It’s All Character…

“…They were brought through the story, rather than lived through it…”

The running theme in these last posts have pertained to the writing of characters. And as this is kind of a journalistic approach to blogging, hell, I’ma continue!

I’ve come to realise that the stories I love the most are marriages of great characters doing great things. The great things aren’t always great of course. But in essence, a plot heavy novel, or action packed thriller, is only as good as the characters going through it.

This discovery came from my change of pants-ing it so much. Unconsciously or not, that was always my issue when beginning a novel or story in the ole pants days. I had to find the motivation and backstory, the context of the character in their life, to start a good one. Sometimes this is given in a line, or something happening to the character, but ultimately it always felt like the best characters offered more of their life than what was contained in the pages.

I don’t necessarily need world building and history dating back to their days of yore, but what creates the tantalising yearning to know more is the potential of knowing more. Hinting at a grander history, or worser period, always begs the question to the reader. Which is also the art in of itself of writing, giving the reader what they need.

I’m not even going to pretend like I realized that. I was slapped in the face with that wisdom nugget by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. Give the reader what they need, not what the reader wants.

Such a great piece of advice almost seems obvious from the outside, once you’ve pulled your head up off the pavement. But it is true, and in getting swept up in the writing journey, sometimes it’s easy to forget that we’re writing for those other than ourself. That’s not to say I don’t write for myself, nor does it mean I write purely for others either, I think a want like that stems from understanding.

We’ve all written pieces where our story fell flat, our characters were stiff and wooden, the set pieces unbelievable (in the worst sense possible), and it comes back to not thinking of the reader. Not thinking of the suspension of disbelief. I can’t remember who said that either.

But out of all of that, I think what helps the suspension, as well as the belief in the story, is the character going through the story. And a character that feels more like someone we know and believe in is going to read better than a stencil.

So that is my goal. To write better characters and put them in better scenarios. That is the true benefit of my plotting endeavours that I’ve learned in outlining. When I pantsed, I wrote better characters but struggled with the overall thing everyone was doing. With outlining I’ve managed to see worlds possible and find ways to bring those characters through it, yet that was maybe the problem, they were brought through the story, rather than lived through it.

All in all I’m excited to always be learning and writing, sharing and growing. Writing is something exciting because it’s like being an archaeologist and painter at the same time, who is also listening to the microphone feed in his headset as he squints through a camera.

Who’d a thought?

[image error]