Not sure if you knew this, but I'm a big fan of giving all my characters a unique story. Most of the time this ends up strengthening the writing/plot and takes me awesome places, but other times... I really just can't figure out what the heck a character wants.
Enter Honey, the most complicated secondary character I have ever written. When we first meet her, she accuses Jade of stealing her throne and is disappointed that she's not able to kill her.
Then Jade asks her to be her advisor in a crazy/desperate move and we begin to see a different side of her: that she actually cares about other people. And maybe she doesn't hate Jade as much as she pretends.
And then she goes and almost acts like she's Jade's friend, giving her very valuable advice. (WTF?)
And THEN she tries to get Jade to turn against her allies and join with the bad guy. Um... I repeat, WTF?
All of this is in the first draft of DRAGON QUEEN, and I'm sure it seemed all quite logical to me at the time, but now that I'm near the end of editing the story...I've realized I didn't ever quite reveal her motivation...until the VERY end. So, I ask, should it stay that way or should I move it up? Because, OMG, there are a lot of revelations at the end. Too many, I fear. It was a whole lot of fun when I was writing it and posting chapters on the WD Sci-Fi/Fantasy forum (I loved shocking my readers) but now that I've got the whole thing in front of me, I'm dissatisfied.
And a lot of it is Honey's fault.
She plays a key role in getting things going at the end, but I don't know why she does it. WHY? WHY???
So I'm having to go back to the character drawing board (so to speak) and figure out what she wants. What she REALLY wants. I thought I had it figured out...but now, I'm not sure. Bleh. :P
Any difficult characters out there trying to destroy your manuscript?
Oh, I soooo know what you mean! I do have characters like that: one of them I particularly like, but he comes off as such a jerk! I've had several readers say they just wish they could hit him! But I like him! I really do! 'course, he's not in my story very long, but all the same...
ReplyDeleteThen, I have to ask, what do you do when you have so many characters to talk about all at once? Like, they're in a group or something. Think LOTR. It gets REALY complicated then!
But I've read your stuff, Brandi; I've yet to think bad of it. (not that I'd ever want to, but some people are just so tallented! honestly... *huffs* :D )
Hmmm... I just think harry potter's professor umbridge but with a more japanese anime character flaws. But im a fan of partial revelations.... With further complications down the line. Kinda like Gollum was with the ring in the Lord of the Rings. He was a crackhead needing his fix and Frodo was like the dealer. Eventually Gollum got desperate and tried to cut Frodo out of the loop several times, which cause for an interesting internal conflict between Frodo's and Sam's friendship.
ReplyDeleteYou give it all away up front then she is is predictable and readable. Which should only happen during the 2nd reading, but by then, th person already loves the story so it has re-read value.
So Honey is a bitch with a hidden agenda. Sounds like alot of girls out there today, and even a few I dated, and well, I even called one Honey, so meh, it works