Author Armageddon: Or how to love the headstrong character
Last year every day when I woke up I was excited to start writing…until I wasn’t. Let me explain, I started as a pantser, had more success as a planner, but more as a combination. I’m a devout plantser. Last year, I wrote my first novel in six weeks, my second in four, my third is a different story and one I’d like to share with you all.
I typically write in the first-person present tense POV (point of view) with my MC (main character) as the narrator. This works well for me, especially since my MC is an amalgam of every snarky, melodramatic, chocolate addicted, eye candy loving fortysomething divorcée I’ve ever met, myself included. Siobhan Flannery is the perfect character for me to write because so much of her personality is my own. She’s juvenile, nerdy, obsessed with not being perfect, and struggling with being divorced. Throw in some eye candy in the form of a dragon and a wisecracking lecher in the shape of a gnome, and it’s easy for me to tell the story.
In November, I started a book that wasn’t in my series. Some of this was because I wanted to write out of my comfort zone, but the largest amount was because I wanted to pay homage to one of the strongest women I know…my sister. My sister survived an abusive marriage, raised two of the most amazing young people I’ve ever met (not that I’m prejudiced or anything), and has an impressive grandson. I wanted to tell the story of a woman surviving abuse and fighting back against the man who destroyed her life. Plus, I added vampires, werewolves, and a few more paranormal creatures just for fun. I plotted that book carefully, my storyboard full of the story told one Post-It at a time. I had an outline broken down chapter by chapter, my course was charted, and I was ready.
On November 1, 2017, at midnight I sat down to write the story for NaNoWriMo planning on getting a good start on the novel and then it happened. My strong, awe-inspiring, survivor of abuse turned into a whiny, meek, lackluster shadow. I despised every word that came out of her mouth. She blindly accepted hearing a stranger’s voice in her head, she didn’t want to go talk with her therapist, and she took abuse from her son who was an over-the-top version of his father. If she’d been real, I would have shaken her until her teeth rattled. I did manage to win NaNo, but I had no interest in finishing the story until I could figure out what the heck was wrong with my character. Nor did I want to go back to my series. They were too familiar to me, I wanted to grow as an author not stagnate.
No longer was the thought of writing exciting, it became a chore. I became the queen of procrastination thanks to Ms. Whiny. I spent hours on Facebook, rather than trying to wrest control of my character back from the black abyss I’d already created. Desperate, I turned to the one person I trust to tell me when something isn’t working hoping she’d steer me back onto solid ground. My sister spent precisely fifteen minutes reading the first chapters of the book, then she stood up, crossed the room, and slapped the back of my head ala Agent Gibbs from NCIS. I won’t regale you with the expletive-laden conversation that followed, suffice it to say she berated me for being too stubborn, for not showing how strong she (my sister) is via emulating her in my MC. She believes (rightly so) that my rigid adherence to my preconceived plot created a problem for my heroine. She is weak and whiny because I made her that way, even if it was unintentional.
It’s been a few months since the debacle of writing the book that shall not be named, but I’ve learned a few things I’d like to share. Consider it my arguments for plantsing versus pantsing or planning.
1.) Sometimes what we, as authors, perceive as internal fortitude are mere shadows. They are the surface strength we see, not the hidden scars and lessons it took people to survive.
2.)Thou shall not emulate a person, even with their permission, if you can’t do it perfectly. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, if you can’t pull it off you’ll get a nasty bruise on the back of your skull (my sister has a nasty left-handed slap). Plus, it pisses the character off, and they go off script, totally uncool.
3.) If a character is balking when you’re writing a scene, go with it. Don’t question it, don’t fight to stay on track, let the MFer go off the rails. That’s what revisions are for. Seriously, revisions are awful and a total time suck, you’ll wonder what the hell you were thinking, but they make up for a multitude of sins and help your words shine.
4.) Make sure you take the time to build your world ahead of time. This one was probably the biggest pain in the butt for me since the world is the same one I created for my series. However, I didn’t have enough time spent with some of the races to have a fully functioning idea of what they were, how they spoke, looked, and acted…not good.
5.)There are keys to any decent story and forgetting any of them make writing a bitch of an endeavor. Plotting from beginning to end lets you see the story before you write it. There will be surprises, but if you have a general idea of where you’re going ahead of time, you’ll find the big holes and continuity errors before you’ve written it all down (most of them at any rate).
Character development — I can’t state the importance of this enough. Even when you have a character that’s being built upon a real person, make sure you take the time to fully develop them.
Relax — Trust me, no one wants your story to shine more than you do, but if you don’t relax and enjoy the telling your readers won’t enjoy reading. Lighten up a little, go with the flow, and let the magic flow from your fingers.
It’s not rocket science — Unless you’re writing science fiction then maybe it is. I spend a lot of time researching before I plot my books/stories and I write about the paranormal. The problem is I become attached to each piece of information and want to share it with the world. It’s my version of “look at me, see how smart I am.” It sucks, and not in anything resembling a fun way. Readers don’t care if you’ve gained a poor man’s Ph.D. in nuclear physics. Make all that knowledge work for you, but don’t be a jerk about it.
The most important of all is to have fun. — This should go without saying, but so many take themselves too seriously when writing. Have a good time with it, see where your fingers carry you and enjoy the ride. Whatever higher power you do or don’t believe in gave you this urge for a reason, and you need to enjoy it.
Thank you all for taking the time to read this, I hope I’ve given you something worth reading and a few thoughts to help you on your path as a writer. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments, if I don’t know the answer then I am sure I can find someone who does. To end this, I’m putting up a meme with one of my favorite quotes from an author. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
V. L. Cooke
If you enjoyed this post, click the little green heart.
If you’d like to join my newsletter (it goes out once a month unless something truly newsworthy happens between issues) join here.
If you’d like to visit my blog, it’s here. It has a lot of the same posts I write here, but some of my posts about self-publication are only available there.
I’m on Twitter here.
I have an author’s page on Facebook, here.
If you’d like a free copy of the prequel to Golden Opportunity it is available here. Golden Opportunity is available for Kindle, iBooks, NOOK, and Kobo.
