September 22, 2009
The People In My Head
When I’m writing something new, something in the first draft form, I rely heavily on my characters to tell the story. This is probably because I don’t plot. I sit down at the computer, watch how the scene plays out in my head, then try to get as much down on paper–or screen if I’m going to be literal–as possible. This is writing at its best for me. Learning about the characters, watching the story unfold, and that moment when everything just sort of clicks. Yeah, I love the click.
Conversely, there are times where a scene feels forced, where I just know something is off and it feels like I’ve hit a brick wall. When this happens it’s usually character related. I am either trying to force a character to do something they wouldn’t, or I don’t know them well enough.
As was the case with the WIP last week. My hero was being…difficult. As I was writing a scene which I really needed to shed a little insight about him, everything felt stilted and forced. I realized couldn’t hear him. I had no idea how he would react because he wouldn’t tell me. Rather than the scene playing out like a movie, he was more like a puppet that I was forcing into action.
So what could I do? I could either go on as I was and fix it on the rewrite, hoping of course that the problem solved itself before I typed THE END, or I could try to delve a little deeper into my hero to see what I was doing wrong. I decided on the latter–a nightmarish amount of work for the second draft is a terrific motivator.
I decided to interview him. I pictured him sitting across the table and asked him series of questions. The first: What are you doing in my story, and why are being such a pain in the ass? Then I built on them from there. As well as making notes on his answers, I listened to how he answered, what his voice sounded like. I watched his body language, and for questions he tried to evade. By the time I finished, I realized that I had him pegged completely wrong. No wonder he wouldn’t speak to me.
I do realize that conversations with people in my head don’t exactly speak well for my sanity, but I’m willing to risk it to keep the story moving forward. 
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lol, I love your first interview question. Good job on whipping that difficult character into shape.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:59 amWhat a wonderful idea. I need to try that sometime.
September 24th, 2009 at 3:43 pm