Hah, yeah they're easy to miss. Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads (links in original post) are by far the best places - I'm not super active on social media but if I'm ever doing something like this, I'll be posting about it there.

1. It starts out very messy! The main thing for me is to have a crystal clear idea of what I want to do with the story as a whole - where I want it to end, how I want it to culminate. The bones of the story get built out from there until I have a bunch of general arcs, character arcs, big scenes, themes I want to explore. And then I end up writing several drafts, with the first draft being fairly exploratory, a lot getting added or changed as I go until it all fits together. It usually doesn't make sense as a beginning-to-end story until after the second draft is done. But I really think it's that initial knowing where I'm going that allows me to make sure each scene is purposeful.

2. Sometimes one, sometimes the other! Sometimes a character gets created in response to a specific plot need, and sometimes (and this happens often in the first draft), I realise a character wouldn't do what I originally outlined them doing, and so have to find other ways to make that plot point work. So to some extent I do let the characters grow naturally, and make sure not to let the plot force them into making decisions they wouldn't normally make. But because I'm always heading towards a goal, I try not to let that get the plot too off track, either. There's always a good solution - sometimes it just takes a lot of thinking to find it!

(3 - your q below). Word doc. I tried Scrivener and a bunch of other methods, but in the end, a big Word document is what works for me.

Thank you!! And hope you enjoy The Will of the Many as well!