Heroine on Vacation

I'm rushing a bit to get this blog post done because I've been working on a short story. Actually a new story as the first one wasn't going anywhere because my heroine Faith (from the Scrap This mystery series) just didn't want to participate. Originally, I wanted to title this when your heroine has you on ignore but that was a little depressing. And not quite accurate.

I had already decided she was the lead in the story. I outlined the main elements of the plot. I started writing and after two pages I was stuck. At first, I thought I started the story in the wrong place so I rewrote it. Still wasn't right. I wrote and rewrote the beginning of the story for weeks. I loved the plot but it wasn't coming together. It refused to move forward. All the characters seemed to hover around, doing something yet basically nothing. It was starting to stress me out. There was an approaching deadline. What was wrong?

I stepped away for a day and realized the issue was that Faith wasn't interested in being in the story. This mystery wasn't hers to tell. Once I released Faith from solving the crime, a character popped into my head. Her backstory. How she and the other characters fit and conflicted with each other. The story is flowing and I'm intrigued by this heroine. I don't know why Faith wasn't fitting in the story. All I could think is that maybe Faith needed a vacation.