I was doing my weekend work on Peacemaker and passages kept stopping the narrative from where it was going. Not de-railing it exactly, but making it take longer than a mere ‘a’ to ‘b’ as-the-crow-flies type of journey. That was because the minor characters started having things to say. Sometimes in first draft, I find that the minor characters can be fairly quiet and they get noisier on subsequent drafts. When they start having a presence in first draft it can be a really good sign for me. It tends to mean the story is much closer to my front brain than normal and easier to tap.
It’s times like these I wish I could just sit for a couple of days and let it pour out but that is not the way of things, young grasshopper. I’ll just hope that the next time I sit down to work on it the front-brain magic is still there.
