I’m finding myself diving deeply into my characters’ backstories as I do the prep work for the novel I’m planning. For my typical action-oriented stories of novels past, a page or two of notes has usually been sufficient (or so I’ve thought). Since this novel’s main story is heavily influenced by romance novel tropes and structure, I figured I needed to know more about each of my three main characters, the two love birds and the evil person determined to obliterate a star system. (Oh, it’s primarily conceived as a space opera, in case that wasn’t clear before now.) Each of the two protagonists have elicited 5000 and more words of backstory and personality notes, and the villain is threatening to exceed that amount. The further I go, the more I have “aha!” moments about them, and the more complex they get. (For example, during today’s writing I “discovered” that the name of one of my protagonists is an assumed name, something I had never considered before, but which gives him additional depth and secrets to protect.) I usually am too eager to start writing the novel but find myself having large gaps in my novel outline, especially in the “muddy middle.” “Something happens here!” But as I add depth to my characters, certain scenes suddenly demand to be added to my outline. I’m totally fascinated by this.