First of all, Happy New Year! I neglected to post something in celebration of 2010 and don't want you to think I forgot about it.

I had a very enlightening conversation with my brother-in-law Nic last night. He's very much into fantasy novels and isn't too keen on the whole vampire thing because it's mainstream right now. So we started talking about fantasy novels and he asked me if I had ever thought about writing a fantasy novel myself. To be completely honest, I have pondered the possibility. There's just so much work involved in it that I haven't put a lot of work into it yet.

Then I started laying out the Prophecy universe for Nic and hooked him. That made me feel good. But what really gave me the high of major accomplishment was when he told me two things: one, that I'm a master storyteller to have all this backstory and history for my own characters, and two, that I need to write a fantasy novel because it would be huge.

So what makes a good story? This was the question I asked myself this morning when I got up. Sure, you may have the best idea in the world, but what would actually make that a good story to tell? I have the answer: history.

You can have the coolest group of characters in the world, you can have the greatest setting in the world, and the best plotline ever created. But if you don't have a history, a backstory, for those characters, then you don't have anything at all. History gives your characters a purpose. It also enables you to show the reader the story instead of tell them.

Why is drinking from humans forbidden for vampires? Because that's the law. Well, why is that the law? Aha, that's the reason behind the book. Why do you have to kill all of your competition to become the vampire king? Again, that's why you need to read the book. See what I mean?

The richer and more varied the history, you'll either have a great novel or a confused one. So don't go so deep in the history that things are contradicting other things or it's impossible to keep up. Start with something simple and expand on that. Make it rich and varied, but keep in mind that you want the reader to get it.

I had a great time last night talking to my bro in law about the plot for Prophecy. He was surprised at the complexity and depth of it. That's a compliment to any writer. Strive for it.

Yesterday I talked about character mapping. Today, I want to continue on that path. It's important to change your character map with each book you write about that character. Seems simple right? Well I forgot about it. I'm sure other people forget about it too.

Currently I'm writing a series (unless you live under a rock or don't read the other posts, you know about that) and I have the same characters revolving through each novel. But they aren't really the same characters. Seven, my vampire king, isn't the same guy in Awakening that he was in Prophecy. If he was, I would stop writing. So when I map out characters for each novel, I have to remap him.

When you think about it, are you the same person you were yesterday or last year? Absolutely not (well maybe from yesterday, but definitely not from last year). Your characters are the same. Things happen to them in each novel. They lose people or have major life changing events. Those kinds of things change people. Your characters aren't any different.

I made this mistake when I went from Prophecy to Forbidden. I thought Seven was Seven and he wouldn't change. What a mistake. It took awhile to change that in Forbidden when I went through the editting process. If I had done my homework when I started, I would've saved myself some time.

However, if you aren't using the same characters, then you're not in the same boat. But the more lifelike a character, the better the story. At least, as lifelike as you can make them. Since vampires don't really exist (or do they? I'm not going there) I have to do the best I can.

Hopefully this is helpful for someone. I hate making big mistakes.