When a writer starts a new novel they must become somewhat absorbed in fashioning the characters. Most authors have a good idea in their mind how a character looks, walks, talks, and what they do for a living, even before the author has written the first sentence of the story. And, once they finish the main character's traits, there comes the challenge of developing the supporting characters. And then . . . .
The author has to give them all something to do, some project to work on, some goal to achieve . . . maybe even a minor revolution to inspire.
I just finished the rough draft of the new novel and I read it out loud to myself. That's an important part of the process, because hearing it can help the author discover where the holes in the story are, and it can expose the places where a scene has been poorly defined. It's a horror to discover that one of the main characters is in two different places at the same time. That may work in some Sci-Fi novels, but not so much in mainstream fiction where the characters are real-time, in real-world events.
In this new novel, my main character inspires a revolution. The problem is, I didn't define the purpose very well in the first couple of chapters. So, in order for the readers to understand why the main protagonists are doing what they're doing, I'm going to have to flesh out the revolution a bit more. That means I'm going to have to give it some thought.
I'm learning that it's hard to craft a revolution from scratch. I wonder if the American colonists had the same structural issues in crafting theirs?
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