m differentiating the time periods with this distinction in names.)

  Anyway, because Taka has limited exposure to Kiros and is, therefore, not indoctrinated by him in his villainous ways, he has no ingrained pattern for his reckless behavior to subconsciously follow when he later becomes king. One might argue that his lack of exposure is precisely what allows him to repeat Kiros’s mistakes in rulership. But his own father, Obasi, pitiful as he was as a leader, upheld the balance that maintained fruitful pridelands. And Scar saw enough of Kiros’s reign of terror to know his murderous, imbalanced tendencies would lead to ruin. Yet, he falls into the same trap when he becomes king. (Of course, perhaps by then, he’s probably too twisted to predict the logical conclusion to his careless choices.)

  After Kiros is killed and his lionesses are defeated, the animals come together and essentially nominate Mufasa as king. Humble as always, he tries to deny the mantle, but everyone insists he has earned it.

  Earned it.

  Not inherited it. Not married into it. Not usurped it, even.

  Earned it.

  This, of course, helps to rub Scar all kinds of wrong ways, regardless of whether they’ve done a solid job of establishing his backstory.

  It also completely ignores any status Sarabi had among her pride, rendering her royalty completely unnecessary to the story.

  Most importantly, though, it breaks the pattern of primogeniture. Yet, Mufasa resumes that tradition with his own son years later. To bring it full circle—(of life!)—Mufasa embraces a tradition that subjugated him in his adopted family and, as part of a presumably non-royal family originally, he was never in line to experience the fruits of, as a prince would. Yet, it is suddenly the go-to method of succession for Mr. Earned It, which further bolsters the original idea that he was one of a long, inherited line of lion kings.

  That, and the speech he gives Simba, which he was told by his own father, about the kings of the past living in the stars and guiding future generations—always.

  You know. And that.

  I Can’t Not

  I’ll spare you a digression into the childish song lyrics (like a genocidal maniac telling his future victims they’re about to “go bye-bye”), less-than-catchy musical numbers, and the ridiculously campy scenes with Timon and Pumbaa that garnered only the occasional “ha.” 

  But I simply can’t ignore any discussion of the reason Rafiki is telling Kiara the story of her grandfather: because Simba is away with Nala, who is giving birth to their second child.

  Not everyone loved the sequel to TLK (although the music in that movie far outscored the music in Mufasa—a surprise, coming from the incredible Lin Manuel Miranda). But it still established more of the canon, which actually applies to Mufasa in a retroactive sense.

  As I mentioned earlier, if primogeniture in the lion community brooks no gender inequality, then the oldest born inherits the throne. This is what could have given Sarabi clout as a princess (and minimized the contention between the brothers, if not for the love triangle) and Kiara her status as Simba’s only heir.

  I’ve watched TLK II a time or twelve, and never, in its entirety, did Kiara have a sibling. I understand their desire to foster a juxtaposition to Mufasa and Taka by birthing her younger brother into the tale. It’s the Circle of Life once again—only, her warmth toward her sudden-sibling is supposed to give us hope for a better cycle this time around. Yes, yes, fine.

  But Kiara doesn’t. have. a. brother.

  She grows up and falls in love with Kovu, an outsider whom Simba banishes—clearly never having heard or learned from his father’s origin story—and never, ever are we made aware of the existence of her younger brother. 

  So, not only are we retconning canon by adding characters who don’t exist, but Simba’s actions in TLK II essentially ignore the entire history of his father’s prequel story. And if Rafiki bothered to tell Kiara the tale, he most certainly could have told Simba, if Mufasa didn’t have the chance before he died. 

  Realms, if Rafiki is clairvoyant, as they stress in Mufasa, then why couldn’t he have even nodded to the idea that Simba will make this mistake again with Kiara in the future, just to retcon a decent tie-in? I mean, if we’re gonna do it, let’s do it—right?

  Hrrrumph.

  Realm Riders Series Prequel

  I’m clearly triggered by all this not only because of my deep, boundless love for The Lion King, but also because I’m in the middle of writing a prequel novella that tells the backstory of a handful of my characters on the D’Erenellean side of the Realm Riders Series (more on that in a minute).

  But I’m also twitching and wringing my hands because these canon-battering mistakes were avoidable.

  Disney had all the bones—even winked at half of them—to create motivations in Mufasa for the characters’ behaviors in TLK, and all would have resonated with, even deepened, the connection we feel to those characters in the classic. (Even the halfway retcon of Rafiki nodding at the repeated mistake Simba will make with Kovu later would have gone a long way to clean up the mess with TLK II.)

  But they sanitized the story dramatically. Perhaps this was done to make it more digestible for kids—less traumatic, less gory, less vaguely political, less historically triggering…. I don’t know their reasons. Yet, by rewriting story elements (including adding entire characters) and ignoring the canon set in stone in ’94 and ’98, they didn’t do the characters’ backstories justice.

  And they could have. Which is what kills me.

  Prequels are popular because they’re riddled with callbacks to the source material we loved enough to want to dive into its history. But issues arise when we try to rewrite the story with our flashy new ideas of how it should have been. I get it—the temptation to improve upon your ideas is… devilishly divine. Once canon is out there, though, it must be adhered to. That’s not to say there can’t be misdirection, lies, and other supposed falsehoods peppered into the original story to add mystery and contention—as long as those things are cleared up later in the original source material. We can’t destabilize these elements after the fact, like the bizarre movies that end in the revelation that the entire tale was nothing more than a fever dream. Once we know the outcome, we must move within its strictures. No rewriting history.

  One of the greatest challenges as a series writer is maintaining plot continuity as books come out in the series. Unless you write all the books and shore them up before you publish them all, chances are good, you’re going to have to work within the strictures you created for yourself in your published material. Published = canon. Pure and simple.

  But this is honestly where I think a lot of the fun comes in. I do love a challenge.

  I was sitting with an author friend over lunch the other day, and she told me of this story she was preparing for publication. But as she got closer to the finished product, she realized there were some plot holes that needed attention to satisfy the reader’s curiosity, if nothing more. Taking her tale in its current form as canon, we worked through ways of entangling the characters and their fates to sew up the holes and weave an even tighter tale. It required no massive plot changes or added characters. 

  It’s the kind of entanglement I love to perform within the Realm Riders Series. So, I found the process invigorating.

  In the case of my prequel, I knew most of the history already because I knew my characters’ backstories. (That’s how I knew I could write the novella in the first place.) My characters have taught me a few things along the way, but I generally knew what I’m now seeing inked out before me. Because I had to—that’s my job.

  The Premise

  My yet-untitled prequel tells a pair of entwined stories:

  Sixteen years before our main storyline, we’ll see the making of the Upwoods in their current, contentious form. In the wake of the loss of his brother and mother, Beval Junior trains at Keaton to become a Realm Rider under his father, a rigid taskmaster whose teaching methods pride embarrassment over positive reinforcement. During this time, a young Ethelinda of Alston also comes to train at the drakiary, and an illicit entanglement forms between Beval Senior and the new student. Bitter from his losses and his father’s years of foul treatment, Beval Junior censures his father for the affair, which he views as a betrayal of his late family members’ memories. But King Badrick has more pressing concerns for his Head Rider than his son’s disapprobation, and Beval Senior chooses to seduce Ethelinda into making a terrible decision on his behalf….

  Eleven years earlier still, we see how the succession from King Edmundus and Queen Norma to Queen Orla and King Badrick affects the lives of both the Riders and their beasts. Queen Norma’s green, Avice, takes Princess Orla’s white, Deowynn, under her wing as they use their dragon magic to prepare for the arrival of the prophesied Heir Rider twenty-six years in the future. But everything must be in place long before the Heir is even born because, for some, time is running very, very short.

  (That’s right, folks, we’ll have chapters in the dragons’ POV in this one!)

  Perhaps obvious to those who have read the main series novels, I needed to know a lot of the plot points that take place in this prequel as a way of setting up Rhoswen’s tale. We needed a history of turmoil to presage her role in the story.

  But the history of the characters—whether comprised of years of building resentment or the bonds forged in times of crisis—informed how the characters would react to the situation unfolding before them in the main storyline.

  Why does Beval Junior despise his father?

  How could Beval Senior be so callous toward his one remaining family member?

  What really happened between Ethelinda and Beval Senior during her days at Keaton?

  How do the dragons handle their clairvoyance, and how does that knowledge affect their relationships with their Riders, especially when it comes to the use of their magic?

  (I explore all of this in the prequel.)

  Knowledge of backstory is what makes characters believable because their history motivates and defines them. It’s how you know, as an author and a reader, whether what the characters are doing rings true to their personality. It’s how the characters make authentic choices that further the plot. It’s how you know, as an author, if you did it right.

  Wait, did I already explain that at the start? Hm. I guess I’ve come full circle… (of life!).

  -HA

  Have you seen this kind of thing in other works? You can vent here; it’s a safe space. Plus, it might give examples that help your fellow authors!

  
• 

  Drafting - Editing - Writing

  My Affair with Brevity (and the Battle with Edrugress)

  July 12, 2021 - By Heather Ashle

  

  I have a sort of friends-with-benefits relationship with brevity. It’s a tenuous bond that has never quite worked in my human associations, but with this stylistic choice, I find it’s best to leave the emotion out of it and keep things light. Sometimes, you want to dress up your writing in a frilly-cuffed tux and tails, and brevity only wears bespoke cardigans and slacks.

  I love to read flowery descriptions that hoist the English language onto a pedestal like a breeder with a rare show dog. English has a surplus of synonyms, antonyms, euphemisms, aphorisms—its creative pedigree is unparalleled (in my rather limited opinion, having only dabbled in German for several years).

  A well-chosen word can disperse meaning better than an air freshener in a well-ventilated room. Of course, this can also lead to a necessary discussion of meaning (or meanings) to gain clarity, and that promptly pummels brevity into a curt and straightforward ball in the corner.

  I write in a genre that is home to some of the most loquacious authors of our time, and I enjoy their well-turned (if not well-trimmed) phrase. I fully support a broad array of instances where brevity would have stunted the mood of a scene or dialogue. (Is there a color-coded wristband for that?)

  Still, I have killed my share of “darlings” during my own editorial crusades. Sometimes, I’ll tuck them into a “deleted sections” document to make myself feel better about their passing, but while they live on as ghosts in that file, they are rarely resurrected. If they reincarnate in something else that I write, it is often by happenstance rather than a deliberate, sought-out revival.

  And so, complications arise when I am simultaneously processing corrections from Darren Todd, my talented editor, and writing book two of the Realm Riders Series. I am learning how Darren’s work reshapes mine, and I’m starting to employ his teachings (in small ways) as I write. This certainly saves a little effort down the road (although, I’m sure he’ll find plenty of work to keep him busy on the next book). However, it also summons a demon that I battled for years and thought I’d smitten long ago.

  This demon can spell the death of the written word. Writers who lose the war against this wretch find themselves in an endless loop of self-correction that precludes any real creativity and progress. Perhaps you already know which demon I’m referencing:

  The demon of editing while you write.

  I wish I had a name for the fiend. Something that combines editing, destruction, and retrogression… Edrugress.

  Yeah.

  Edrugress and I go way back. I’m a Virgo with a non-religiously motivated guilt complex and a penchant for self-deprecation. I’ve toiled over those traits for many years now, and I won’t say I’m Master-Class material, but I could do a guest lecture or two.

  Edrugress feeds on that pervasive, urgent, gotta-fix-it mentality. He knows that if he wriggles in and plants a seed of red ink in your psyche, you will hit the backspace key until your entire work is sabotaged into a blank page of unachievable promise.

  Bastard.

  Fixating on brevity can often have the same effect. I think it’s a lesser demon torn between good and evil, like one of Edrugress’ disciples that just wasn’t malicious enough to ascend through the ranks of hell. Deep down, he’s an okay guy, and I think it’s that bad-boy nature that keeps us coming back for more (or me; “us” just makes me feel better).

  Brevity is important. But concision is not the only key, it turns out. Maybe in AP, but journalists live by a different set of rules. I’ll be the first to swipe through an entire line of fluff with red ink (okay, purple—it’s less threatening and stereotypical), but there are places where I like the extra words. It’s a delicate balance.

  It’s also part of the process. If I’m honest, Edrugress never really went away. I’ve self-edited during the writing process for years—often because my mind and fingers work at different speeds and reliving my thoughts as they appear on the screen helps me develop improvements. But what I cannot allow Edrugress is a seat at my table. He’s welcome to stay when I get to the editing-only stage, but of course, he won’t come to dinner when he’s invited.

  Again, bastard.

  So, for those of you writing and editing your works, thrust in the war between the gods of verbosity and the demons of the succinct, just remember: you’ll have plenty of time to fix it later. Just get it out. And it’s not a sin if you incorporate a thing or two from your editor. Realm it, I adore and appreciate Darren’s work! But I cannot let that determine how I write or rewrite book two. He’ll get his chance when it’s done, anyway.

  – H.A.

  Find yourself prematurely editing your work, too? Feel free to name your self-censorship demons here. It’s a safe space.

  
• 

  Drafting - Editing - Pre-Publication - Writing

  The Dreaded Beta Read (and Other Criticisms)

  February 21, 2021 - By Heather Ashle

  

  I remember ENG 216 and 383 with alarming clarity. At least, I think those were the numbers—that’s not the part I remember. I remember making an ass of myself in my creative writing workshops. 

  I have had experiences through the years that were life-changing, exhilarating, and downright side-splitting. Yet, all I can ever seem to remember, detail for detail, are the ones that were excruciating, debilitating, and agonizingly embarrassing. Especially that last one. I could be sitting stock still, happy, content, and a memory of a time when I was a complete ass will flash across my mind, and I’ll cringe—outwardly. 

  It may be the reason people give me strange looks. 

  A good number of those cringeworthy moments came right out of those classes, and each spasm has reminded me of the kinds of choices I would rather make and the kind of writer (and let’s face it, human) I would rather be. I may never stop wincing during quiet, pensive moments, but at least I won’t forget the lessons I learned from my own stupidity and others’ brilliance.

  But this is not a coming-of-age story. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t know what age you come to when you come of age. If someone has the answer, please let me know. But do it gently; I may not be old enough to understand.

  Picture this:

  You’ve worked on a project that is an extension of your heart and soul—possibly for enough years that they can be grouped together with shorthand: a dozen, a decade, half a century, what have you. Or perhaps it’s only been a few days or weeks, but this passionate outpouring has come from a place so deep within yourself that you didn’t even know it existed until it manifested in your work.

  (If you’ve never done this, you should try it.)

  Then, throw some cute little overalls and booties on that baby of yours, slather it in au jus, and abandon it in a forest of three-day-starved wolves.

  Now, lean back and watch what happens.

  Do you sit still?

  Do you poise a delicate, fruity martini in your fingers, cross one leg over the other, and lightly bounce your foot by the warm glow of a cozy fire?

  You damn well better believe you don’t.

  You grab a bottle of tonic, a tankard of gin, a bushel of limes, and you stop getting dressed, stop brushing your hair, manacle your feet to the chair legs, and sweat like a dog beside that roaring flame.

  So goes it with beta reads, as well.

  Beta readers are generous, selfless people, preferably who are well read, at least in your genre or one tangential to it, who are willing to read through a copy of your book that you wouldn’t release on an internet blog with privacy settings that don’t extend past your inner circle of closest friends.

  And then, those kind, haggard souls tell you what they think.

  When I was in my creative writing courses, I bit my tongue a whole lot more than the above might make you believe, but boy, did I have an astonishing lack of control when it came to my facial muscles and vocal cords.

  I don’t remember being cruel or growling at people. I do remember furrowed eyebrows and a voice colder than the Titanic’s bathwater as I asked questions to clarify the respondent’s commentary. And I would take notes, faithfully jotting down their ideas in the margins of my works, secretly wondering if they were right.

  And frankly, I don’t remember if they were. Probably. But they weren’t critiquing anything that had come from the true depths of my soul. I wasn’t mature enough to handle their responses with grace, and I wasn’t in-tune enough to produce works of passion that deserved their scrutiny.

  So, when I handed book one of my Realm Riders series to my beta readers, I aspired to do better this time. I simply sat with my nausea and cultivated a pearl of an ulcer in silence.

  Until they returned their critiques to me.

  I would read them, and my first response was usually, “I have to rewrite this whole thing. It’ll take a year to fix—at least!” And then, after my—now relatively private—temper tantrum, I would read them again and begin my list of questions.

  Some I asked of the respondent. Others I asked of myself. Still more I asked of the other beta readers in true cross-examination fashion. But I still had to be my own warden.

  “You have to fix it,” bad-cop me would say. “Because this is your passion. It’s worth getting right.”

  And finally, after years of recoiling at my own feral reactions to critics, good-cop me would say, “You’re absolutely right.”

  Selecting your beta readers is almost as agonizing a process as receiving their responses. But even if you came across one who forgot he or she was critiquing a part of your soul and came out with the long, metallic claws of a comic book character, you can find the value in his or her opinions.

  And you can find the worth in the shreds of your work that he or she has left behind, too.

  Remember, these folks only wanted to help you. They weren’t randomly stuck with your arrogant ass in a class they took under the auspices of self-improvement (it’s why you took it, too, remember?). They offered to rip your work a new asshole. For me, it’s penance. But for others, it will be soul-crushing. If you can, shift it to penance. Writers thrive on self-loathing anyway, and it’ll give you a leg up.

  Still, I recommend you do it. Get yourself a beta reader or three. If your work has been many years in the making, you’re probably too subjective to see what a new set of eyes will, and you will be astonished at what you can miss, even after a hundred drafts. It’s okay. You’re human. You’re gonna miss stuff. And you can only find it if you know it’s missing. 

  It’s nice to have that fresh perspective, even if it mugs you on the street. You’ll heal. And if you’re smart, you’ll make sure you watch your six a little more carefully. Your work deserves it.

  A HUGE thank-you to my several beta readers—you know who you are. But for your sake, in case you don’t end up liking the finished product, I’ll keep you anonymous here. Thanks. 

  -H.A.

  Ever worked with a beta reader? Be brave! Share your experiences of some of the best and worst responses you’ve received.

  
• 

  Character Building - Drafting - Writing

  What Lurks Beneath

  August 7, 2020 - By Heather Ashle

  

  I don’t remember where I learned this—and it may have come from more than one source—but I was told that as an author, I should know which cereal my characters eat for breakfast. (Many of my characters are more the Danish-and-eggs type, but the idea still stands.)

  Since I began writing the Realm Riders Series, characters have presented themselves to me—sometimes, out of nowhere—at my times of need. Some help me get through a moment, like a waiter at a restaurant. Others pop up and demand a lasting presence in the story. Those who prove they can do more than deliver a banana split must have some kind of motivation, or they won’t survive long-term. (Worse yet, they’ll look like some kind of inorganic plot device.) So, after they’ve introduced themselves, I like to find out a little more about them.

  Along with my multitudinous outlines, lists, maps, and other documents that help me keep track of things, I have a Character Background document. (And yes, it’s formatted like an outline, but I’ll spare you another tangent on my love of bulleted lists.)

  So, I open this document—and my mind—to the backstory of the characters. It proceeds much like any other interview. Where do they come from? Why are they here now? Do they have a traumatic history? Or are their present life choices what make them complex? Why do they take their coffee black?

  Most of this will never showcase in the book at large but understanding a character’s eccentricities will help them develop in a genuine way. Because we all have a reason for not eating leftovers (a travesty), for brushing our teeth with our non-dominant hand (impossible), or for demanding our guests remove their shoes upon entering our home (imperative). Your characters do, too.

  I’ll give you an example. Say, a scruffy, little man in his ‘60s pops up in your story and, refusing to be silenced with a casual description, suddenly approaches your main character in a coffee shop. Let’s say this man’s name is Leo, and his opening remarks are rather coarse, like his frizzy, graying hair. You inspect him and realize he has a bit of a stoop and a Napoleon complex. It may not be immediately obvious why he has engaged with your main character or what his role will be.

  So, ask him. Center him in your mind’s eye and start with the obvious:

  Why the Napoleon complex? Was he the runt of his family? Teased as a child? Disadvantaged by his foreshortened reach on the factory line?

  What is it about your main character that prompted Leo to interrupt his coffee break? Are they related, even distantly or through an acquaintance? Did your main character do something that would inspire Leo to help him or her? Or did Leo feel goaded into confronting your main character because he or she is vertically gifted?

  Now that Leo is talking to the main character, will he help or harm? This may be answered by taking yet another step backward: what does Leo know that pertains to the main character? Will he tell the truth or lie? Why?

  Forcing your characters to do things that don’t come naturally to them will make them seem phony. Asking how Leo could help the main character’s story could stunt his growth or make him too prescriptive. Instead, allow Leo to tell you what he’s up to and why. He showed up for a reason. His answer could provide new possibilities, not only for your characters but also for the storyline. Leo may not be a liar, but he also isn’t the type of man to offer assistance without getting something in return. His approach is not based in altruism. Ask him what he wants and why it’s important to him.

  Characters will tell you everything you need to know if you listen. You might ask a leading question or two, but they’ll tell you to rein it in if you’ve overstepped the mark. Learning who they are can develop their voice, habits, gestures, personality—the very idiosyncrasies that make them more relatable. It can also uncover connections between characters or situations that you never realized were there. It may not change your storyline, but it may change how your characters react to it.

  Sometimes (often), your characters will surprise you. Give them the benefit of the doubt. If they lead you in a direction you hadn’t considered going, you may come to realize how misguided you were before they straightened you out.

  -H.A.

  Has a character ever surprised you? What was the result?

  
• 

  Drafting - Editing - Outlining - Writing

  Three Outlines Are Better than One

  July 20, 2020 - By Heather Ashle

  

  For those of you who spell the word “outline,” A-N-A-T-H-E-M-A, this entry may not be for you.

  But for those of you who use outlines or are open enough to consider their merit, I hope this gives you some food for thought.

  I’ve been working on the “Realm Rider” series for years, and the project has taken on several iterations in that time. It has also grown exponentially. I have over four-hundred-thousand words written, spanning two complete and at least two more incomplete books. And I still have a long way to go in the series.

  That is admittedly a lot of information to keep track of! So, I didn’t just employ one outline per book.

  I used three.

  The first one, as I mentioned in a previous post (“The Outline of a Journey”), helped me create a path of plot points to guide my tale. I free-wrote most of the outline the way one would a story, occasionally shoring up holes and rewriting ideas as issues presented themselves. When I started putting those ideas into a story, I allowed my writing to dictate which parts of the outline were worth keeping, which parts needed pitching, and several parts that I didn’t even know were supposed to be in there.

  After I had a draft well underway, I ended up needing another outline. This one was divided by chapter, and it summarized what had actually made it into the story. When your book exceeds 700 pages and you’re only writing mornings and weekends around your nine-to-five, it can be hard to locate things in the story. Keeping a second, summary outline allowed me to answer all my “Where did I put…?” and “What did I do about…?” questions. And there were many!

  The third and final outline was more of a list, but I think it counts. This tool was useful when those Eureka! moments struck at inopportune times. I wasn’t always in front of my computer when the “I can’t forget to add…!” and “Did I make sure to…?” ideas came to me.

  When you take classes on writing, instructors will tell you to keep a pad of paper (or notes app) handy, so if you hear a phrase or see a situation that inspires you, you can write it down to use later in your work. You may be less aware of those magical coincidences as you move through the editing process because so much of your work is already set in stone (or, at least, thick clay).

  But your mind will continue to pore over the details of your story whether you’re actively writing or not, and those magical moments will begin to come from within instead. You’ll suddenly realize exactly what tweaks you need to make—even when you’re standing in line at the coffee shop or on hold with the insurance company. That’s why my list of things to check on, add, fix, or edit came in handy at all hours of the day… and night.

  Still, I can’t avoid admitting what will surely make the outline-haters revel: I maintained the outlines only as long as I needed to.

  The plot ideas outline outgrew its usefulness when I stopped the writing process and began editing.

  And I stopped updating the summary outline about halfway into the editing process when my plot points solidified and only minor tweaks remained. 

  The checklist has outlasted them all, and it is still relevant as I polish off another edit in my endeavor to publish.

  However many you end up needing, make sure your outline—or outlines—work for you. Otherwise, they really will be anathema to your writing process.

  -H.A.

  How many outlines do you use? If you don’t use any, what is your creative process?

  
• 

  Drafting - Outlining - Writing

  The Outline of a Journey

  July 4, 2020 - By Heather Ashle

  

  Writing has always been a passion of mine.

  Even when I wasn’t terribly good at it.

  It has taken me many years to appreciate “the journey” of writing. As a typical, goal-oriented Virgo, I am all about reaching the destination. I love crossing things off my to-do lists. And like anyone, my lists get rather long. Ticking things off can feel liberating… and a tad paltry when the list stretches all the way to the floor and unfurls itself across the room.

  So, it might surprise you to know that I, a born list-maker and taskmaster, despised outlines.

  I would free write a while, caught up in the flow of the words as my stories cascaded out of me. And then, I would run out of ideas. My plot line would dry up like a spring in the desert, and I would wade through the endless sands of writer’s block with nothing but towering dunes in my path. I thought outlines could only inhibit my creativity.

  Then, I learned how to use them.

  Bulleted lists suited my psyche better than letters or roman numerals. Their lack of determined sequence allowed their contents to be moved around with impunity. They felt less prescriptive and didn’t demand proper formatting. Just hit enter and plunk down another bullet. Indent them now or later if it soothes your neurotic, internal editor, but write. Just write.

  Outlines didn’t bereave me of the joy of free writing. I’d let plot points flow out of me, each one bulleted haphazardly beneath its sister ideas. Terrible grammar, incomplete sentences, scant punctuation—it was liberating to stop editing myself long enough to get my ideas down. And because I typed much faster (and more legibly) than I wrote, I created my outlines on a computer. This meant I could move ideas around with the click of a mouse.

  It was the best of both worlds: I could free write AND have a plan. And I wasn’t married to anything. I could change things on a whim.

  Suddenly, outlines weren’t prisons. They were paths to freedom.

  And they got me to the end of my stories. Or, at least, darn close.

  Knowing where my story was heading (and how I could get there) opened up a world of possibilities—more than if I had not had a plan and gotten stuck. Finding those possibilities as I went turned my goal of writing a story into the most fascinating journey.

  Now, I can’t function without an outline or two. I couldn’t have written the first two and a half books of the “Realm Riders” series without outlines. There is nothing like discovering the journey an outline describes. I don’t love a cliché, but this one is true: the journey really IS the destination.

  -H.A.

  Still hate an outline? What is your creative process?