Layer up!

Behler Blog has a great post on layers in story telling and where/what/when plot begins. While I’m a fan of a spare story telling style, I really believe that whether a writer tells their story with an economy of words or creates a lush verbal landscape, I’ve always been a big fan of layers in what I read and write and in storytelling in general.

So as I struggle with outlining my plot I wondered about some things. Are your layers like your characters? I mean, characters sometimes jump up and demand that you do something totally different than what you had planned. Do you have all the layers in your story in hand or in your mind when you start writing, or do your layers develop as you go deeper into your character’s heads and your plot-lines?