I began writing Threefold Dread with the intention of incorporating a little magick into the story-line. The story is written in two timelines, and then the two converge.

In the story, I alluded to places I’d either traveled to or lived in, and the characters are all inventions, but loosely based on actual personalities I’ve encountered along the way. For example, Ruby is a tarot reader like her mother, and I’ve never personally known a tarot reader, but did have the experience of having my cards read. Giselle is a mix of children with troubled childhoods, Ruya is just what I imagine a strong, but powerful practitioner to be. Clemmy a terrible female mobster is similar to what I read about in the 1980s, Giselle is what abused children grow up to be like, meek, afraid, and compliant, her father is clueless about her circumstances, her mother Dolores is just a horrible person to all, Phil is a womanizer, and the terrifying trio, well, they’re just that and luckily I’ve never encountered any like them, or any other baddies in the story.

I chose the character’s names because of the meaning behind each one, and the names and meanings are listed after the final chapter.

I first created an outline, but as I wrote, I began to see that I couldn’t just stick to the outline, because creativity isn’t linear. I would write another paragraph, and then think of something else I needed to add to a previous chapter, and go back and forth that way. The outline helped somewhat, but I prefer the flow of creativity as I just wrote whatever came to mind. The last step is editing, where you catch all typos, errors, and all other nuances. My point is to just write when the inspiration comes to you, and not worry about anything but that–just write.

You might need to add more characters, a little bit of back story, more characterization, more flaws, some quirks, etc. The point is that ideas will come and go, add the best ones to your story and keep going. There is no specific outline to follow, unless you are writing a fantasy and want to use the Hero’s Journey structure.

You’ll find your voice by doing plenty of writing. The idea is that the writing is fluid, just like when you are effortlessly speaking. Just like speaking, the more you speak, the more fluent you become.

Don’t stop writing, and especially don’t worry about editing as you write, as these are two ends of the spectrum, and a necessary evil when finished. If you write and then stop to read what you’ve written, you’ll find grammar and spelling errors, plot holes, and other issues and want to fix them. This will cause you endless hours, days, weeks, and months of this repetition, and will take you longer to finish your story.

Whenever you hit a block, do something else, go out take in the scenery, and just relax. New ideas might come to you when distracting yourself from forced writing.

Good luck and just have fun!