I was thinking about my WIP novel the other day (what a surprise), and it suddenly occurred to me that I am nowhere near as far through as I thought I was.
Why not? Because I don’t know my characters well enough.
In my experience, a book is so much better when the author knows their characters inside out. Ideally, you know them well enough when it gets to the point that you just set a scene and then stage manage as the characters write themselves.
I’ve had this experience before with other stories I’ve written, and they’ve come out – to my mind, at least – really well. You set the scene and see where it takes you, with the characters taking control. Yet, with this current story, I’m still thinking about how the different characters will react to the situations I’m putting them in. It’s not automatic as yet, or at least it’s not as automatic as I would like it to be.
As a result, it looks like I’ve got a few character-building exercises in front of me, to make sure that I do know these people inside out and back to front, so I can put them in a scene and just give them their heads and see what comes out.
Alternatively, I can just keep writing and see where that takes me.
While I’ve had success with the latter, I’ve heard of great success stories about the former and am wondering if I should give it a try. Is there a real benefit in actively and aggressively moulding your characters, or is it better to let them do it themselves? As such I’m looking for advice, if anyone has much experience with this. Should I go searching out exercises that will develop my characters, or should I keep on writing them and let it happen organically? Which is the better route?
Thanking you in advance. :)
I hate saying “we need a balance” cuz it seems like such a pat answer. But, I will say, I’ve found that I need enough structure to keep my characters accountable and give them stability…and enough freedom to allow them to be quirky and interesting..thoughts?
Thanks! I thought that might be the case. I’ve tended to go along the organic path previously, which I said, but I’m not averse to trying something new if people think it’s really beneficial. I suspect however that it might be a case of a little from column A and a little from column B, and different things will work for different people anyway. It’s great to have some insights from other people though.
no problem =)
Hi Emily,
I tend to just let them form organically, but that said, their formation is usually dependent on hours and days and weeks, months, years of imaginings.
When I have had some difficulty understanding a character, their motivations, voice etc, it is usually a secondary character, rather than my protagonist. In this case, I have found it useful to do one particular exercise which has the benefit of both being an active exercise and allowing the character to organically show themselves to you. That is, I pick some time (either within or without my actual story) and write a chapter wholly from this secondary character’s point of view. It is harder than you might think, because it is easy to become over involved in your MC’s head space, but this is why it is also useful, since it reminds you that your other characters also have an important role to play and their own personalities.
Thanks Holly! Good advice there. I think that one of the issues I’ve got is that as part of my recent restructure I’ve changed the relationship dynamics of these particular characters, in that they have gone from having a happy marriage to an unhappy one. Therefore, the way they relate to each other is totally different to what I originally envisioned. Maybe I should, as you suggested, write more scenes with them as a couple – not necessarily related to the plot, but as an exercise – in an effort to get the relationship right. Thank you!
No worries! That sounds like a good plan. I hope it helps!!
I’m a strong believer in writing profiles for each of the main characters before tackling the manuscript. I’ve compiled a bunch of tables that list dozens of characteristics; if you’re interested, I’ll get you a copy somehow. There are, of course, many such lists on the internet.
Perhaps surprisingly, this doesn’t seem to stop my characters from taking on their own form. For example, I intended for one of my characters to be shy, but she isn’t co-operating. How does one discipline an unco-operative fictional character? Maybe I, the evil plotter, should make something nasty happen to her.
Peter, I find that characters almost always take on lives of their own. On more than one occasion I’ve had a character land in my lap fully-formed, and while I don’t always know what they’re going to do in any given situation, they certainly do. However, I should probably take a leaf from your book and do some proper character sheets. Perhaps it might not have helped in this particular situation, where I changed the relationship between them from good to bad, but doing it at this point may well help cement this new antagonism in my mind and make them behave, if not properly, then more like what I intended. It’s worth a try! So yes, please by all means send me a copy. Thank you!!!
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