Question You Assumptions
I promised I’d do a post on questioning your assumptions! Others have said it before, much better than I’m about to, but here goes…
Have you ever wondered how to avoid falling into Trope City? How to make characters leap from the page rather than fall flat, two-dimensional?
Question your assumptions. Challenge them.
Why is this character male? Or white? What happens if you change that?
My side characters and set dressing characters tend to come across as cardboard cutouts in early drafts. I put them there to serve a narrative role, and that is all they do. They are dull and boring, which makes their scenes similarly uninteresting. Then I remember to question.
So I make the blacksmith a woman. I make the wealthy and politically powerful man dark-skinned.
Wait: why did the wealthy and politically powerful character default to a man?
See? We constantly make assumptions. The walk-on characters get the brunt of it because most of us don’t plot them out in exacting detail. But it’s amazing how much they can influence the mood and tone, and the narrative as a whole.
And it’s not just characters! If you’re like me, the weather in your story is usually good. If it’s storming, it’s because things are going to hell in a hand basket. Challenge your setting – why here? Why now? What if it were here or then?
Question. Constantly question. Don’t assume – that way lies lazy writing. Do I keep every idea I come up with? Hell, no. Some of those are just terrible.
But sometimes, opening myself up to other options opens up the story in a way I hadn’t even considered possible. It becomes instantly richer and deeper. It’s really kind of amazing.
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