Live Characters

I recently said in a Facebook post, "It's not so much of not knowing where the characters should go next, but more of trying to capture the essence of said characters as I take them to the next scene."

Writing fictional characters has to be one of my very favorite things to do. I love studying people and their behaviors, so creating a new being is extremely fun. I dissect personalities and character traits as much as I can, in order to paint an accurate and relatable picture for the reader. Sometimes, though, the characters become a problem within themselves.

While writing my current novel, I've come up with a handful of new characters. Their complete roles have yet to be seen, however, I'm getting a pretty good picture of where they'll come in later within the plot. Unfortunately, one of the hardest things to do is have the readers know the characters as well as I do. Sometimes, a character's personality is shown through a twinkle in their eye, or the tone of their laugh. Perhaps they have a certain quirk, or particular tells when it comes to their moods. So the problem isn't necessarily that I don't know where they're going next, but the desire to get them there on the wings of the reader's imagination.

There are a ton of helps and writing tips out there about how to develop characters. But for me, it really comes down to seeing them in my mind. I see my plots like movies playing out. I study not only the characters' words and actions, but their body language, tones and eye movements. How they relate to other characters. How they think. Not only their basic personalities, but what makes them tick - what their pasts are and how it affects their motives.

Helping my readers see what I do is the real trick, and as far as I'm concerned, there's no one formula for doing so. I have to read my own scenes as if I don't yet know the characters, to see if the picture is accurate. I have to bounce a character's behavior off someone else to see if it's realistic. Sometimes I go back several scenes to see how a character reacted to something, in order to maintain consistency. It can be a grueling task, and yet...it's still my favorite.

I'm pretty impatient when it comes to wanting to complete this manuscript. But, I know that the time and effort I'm pouring into these characters will be worth it in the end. Besides, what could be more fun than writing the personalities of a princess, a unicorn and an ancient race called Woodland Warriors?