Figure out who you need in the story and what they do together or to one another, and the story does to them. Are they all pulling together in one direction? Are they pulling in six different directions? Ask yourself the critical question: Which would be most interesting to the reader? That’s the real litmus test of character development and plotting. Will the reader be interested? Will the reader care?
     To be successful in character and plot development, you need to make hard choices. You need to be ruthless with your characters and your story. Who’s in, who’s out? What’s in, what’s out?
     Frankly, here is where a lot of first-time novelists stop dead. They can’t bring themselves to choose. They become fascinated or paralyzed by the possibilities.
     Don’t you dare do that. Be brutal. Try different choices, of course, but move the story forward event by event, bringing each character along with you. As each event unfolds, each character must react to it. Just as they would in real life.
     If a child is hit and killed by a car, the driver’s life is changed forever, the parents’ lives, the lives of the brothers and sisters, friends, even the crossing guard and bystanders. You have to decide what the changes are. You must decide. This is your chance to play God — and if you’re going to write you must play that role. God is in the details, and God decides the course of the novel.