Problem Characters

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?

Subjectivity (and when to go with your instincts)

I've posted the first chapter of DQ in my new critique forum and OMG it has exploded. But what amazes me the most is how some people totally "get" my character and others miss her personality entirely. Jade has a very wry, self-deprecating sense of humor, and while a lot of people were like "Ha! So funny!" some were like "I don't like her. She's whiny and immature."


Now, I will admit that I'm a people pleaser. I try to make EVERYONE happy, but I ended up putting my foot down here. Jade is exactly how I want her to be...and that's that. Not everyone will "get" her, I suppose, but those that do I think will enjoy her personality.

Another thing that came up regarding Jade was her being categorized as the "stereotypical rebellious princess." That bothered me. So, I'm amping up her uniqueness. To organize my thoughts, here are some things I'll be trying to convey:

• Yes, Jade is rebellious, but she doesn't hate/resent her life. She just would like a little more freedom.
• Her parents disapprove of her interest in dragons, which is why she often sneaks off to the dragon rock and reads books about them in secret.
• She is pretty, but she doesn't really think about that. She thinks of herself as awkward and a bit lacking compared to her beautiful sisters. Mainly, it's because of how her mother (Queen Gemera) treats her compared to her other siblings.
• She is more at home under the stars than in a gilded bedchamber.
• She does not have any intentions of "running away" from an arranged marriage. She's known all her life that her husband would be chosen for her, she just doesn't necessarily like the idea. The thing she flips out about is that her intended husband is a DRAGONSLAYER.
• She is considered odd and an outsider by the people of Thorndarl, but she's not hated or shunned or ridiculed. She just bemuses people.

I'll try to convey this better in the first chapter, but, I'm have to shake my head a little at the people who want all this character building shoved in the first chapter. It's a novel, people. That means it has room to breathe and room to grow. I don't want my character to come across as stereotypical, but I'm not going to change her to make everyone happy. 

What Your Characters Take From You, and What They Give in Return.

People often ask me, "Where do your ideas come from?"

From my characters.

"And where do your characters come from?"

From parts of me.

Often, a character will enter my head before his/her story will. Long before I knew Fury's story, I knew her. She came from a part of my life that we'll just sum up with the word "awful". She suffers from all the things that I suffer from, and I hoped that by telling her story and making her overcome some of her inner issues, not only would she grow as a character, but I would grow as a person.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but bear with me.

You would think that the writer of a story knows exactly what is going to happen, how it is going to happen, and why it is going to happen. In my case, that's not really true. Often, I just have a vague idea, and my characters drive me toward it--often making unexpected moves along the way. Since that is the case, not only do the characters learn as they go along, but I do to. 

I learn from them.

Now, in "Fury" there is a lot of emotional/moral conflict. When I wrote it, I probably didn't even realize it, but looking back I'm able to pick it all out. And I can learn from it.

"Fury" is currently going through some major revisions, and a lot of things are getting cut. A story that started out at 119,000 words in its first rough draft, is now down to 112,000. And I'm not even halfway through. My problem--which I believed stemmed from the issues I was having in my personal life at the time--is that the story is not very active. There is a lot of inner dialogue. A lot of introspection. But my characters don't DO anything very much. I'm changing that. Not only to keep the reader's interest, but because I realized that the story is not one to be told passively. That's not its message. Characters--and people--don't change through thinking about things and just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen, they go out and do something about it.

I tend to be a passive person, but I didn't realize how much it reflected in my writing and in my characters. Fury, instead of being the active, in-your-face heroine I wanted her to be, was a mopey damsel in distress who took a total of two stands in the entire book. And even afterward she went on being passive. That's not her, and that's not the story. So I'm changing it. It means A LOT of revisions, but it will be worth it.

Because she deserves more, and I can finally recognize that. 

Surprise!

Dragon Queen is very close to the climax (I know, that sounds wrong), and therefore the falling action will soon follow. 

I've a few ideas in my head right now, but I'm stuck on Ch. 28. Jade has learned a number of things in a short space of time, and she's trying to decide if she's better off for it. (Her heart says no, her head says yes.) Plus, there is the whole thing with "Who is the main villian?" Which makes me think that Darion needs to make a star appearance VERY soon. He's sort of been in the background of the story--the threat that must be addressed. And, yes, he has killed a few of Jade's allies, but there has yet to be a Jade vs. Darion. That MUST happen. But when? Ahhh! I need to make an outline, I think. 

I know that Honey is going to play a role, but I won't specify what. (Sorry, you'll have to read it). But that does make me go misty-eyed, because, in all honesty, I LOVE Honey. She's such a malleable character. Vicious, yet kind. Beautiful, yet devious. Can you trust her? Can you not? It makes me want to dance. 

I have considered giving her her own story. It would be an interesting one, that's for sure. But I'm not sure if she'll have enough steam left over from this story to continue her own. We shall see. 

Ok, enough stalling. I shall start writing now.

P.S. The editing process of "Fury" is going well, too. Yay.

What happens when characters have minds of their own . . .

If you're familiar with the writing world, or if you have a friend who happens to write, you will have heard that familiar exclamation, "My characters ran away with me again!"

Most of the time, this is a very good thing. It means that your plot goes somewhere new and exciting, and you have rounded characters that will intrigue the reader just as much as you.

Or, there is the second option: This character totally destroys the plot you had in mind for your book. For example: Say we have a typical fairy tale. Prince is supposed to save princess from ugly troll. Now, let's pretend the writer in question wants this to be a typical prince-rescues-princess-happily-ever-after-story. Nothing wrong with that (unless, of course, she's trying to publish this). Anyway, things are progressing as planned when WHAM! One of the characters decides they don't like the way things are going and becomes "difficult". Let's say, in this instance, that the prince is actually homosexual, but never realized it until he falls madly in love with ugly-troll. The writer never intended for the hero to be homosexual, but he is. And he refuses to be otherwise. Plot foiled.

I'll admit, that's a pretty outrageous example. Those of you who aren't writers are probably completely lost. How can a character control a story? Isn't that the writer's job?

Erm, yes. But when a character grows, things sort of happen that the writer cannot completely predict. For example, in Dragon Queen, there are all sorts of characters doing this to me. Drake. Mikkay. Lace. King Traigon (Jade's father). Honey. I have been lucky so far, however, in that these unexpected manifestations of personality have not wrecked my plot, but enhanced it. Whew! Thank goodness.

Drake pulled the first surprise. When I first began the book, Drake was just an ordinary human-dragonslayer. But then his eyes started to glow. He became really intense, and before I knew it--he was a dragon! Instead of being miffed, I basked in his glory. (And thankfully that happened fairly early in the book, so I hadn't even gotten to a part I needed to change.) But that's really the only one of my character's secrets I can share (as the rest have not revealed theirs yet to my readers on the WD forum and I don't want to ruin it for them). 

I will reveal, however, that Lace surprised me the most. Really. And I'm just dying to see what the forum thinks of her after they have a little insight into her character! Unfortunately, that's about 7 chapters away! Ahh!

The Dragon Queen--Questions

I have reached Chapter 24 in Dragon Queen. That's about 53K words. I have the feeling I'm about 2/3 of the way done, but I don't know. Things keep popping in to surprise me and twist my plot in a direction I did not foresee.

For example, when I first began this book, I had a general idea of where I wanted it to go: Girl marries dragonslayer, girl becomes Dragon Queen, Dragon Queen fights with dragonslayer . . . but I didn't really have any idea after that. Normally, I don't. I just kind of let my novels take me where the will. (Not that I don't have some structure, but I do have a lot of free room for my first draft.)

Second idea: Adding on to first--but dragonslayer is not main enemy; introduce Darion, who ends up being Dragonslayer's twin brother (I have a fascination with twins); now, it's DQ vs. Darion a.k.a. The Dark One; and all this led to the question (which should have been in my mind in the beginning): Who is the DQ? What is her purpose? Why Jade specifically?

These questions are what has thrown a monkey wrench into the gears. The DQ's original purpose was to reunite Yealanthe. Okay, why was Yealanthe divided? There was a war. What kind of war? A civil war? Between who? Darion and his brother. Why them? Uh...

And this is where I flipflopped for a long time. What would make Darion and his brother, Drake, go to war against each other? Obvious answer: control of Yealanthe. But Drake isn't a power hungry dragon, so why would he even get involved? Answer: The land was divided between Darion and Drake. But Darion wanted Drake's land, so he declared war on him. (Okay, following me so far?) Drake fought back.

Enter the Dragon Queen. (Now, here's where it gets tricky.) A rumor arises about a very special woman. Born beneath the thirteenth sky, both dragon and human, she carries enormous powers. Darion immediately sets out to find her. Drake does the same. Darion finds her first.

WAIT!

I know, I've confused you. Those of you who have followed my posts on Writer's Digest Sci-Fi/Fantasy Forum are completely bewildered right now. Because Darion doesn't find Jade, does he? 

No. He doesn't. Drake does. And he marries her. Right-o.

But Darion found the first Dragon Queen. (And I'm going to stop there before I give too much away.)