Characters are pieces, plot their moves, setting the board.

Creating a story often begins with a spark of inspiration—an image, a moment, or a theme. For my first novel, Graëlfire, that spark came from two primary sources: a theme for a plot and its setting. The theme was a quest for the Holy Grail. The setting was the landscape around my home by Lake Geneva. To make this premise believable, I had to invent a new myth tracing the Grail’s path to Switzerland. That meant blending ...