Willow Cottage Book Tour – My Writing Process By Bella Osborne

I pretty much always start with character as I need to know what my lead is like as a person. Sometimes I don’t know much about them at the beginning and I understand more as the story and plot come together. Before I actually start to write I spend a lot of time getting the characters and the story sorted in my head. I usually start a new notebook – if there a better excuse for buying stationery I’ve not yet discovered it! I map out my main characters – key features, back story, motivation, quirks etc and keep adding to my notes until I’m happy I have enough to go on.

Almost simultaneously I will be working on the plot. I get the basic plot and some key scenes sorted in my head then I get out the post-it notes – I love those things and they come in many different colours so if, like me, you have more than one story thread you can colour code your plot!
I plan out my story from start to finish on post-its as they are easy to move around in the early stages. Seeing it like this helps me to quickly identify where my gaps are.

I always work with two story threads, I have a lead story but I also have a secondary story that weaves in as well – I’m just greedy like that! When I’m happy with the post it notes then that’s when I sit down and actually write. However, for Willow Cottage, it was slightly different as I felt I needed to map out the village that the story was set in. You are probably getting some hints by now that I’m quite a visual person so it was important to me that I could picture Dumbleford village as my characters moved about. So I drew a rough sketch and marked down the key landmarks like the village green, the pub, the tea-rooms and of course Willow Cottage.