Hi, Susan! Somehow I missed your comment yesterday. It's always nice to meet another NC writer. ;-)

We'll have to do a meet-up one day all three of us. We're not that far apart. Thanks for stopping in!

Okay, fair question, Paul. Just reverse the process. Fill in the big picture items first, then start narrowing your focus down to one or two individuals in that world. Give them their conflict. It can relate to the world around them or it can be a very personal issue just between those two people. At that point, your characters take precedence over the world.

I always see the world as the stage that I'm setting. Some people set stages/worlds a la Andrew Lloyd Webber. I give you two chairs and people. ;-) It depends on how elaborate you want the world to be and how rich the description.

Thanks for dropping in and thanks for the question!

Hey, Celia, I think you're right about looking into the character's dark side too. That's another blog post all by itself. ;-) I'm glad you brought it up! As to the rest, you're absolutely right. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

"I find myself stripping away everything that doesn't tightly pertain to the POV characters for each scene."

Hey, Vaughn, you've already learned what it took me an entire draft to learn. ;-) The second act petered out and the climax flatlined. We won't even talk about purple prose. I wound up completely rewriting the second half of MISERERE, then had to go back and rewrite the first half so it matched the second half. So don't feel bad. I think everybody struggles getting that right mix of world/character in their stories.