In Which I Return To The Schoolroom In Order To Better Understand An Elusive Character

Dear Reader,

Do you ever get the feeling a character isn’t telling you everything there is to know about him or herself?

I’ve been getting this feeling a lot lately, and it makes writing very difficult for an author trying to finish a story by a certain date. Of course, I can always just push through, and discover my characters as I go along—but that’s a pastime best left to the reader side of the equation. No one wants to read a novel written by an author who clearly doesn’t know her own chara...