You’ve come up with a premise for a novel you can’t wait to explore. You have an idea of the characters, the setting, and even a handful of scenes you definitely want to include. But without a comprehensive plot to string everything together, you can run into problems. Writing...

How can you develop characters that will keep your readers glued to the pages? Their backstory plays a huge part in getting it right—characters don’t come into existence on the first page of your story. 

But don’t worry, you don’t need to chronicle your...