http:\/\/maricafajaffa-writemyfuture.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\nand maricafajaffa later added:<\/p>\n
I’m not sure if it is bad, but I just get the feeling that I’m getting into the story too quickly and there isn’t much for readers to really get acquainted with the characters.<\/i>
\nThen Charlotte commented, @maricafajaffa– sometimes I find you need to write a bunch before even you can get acquainted with the characters. I know I’ve found that it really doesn’t matter how much I figure out about my characters before I start writing (I’m a total fan of the age\/gender\/height\/weight\/likes\/dislikes\/etc forms), because once I’m in the story, they often end up going off and doing their own thing anyway. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s always time to add more about who your characters are in the beginning AFTER you’ve written enough to know that yourself. There’s a huge difference between the first draft and the final product. You don’t have to get it perfect on the first try. Heaven knows I never have. \ud83d\ude42
\n Hope this has been helpful…<\/i><\/p>\n
Thanks, Charlotte. Very helpful, I believe.<\/p>\n
maricafajaffa, if you\u2019re worried about us readers, we aren\u2019t likely to care about the characters until they\u2019re in at least a tiny bit of trouble or somehow at risk, no matter what their backgrounds are. Let\u2019s imagine Irena, an abused teenager, for example, in a foster home, living with Mr. and Mrs. Nembler. Irena has her own bedroom and she\u2019s on the phone with her cousin Jeb from her old life. She tells Jeb how much better her situation is now, and the conversation reveals a lot about her. We hear her voice. She says \u201cYou\u2019ll never believe\u201d frequently. She tells Jeb about the shopping spree her foster mom took her on. From the elaborate description we get Irena\u2019s fashion sense. From her enthusiasm we realize that her fashion sense has rarely been indulged. We sympathize with her. If she asks Jeb what\u2019s going on with him we see she cares about other people and we may begin to like her. But the stakes are low.<\/p>\n
Suppose she ends the phone call and lights a cigarette. Uh oh. A seed of worry has been planted. Is she allowed to smoke in her room? Do her foster parents know she smokes? Is she sabotaging her wonderful new place? We may wonder where she got the money for cigarettes. When the cigarette dwindles to a nubbin she puts it out between her thumb and forefinger. Youch! How self-destructive is this girl? The conversation with Jeb has put us on Irena\u2019s side, and now we\u2019re worried. Now we care.<\/p>\n
A million other things can pull us in. The Nemblers\u2019 youngest son, theirs by birth, can announce he doesn\u2019t want Irena living there. Mr. Nembler can enter Irena\u2019s room and close the door behind him, enough to tinkle our alarm bells. Another foster child can warn Irena about Mrs. Nembler\u2019s temper.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m naming mundane but potentially important problems; however, you don\u2019t have to go that way. Irena can go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. She glimpses Mr. Nembler in the living room watching TV. She knows it\u2019s him because he\u2019s wearing the same University of Kentucky sweatshirt, only his human head has been replaced by the head of a horse.<\/p>\n
I agree with Charlotte. We need to put our characters into a situation and imagine what they might do. Sometimes they\u2019ll take matters into their own hands and act independently seemingly without our intervention. But more often, especially at the beginning of a story, we have to consider the options for them and pick. If we have a sense of the story we\u2019re telling, we think of possibilities that will take our character where we want her to go. Best not to force her. We don\u2019t want to make her do something strange just because our plot needs her to.<\/p>\n
If we ourselves don\u2019t have a clue about Irena, we may have her do something generic when the action begins or behave as we would, and the results may not be as interesting as we\u2019d wish. If I were Irena I\u2019d sneak out the back door and go to the police. But first, being a cautious soul, I\u2019d peek in the police station window to make sure the cops don\u2019t have horse\u2019s heads too. That\u2019s me and one version of Irena. One of my friends adores horses. She\u2019d probably imitate a whinny and march right in and strike up a conversation. Another friend would be likely to question her own sanity. Sometimes it helps to think of actual people you know to develop options. What would your best friend do? How about your daredevil cousin? Your older brother? Your mother? When you finish running through actual people, imagine other options. Might Irena wonder if Mrs. Nembler has a horse\u2019s head too? Might she go back to her room and push the bureau against the door? And so on.<\/p>\n
Whatever Irena does in this situation, or in any of the other scenarios, begins to establish her character for both the reader and the writer more vividly than any amount of background can. Once you have a start on her – once she begins to act – then future options are narrowed. The girl who marches into the kitchen to speak to the horse is unlikely to run away when Mrs. Nembler comes out of the bathroom with the head of a sheep in place of her human head. Irena may bolt, but if she does, you have to explain.<\/p>\n
The events that follow also depend on what Mr. Nembler says or does, how his personality shapes up and the personalities of the other people in the family, possibly the town.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written this before, that sometimes I start with a character\u2019s back story because I need to know his history before jumping into the present problem, but the back story gums up my beginning and the book doesn\u2019t get off to a clean start and I wind up amputating the back story. So I think it\u2019s generally fine to get into the action quickly. And, yes, I agree with Charlotte that in revision you\u2019ll be better able to see what you need in order to introduce your characters. When the whole sweep of your story is behind you, your perspective clarifies. <\/p>\n
You\u2019ve probably guessed the prompt. Write about Irena in any one or more of the difficulties I suggested. She\u2019s self-destructive; a member of the family doesn\u2019t want her; Mrs. Nembler has a terrible temper; Mr. Nembler, and possibly others, is transformed at night. He doesn\u2019t necessarily have to get a horse\u2019s head, either. The animal could be far less benign. Also, you can give Irena problems I haven\u2019t even dreamed of.<\/p>\n
Have fun and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More new stuff on the website: All my book tour appearances are now posted. Just click on News and then on Appearances and you\u2019re there. But to give you an idea, the cities I\u2019ll be in or near are Chicago, Salt Lake City, L.A., Houston, and Boston. I\u2019ll be in Orlando and Milwaukee too, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[183,184],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}