In actual fact, I don't really think it up at all. At least, it doesn't feel like I do.
It feels more as if I'm just tagging along after one character or another throughout their day. I watch the character go to school, or out to work at the barns, or riding to town, and observe the interaction between one character and the next.
I don't have a plot in mind, at least not much of one. There may come an idea about an event, and then I work backward from there as to what leads up to it. Or there is an event in history within the time frame where my characters are and I know they have to go through that event. So, I set them in it and tag along to watch it unfold.
That is the fun part, just watching. How will this character react to being in this situation? It has to be true to the character, though. That is how the characters seem to take on a life of their own; because if what they do is not true to how they would actually behave, it doesn't work. That's how some of my characters turn out to be not very nice, or do rude, risque, or downright nasty things. It's almost as if I have no control over them, once they are a certain character.
But, don't you invent the characters? Can't you make them be what you want them to be? Strange as it sounds, the answer is: Not really. I don't decide that this character is the good guy; this one is the bad guy...at least not my main characters. There is no outline as to protagonist, antagonist, plot, conclusion.
It just....Is.
So, today I might feel as if: I haven't seen Stephen and Amelia for awhile. I wonder what they're up to. And I go and slip inside the little house in Tennessee and watch awhile.
Or I wander up to Old House to see what's for supper.
Or over to the Big House and see what work is going on over there.
Or down to the Sheriff's office to see if there's a crime puzzle going on that nobody knows about yet. But they will....oh yes, they will.
Sometimes, I sit around the supper table at New House and listen to conversations so long, I have to cut most of it out. But, I still have the original version of that scene left intact somewhere to revisit because I like those folks so much; I don't want to leave their company too quickly. All the silly, inconsequential bantering between Family members is fun to listen to, even if it might bog the story down and not make the final cut in the long run.
How does it all tie together or how does it sound realistic or hold the interest....I don't know. I'm just the tag-along, watching from the corner of the door as someone walks out, then following along on quiet feet to find out what's up.
If what happens with one group of characters leads to another group, I hustle off to that one to find out where the link is, or who is about to spill the beans, or what's about to happen there. I gather all the information, watch all the interactions and even listen to all their hopes and fears, and try to make sense out of it all.
I hardly have to do a thing. I just observe what happens.
And then, I write it all down. For you to read.