I saw this exercise and thought ‘what a lovely way to try and get to know my problematic character better’. The questions don’t fit the world so well, but I’m going to give it a go anyhow. I’m just going to give the first initial of my character, I’ll call him ‘N’, so here it is.
1.) If he were to go into a bar, he would order a large mug of dark sweet ale, down it fast, and immediately get another. That mug, he would nurse for a good long while, unless he was with friends or celebrating, in which case, it wouldn’t be long before he needed a new mug. What happens in the bar sort of depends on the type of bar it is. Let’s say it’s a fancy place (in his world, it would be a place for various upper-class types – even lords may venture into such an establishment from time to time.) In this place, he would find a dark corner and sit around uncomfortably until it was time to go. Though were he with his brother (I’ll call him ‘E’), he might loosen up a bit and have a time. Now, if the bar were more of a place for travelers, soldiers and the like, he would be front and center at the bar, telling tales of adventure and debauchery. The thing is, he’s been out of that life for a while, and he’s a lot less connected with that life than he used to be, and so it would have the air of an out-to-pasture soldier telling of events long past.
2.) N is not wantonly destructive to the landscape around him. Like anyone else trying to scrape a life from the land, he respects the world as a dangerous place. He is not a fan of the city, and when in nature notices all of the types of trees, plants and what-not across the landscape. By no means an expert, and not even really an enthusiast, he still appreciates the diversity of the forests. As a former soldier, and short-lived life as a farmer, he also doesn’t hold with waste. As time goes on through the story, this changes, and the character becomes even more in-tune with nature, noticing life and magic under every little rock, becoming almost obsessed with magic and all of it’s mechanics and nuances.
3.) N is not given to lying, as a general rule, preferring to mislead by omission when necessary. He tends to be brashly honest and thoroughly unapologetic in instances where others might use a small lie to attempt to cover their own minor mis-deeds. This sometimes comes off as acting somewhat like a spoiled child. In no case does he allow someone else to take blame for something he’s done, but he will not suffer false accusations on himself, excepting to take responsibility for those he leads.
4.) This is sort of an evolving situation with N. I’d say his back story has him at the pub with friends. The current bit of the story has him out in the forest hanging out with a dryad, then later the forest becomes a place for him to be, much later it will be something altogether different.
5.) At his heart N is a strategist. He would attack the problem of the lost bank by searching the city in a methodical manner, starting with the most likely place for a bank to be, and moving out to less likely places, he would also spend that time looking for anyone who might help.
Well, this was helpful, mostly… Still needs work, I think.
Author Archives
Is writing a book like building a house?
When I was working on my house, I added about 1100sq. ft., about five years ago. The first parts of the project were fairly easy in terms of planning. First a contractor came in and set the foundation, then I put in the floor joists and sub-floor of the first story, rolling straight into wall framing and sheeting. After that, I took the roof off the existing structure, and put in the floor joists and sub-floor for the second story. Once that was all in place, once again, I was framing and sheeting the walls, which was followed quickly by installation of roof trusses and roof sheathing, which led immediately to shingles. Having all that done, the real work began and the strategy started to become more about preference. Living in Alaska, I opted to focus on insulation, windows followed by interior framing, and then wiring. Normally, this would have occurred in a slightly different order, but if I wanted to continue working that was how it needed to be. Now, once I got that sorted, it was really a matter of preference.
It seems to me that this is where I’m at with my story. I’ve got a few chapters near the end to move from outline to draft, the first major revision, and polish, to the subplot, and of course I still need to go through again and really get that main character nailed down. He needs to be strong and charismatic, and he’s not there yet. I feel like where I’m at in my story is analogous to the point at which I walked into my newly dry house, and looked some 28 feet up the empty stairwell into the trusses of a hollow shell of a yet-to-be dwelling. It hit me like a physical pain back then. I have so much work to do, was my thought. I’d just spent every free moment of my summer getting it to that point and it wasn’t even half-way. I was right, the struggle went on for another 18 months. I tried to tackle things in a certain order to make life easier when I got to the next part. I’d like to approach my story in the same way. My intuition is telling me to just get the whole damn thing written, and worry about the details later, but another part of me says, don’t waste your time on the end because you don’t know all of the details that got him there yet. I suppose in the example of building a house, revision really isn’t on the table. With a book it’s just the nature of things. So, with all of that rubber-ducking and reminiscing out of the way. I’m going to commit myself to drafting out the last few chapters, leave the sub-plot revision until the end, and see if the end of the story doesn’t help me get a better sense of my main character. Is this a good strategy? No idea, never done this before. Anyhow, no I’m off for a run before the night gets away from me.
Chapter 3 reconsidered
Last night I spent several hours thinking about my chapter 3 re-write, while trying to avoid being drawn into the gossip and scandal of Downtown Abbey. I also spent a bit of time rubber-ducking it with my wife, again pausing to listen to various witty comments delivered by the dowager duchess. Distractions aside, the conclusion I reached is, in fact, I could simply add a few sentences here and there to modify the situation to be more plausible. It may be that I said I was going to avoid going into a lot of detail on my story, and I’m going to stick with that, but I’m going to describe this situation and how I approached it, partly to help me solidify how I feel about this solution.
At the end of chapter 2 my main character is captured by the bad guy and some henchmen. Chapter 3 sets out with the main character tied up, apparently in the middle of an open field with no guard set. The plausibility problem here is that the main character’s back story involves him being a soldier. It’s simply not realistic, actually too convenient for him to be left in the middle of a field and unattended. He could just crawl off and free himself. If they were indeed real people, the captors would certainly have spotted this problem, and solved it for me. A more plausible situation would have involved the main character being tied up, and set inside a disused building and set under guard. This would work, because the setting is an old farm with many dilapidated buildings. However, the original, and necessary, plan of escape for the main character was to be freed by a man who he had visited earlier that day. That bit can’t really change without dramatic modifications to the story, which would work, but I think its unnecessary. If the main character were, indeed, locked in a building it’ll be a lot harder to be freed by this man. Virtually impossible actually.
I began writing the revision with the disused building in mind, but it was hard, and not working and I was struggling to imagine how the main character might be freed under the circumstances. Believable, yes, workable, not so much. This is where the rubber ducking came into play. In taking apart the plausibility, I realized that the main character just needs to be tied to something. The farm would have a broken wagon, even operational farms are likely to have this sort of thing lying about. I expect they might even feel they could keep a better eye on him this way. The next bit is to set a guard. If I stick with the concept that the men who captured him are arrogant and confident, this would be a token effort. My solution is to add a guard, who has fallen asleep. Then, the other men, who had not yet turned in for the evening, would simply ignore this lapse. The main character wouldn’t be going anywhere. Then, later, this situation actually connects better with a bit of action where the leader takes retribution for the lapse. So, no-rewrite necessary, just a heavy revision. All that really needed to happen was to flesh out the details better. The story will run just fine with these details inserted. It’s still a little tenuous on the plausibility, but passable.
On Writing Dragons 