Character Building
My stories always begin with the main character. I know writers who envision a place, a situation, an event. I love that there are infinite entry points into a world, and there is no wrong way to uncover a story. For me, I find a voice and follow it. Hypotheses develop: what has this person found in their life, and what are they looking for? What do they adore and despise and crave and avoid? What might cause them to change, and how?
Basically, it starts with many questions. I brainstorm, but instead of answering everything, I let uncertainty linger. Let the answers be unfixed, ready to transform during a conversation or action from the character. Like life, the worlds inside books can be unexpected and confusing. Characters should take up space and depth. They need continuity, but not too much. Having theories about my characters rather than facts and information I assign to them has helped me navigate that balance.
Theories can be proven wrong. Planning and mapping out my novels keeps me from getting lost, but the plans are like a sweater I bring just in case. I can put it on if I’m cold, but usually I carry it around and maybe leave it somewhere while I’m off eating or dancing. It’s exciting to see my plan derailed. That’s when a plan becomes art. I’m left with something fresher and truer than what I had hypothesized back when I knew little about the story I was actually writing.
It takes time to understand stories and characters. I don’t think I even know my main character until around my third draft. I stay curious, let their voice evolve, learn as I go. You can’t really understand someone when you first meet them. You might learn information about them—they might even tell you their life story. But it takes talking to them many times about myriad topics, witnessing them in different situations and with different people, to truly understand them. It can take years to get to the heart of your character, too. Especially when you have a habit of writing guarded, stubborn, and beautifully frustrating people.
Understanding the heart of my character coincides with understanding the heart of my story. Relationships click into place, emotional insights are revealed. It doesn’t answer all the questions. My fiction is as flawed and full of hope as I am. But what I’m aiming for is this: the feeling that the reader and the character have been through something together, something singular and immense, that makes them feel more connected to both the story, to themselves, and to the world.