Sunday 3 June 2012

Camp NaNoWriMo Day 3: why I should trust my character

Day 3: it turns out Toby knows a lot more about the story than I do. Am I surprised?

I really need to learn to trust my characters more. I created Toby Moonstone in April of 2011 and since then I've written over 250,000 words about him. It's pointless to suggest that at this point I'm doing anything other than typing like hell while he tells the story. There's no reason to doubt him. He knows what he's doing, even if I don't.


Yes, that statement probably makes me sound crazy. I don't care - if I need to be crazy to write this story all I can really do is hope I get it finished before someone decides I need professional intervention. We're talking about a character who  can reduce his author to tears here. I'm not sure this thing called 'sanity' was ever an option. Besides, it's either hang onto the crazy or start the self-analysis again. This month I'm hanging onto the crazy.

Today in the universe of Siana Blackwood, I started out by feeling like I was writing the story wrong. I tried to explain to myself that it didn't matter and I just had to get something written so that I had something to fix later. That didn't help, but like I said already I happen to be writing about a character who knows how things are supposed to work in his world. He took charge of the story and started giving me answers to all my questions.

So, to everyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month: trust your characters. Let them slip the leash a little and tell you how their story is supposed to happen. They probably know what they're doing and if not... well, make them pay for it later. Everything has consequences, even for characters.

Maybe especially for characters, in fact.

1 comment:

  1. Hmm, maybe I should just learn to trust Oscar. I am having very similar problems to this with him.

    In other news, now I want to make a T-shirt that says "Hanging on to the crazy since 2010".

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