Blog RSS FeedBalancing the character arc
I’m in the middle of revisions for Project X. For a little while, I’ve been struggling to figure out just what I needed to tweak to allow a couple of the main conflicts to fit together better. The primary victim of all this has been a minor character named Jesse, who has been eliminated from existence and then brought back to the storyline in a manner that he would be all too fragile to cope with, were he a real person.
But what I realized two days ago was that, in messing around with a couple of minor characters and even a major character or two, I was completely ignoring some changes that needed to be made to one of the two lead characters. I was coming to feel that there was something off about her, about the way she developed.
And then I realized–she didn’t develop. She sprang into the book fully-formed, and continued from that point to wreak havoc on everybody she came into contact with. She was like Athena, leaping from the head of Zeus, only less mythical. This didn’t make her particularly sympathetic, which I could live with–hey, very few of us feel sorry for absolutely every person we encounter–but it did leave her looking a little shallow.
So what did I do? I sanded her down a little. I took a fully-formed character and left her more vulnerable, with more to learn. This not only gives me a little more play as far as writing her into some of the earlier scenes, but it also gives her the potential for a little bit of understanding. Readers will get where she’s coming from better than if she had been allowed to continue in her old incarnation.
After all, when you watch The Incredible Hulk, part of the fun is seeing the guy before he’s the Hulk. If you don’t know his pants ever fit, it doesn’t seem quite as tragic that he outgrew them.
So I’m having a good time redrawing my own little Hulk from the ground up. And hoping that it helps the book evolve.
What made me think this was thinking, the other night, that I love writing about teens because everything they do is formative. Every conversation is important. Every encounter has the power to change your worldview. And my mind wandered to this character and wondered how her worldview had been changed in the narrative as it was.
Just some thoughts from the old noggin. Happy Thursday! The Office starts tonight! I am soooo excited.
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September 25th, 2008 Katie Alender
Glad your character is now re-sculpted, and good luck with the remaining revisions.
fine tuning is good, careful the minor character does not overshadow some main ones….
What do you do if someone resists being sanded down? Do you ever have that problem, a character who is so powerful that you just have to give him or her the reins?
YES, OFFICE! I hear ya! I’m so stoked. We just finished watching the 4th season on DVD, and then promptly missed the entire one hour season premiere . . . Quick, in three lines or less, what happened to Jim, Pam, Dwight, Angela, new HR chick, Lamaze class, etc?
Looks like Project X is taking shape.
Might I make a suggestion? Since I?m not someone who likes to hog his literary genius, I don?t mind sharing the key to success , or, as I call it, ?the key to Nobel? with you.
When writing a book, it always helps if you make your main character – regardless of the plot and setting of your story – an alien. Perhaps even a little effeminate.
Just a suggestion.
PS
LOVE The Office.
Isn’t it funny, how that happens? You write the drafts and you’re, like, “oh, this is awesome and I just need to tweak this one little thing.”
So you pull on that one little thing, which then turns out to be the most important thread in the whole damn sweater! sigh. No, no–my revisions are going GREAT right now, just GREAT…why do you ask? [Insert scary crazy person laugh here.]
It sound like your revisions are proceeding apace, though. Good luck to you, and good luck to Poor Jesse. Stay strong, Jesse!
This is a helpful post. My (main) WIP, largely MG, has a pretty important character who my writing group have criticized is largely a cipher; he has his own personality, but it has been pointed out to me that he is mainly there to be a sidekick to the chief protagonist. I need to do what you’ve done — give him more life, more development, and a better role… Sigh. I thought I was finished, but actually I’ve only just begun…