 Fantasy: October 16, 2013 Issue [#5946] |
  Fantasy
This week: It's not Ripley's Edited by: Gaby  
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Hey! I'm Gaby and I'll be your guest editor for this week's Fantasy Newsletter.
“Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.”
~ Barbara Grizzuti Harrison quotes |
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You could say that we've been through this before, but you can't discuss character development enough. Especially right before NaNoWriMo!
This year, like so many of you, I've decided to do NaNo, but also to do the NaNo Prep. My biggest problem was that I didn't even have a full story to tell. A mishmash of things without a straight thought, a beginning and an end. No middle to speak of! To top it off, it's supposed to be written in the fantasy genre. You're probably wondering what I've been thinking, right? Right.
Just to explain this without giving out any details, I had four main characters and one bad guy. The beginning. The good guys win, would be the ending. When I signed up for the prep, I had no idea how I'd get from point A to point C without point B, which would be the middle. Aside from that, I didn't even know my characters. They were just there, standing around, wasting time, waiting for me to give them something to do. Great. No pressure!
Other than that tiny quirk, I didn't know who these guys were. It was left up to me to find out their personalities through my ideas. Even though I thought I'd start the story with one character, another had stepped up and lead me to where she wanted me to go, so I let her. I can't introduce a character without being introduced to them first, right? If I just start writing without any knowledge of who is leading, eventually I will hit a wall and be stuck there.
There's a reason why there's that saying 'Steady wins the race'. The main character has to be steady, consistent, and not go in all directions at once. Yes, it can have his/her faults but it cannot stray too far from who they truly are. That is what we have to learn when we write. We also need to know how to control it.
What am I getting at? The main character can't be unpredictable.
We as writers need to know where they're coming from and in which direction they're headed in order to keep them steady on their way. No matter what their characteristics, they can't really change too much throughout their story. A shy person cannot be outgoing at the same time unless something happens to them to change the way they are, nor can a goofball without morals be a character who has strong beliefs until they go through an experience that might have an effect on them. It's not possible. Believability is important. The reason why people can relate to books and everything that's written in them is because they establish a connection with those they read about.
Now, who's going to tell me that I'm wrong?
~ Gaby 
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| |  | Foresight (ASR)
character development, so I could get to know the male lead - Xander - from Dream Waker.
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