Character knows best, you should listen to them.

I’ve written before about re-writes and listening to what your characters are trying to tell you, and I promise you I’ve learned from it. But I’m revisiting this idea/topic today because Friday I started a rewrite on my least favorite story.

A bit of history on this: The story I’m talking about is my fourth effort in romantic comedy writing. It’s an original story with original characters (no cross overs). I started writing it in January of 2011, and didn’t finish until August. My normal time frame for writing a 100 000+ word novel is about two months. I haven’t touched the thing since, choosing to write and rewrite my fifth effort, and do a novella for NaNoWriMo. Whenever I considered working on number four, I just could bring myself to open the folder knowing that I just didn’t like what it became.

Which brings me to today, or more accurately, Friday. I know I have other things to work on, but suddenly this story popped in my head. I started to get this whole other (though similar) story line for these characters, and they started to become different people than the ones that were before. Better characters, ones that I liked more.

So what does this have to do with listening to your characters? Well, from what I can recall of last January when I started to project originally, I had an idea of what the characters could be, and refused to deviate. It made writing scenes with them very difficult, and it only became easier when I let the “growth” they went through show. In reality, I think that’s because they were the people they were always supposed to be. Too bad that this all didn’t happen until the end.

So I’m starting from scratch, keeping the characters and listening to what they want. For example, I originally though my main character, Lia, should have a dog. I didn’t give her one, and I have no idea why. This time, she has a dog. My main characters want to be nerdy, I’m letting them. And I’m happy to say that they’re being cooperative.

Who knows, maybe by 2013 this story will actually make it out into the world.