Bad Things My Characters Have Done to Me (April Theme) by Kristin Levine
The theme this month is the bad things we've done to our characters. I don't feel like I've done anything bad to them. They've done bad thing to ME! Here are five examples. My characters have:
1. Kept me up at night, worrying about them and how I was going to (somewhat realistically) get them out of the messes they'd gotten themselves into.
2. Caused me to drink coffee at 4 PM, which yes, allows me to get more work done, but also leads to sleepless nights (see #1).
3. Changed their names on me two or three times, to the extent that sometimes when I'm at a school visit and a student asks about "Bob" I have trouble remembering who that is, because I still think of him as "Henry."
4. Gotten me lots of strange looks at the coffee shop, when I'm working on a section of dialogue and I accidentally start talking to myself to get a feel for a character's voice.
5. Kept secrets from me, such as when the main character in Lions of Little Rock did not reveal to me that she had trouble talking until I had already written the entire first draft.
I guess in some ways, I really do think of my characters as people separate from me. They might make me worry, embarrass me and cause me extra work, but gosh, I really do love them too.
1. Kept me up at night, worrying about them and how I was going to (somewhat realistically) get them out of the messes they'd gotten themselves into.
2. Caused me to drink coffee at 4 PM, which yes, allows me to get more work done, but also leads to sleepless nights (see #1).
3. Changed their names on me two or three times, to the extent that sometimes when I'm at a school visit and a student asks about "Bob" I have trouble remembering who that is, because I still think of him as "Henry."
4. Gotten me lots of strange looks at the coffee shop, when I'm working on a section of dialogue and I accidentally start talking to myself to get a feel for a character's voice.
5. Kept secrets from me, such as when the main character in Lions of Little Rock did not reveal to me that she had trouble talking until I had already written the entire first draft.
I guess in some ways, I really do think of my characters as people separate from me. They might make me worry, embarrass me and cause me extra work, but gosh, I really do love them too.
I LOVE THIS! So true.
ReplyDeleteHaha! really cool, loved it :)characters can be quite hard to contain but we writers just never learn our lesson, we can't stop dealing with those dangerous guys, totally worth it though haha.
ReplyDeleteI especially love #1 and #3.
ReplyDelete