I am sorry I haven’t posted for this week. The pain level has been off the chart most of the week. I do think it’s getting better. There is something about sitting down to write the blog that makes my back hurt. Why? I have absolutely no idea!
I suggested that when a character comes alive and won’t do what you want, you are a long way down the road to becoming a writer. I don’t mean a foolish thing. Say you have a grandmother character who is 82. There is no way she would suddenly take up pole dancing at a strip club.
However, say the grandmother character refuses to go out on a date with another character whose part of the story and well known to the readers. This is where you must stop and ask the character why they are refusing the date. Sometimes a character will provide a logical reason you did not see. More often than not, you will have to do some chatting with the character. Back to the grandmother, ask the character how they would refuse the date. Perhaps in their refusal, you will see the reasoning.
Sometimes you can’t use the direct approach. Ask them who they would like to have a date with whose part of the story. You can also ask them why they would choose that person. You also need to flip that around and ask yourself what the reason for your grandmother’s character to date someone is. If you are writing a young adult novel, YA, you may be showing the dating of her grandmother and her granddaughter. That gives you all kinds of exciting things your reader would like to know about both that you can share.
When a character refuses to do something, think of it as a gold mine. I used dating in my example, but it could be a food that your character refuses to eat. There could be a good back story there for you to use. I’ll pray that one of your characters refuses to do something for you.
