Who is your character? (How We Write.)

Here’s a secret: I don’t have a clue what Virginia Kate’s favorite flavor of ice cream is. If I thought about it, maybe I’d have her go into the ice cream parlor and she’d step up to the counter and she’d order a . . . *kat thinks* . . . chocolate dipped cone. There. She doesn’t like pistachio like I do. She’d eat strawberry, though, yeah; we both like strawberry with real chunks of strawberries in there.


Sometimes authors make detailed “character sketches.” They know their characters so well, up to the minutetednest detail—their favorite foods, their favorite movies, how they look from the top of their head to the souls of their feet—every detail about their physical appearance. They know every like and dislike, every nuance, every place the character has been or worked or gone to school, etc etc etc.


When I first began writing fiction, I thought there was This Way I was supposed to write and think and do and be, and if I wasn’t This Way, then I wasn’t a Real Writer. I might as well have put thick gloves on my hands and tried to write that way. For thinking “what we are supposed to do” versus “what is comfortable and real and instinctual” for us creates boundaries where there should be free space.


For me personally, when it comes to character, I learned I have to discover my character(s) as I write, and even in that discovering, just as it is with meeting real people, I never know every detail about them, and may never ever know every detail. Even now, with two Virginia Kate (Graces) books written, I am still discovering who Virginia Kate is. If I have an ice cream scene, that’s when I find out what flavor she chooses and likes (chocolate dipped cone or Strawberry! Now I know!). Maybe she’ll talk about her favorite movie and then again, maybe she doesn't have one or doesn't know herself or doesn't care. I know she loves books, and has a special place for her Black Stallion and Black Beauty books, but what does she read as an adult? Well, I don’t know yet. She hasn’t had time to read because she’s going through her families’ archives (their letters, journals, photos) and storytelling their lives.


Writers love to give advice—heck, that’s what I’m doing here. We do it because we want to tell you “it’s all okay; really!;” we want to support you and help you; we want to give you guidance; we want to perhaps make things a bit easier on you where we had to muddle our way through; and we want to talk about the craft, the language, because it is important to us and we love it so.


How you write; how the process is for you is an individual decision. If you like to discover your character as you go along, or if you like to write detailed character descriptions, or somewhere in between—who can tell you/us which is “right or wrong” because no way is “right or wrong.” If you read how a writer does his or her thing and then you try to duplicate that and in that trying to duplicate you hit wall after wall—your character becomes wooden, or doesn’t seem real to you, or something just isn’t right about this character dang it all!—then take off the gloves and feel the flexing of your own fingers, the feel of the keys, the freedom of ungloved hands.

Hello VK my old friend....nice to talk to you again...oh, the sounnnds of writing....

Yesterday I received an email from someone who wrote: "I miss Virginia Kate. I wish the second book was already out...."

Do you know what this feels like? To have someone actually miss your character? These are the kinds of comments that make me want to grin and cry all at the same time. That and "I couldn't put it down," or "I didn't want it to end."

Which is why yesterday, I highlighted and deleted 30,000 words from VKBook2 -- that's a lotta words, friends. But, they were not our Virginia Kate's words. Writer, get out of the way. So, I got out of the way. But, 30,000 words! Oh Geez, get crackin, Kat.

See, I love Virginia Kate, too - and I want her to have her own voice. When you all pick up VKBook2 and read, I want it to BE Virginia kate again; I don't want you to be disappointed. I don't want book2 to be second rate to book 1. It must feel seamless, as if you just kept reading from book 1 into book 2 without hardly taking a breath. That's what I want - and it is worth the "sacrifice" of taking out those 30,000 words and going from where that LINE I told you all about is to forward. That free feeling tells me I did the right thing, as I also have said.

30,000 words - think about it.

But what I want to stress here to you who write is: There are ALWAYS MORE WORDS! Don't be afraid to write crap *laughing* -- what I mean is, write it all down, write write write, because later you can cut and paste and cut and not paste and put in and take out and rearrange and etc etc etc! There are always more words! You won't dry up! Don't be afraid to take chances with words and language!

When I wrote that original manuscript, and then split it in half, I never knew what would stay and what would go, what would change in the original half that would affect the second half. You have to just trust the process. You have to trust yourself. You have to trust your character's journey. You have to be FEARLESS sometimes!

You have to be able to delete sometimes. And you have to know there are always more words. Maybe I am being too simplistic. Maybe for some writers it comes more naturally, more "easily" -- maybe you are thinking: It would take me months and months to get 30,000 words! Okay, I understand this. Every person is different, every writer different - every journey different. Take from this what fits you. I never tell writers: "You aren't a writer if you....." I hate it when writers do that....as if there is a club and you have to have secret passwords, or special handshakes, or certain credentials to join this club. We're all lovers of books and words and language. We all have our own journey to take how we will take it. What separates success from "not success" is the ability to Keep Going. No matter what: you keep going. Do you think I'm not terrified? Even with a book out I am terrified sometimes....but, I love what I do. I love books, language, words, my characters, the feeling of someone out there reading my words....I put aside that fear and just plow forward.

But what I want you to take from this is sometimes you have to be fearless. Sometimes you just have to do what is best for your Character's Journey. Sometimes you have to quiet that voice that says, "But what if I don't have anything else to say?" You will always have something to say. If you feel as if you do not, it is because you are self-editing yourself, you are getting in your own way. Yes, somtimes being fearless and just vomiting out words will mean more work....but better more work than to present something to the world that isn't your best.

Maybe when book2 comes out, people will still love book1 better - maybe not - I can't predict that. But, when book2 is completed, I will know that I was true to Virginia Kate and her journey. At the cost of thousands of words....but new thousands of words will come and they will be Virginia Kate's voice...not some shadow of her.

If you delete delete delete - you can always retrieve it by pasting it somewhere else - just try it and see if by deleting something it makes you feel "Free" to create or if it does not.

Now, go be fearless! In whatever you do. Trust your instincts. Do what feels right to you.

I can('t) see clearly now, my brain is frogged...I (ignore) all obstacles in my way...

I’d always thought about the writing process as just what it was: I sit down; I write; the story comes out. It makes for good fun to write this way, for I simply have a character nudge me (and I may only see that characters eyes, mouth, hair, and I may "hear" a prompt, “This is how it is…”) and off I go. In my way of "seeing and hearing," traditional stories about family and friends and Place and Belonging arrive—nothing really all that original. The originality is in the cracks and crevices, in the wording perhaps, or between the between. We find ourselves in our writing and our writing finds us--there is the meeting, the sonic boom of crashing together. The "oh!" of surprise at this big bang of creation.

Instead of plots and outlines and structure, my brain splinters and gives me a kaleidoscope of images flashing past so quickly that I can’t grab hold of them but one image at a time; but quickly and surely this happens, and I write down an image and another and another and go from there. All in all, its easier for me to just let my brain do its thing, write the story as it comes, and hope for the best.

Surely my brain's way of interpreting my world, in the way it perceives data and love and lives and images and words and thoughts has served me well enough? Or at times has frustrated me. Or left me dizzy with possibilities unseen and unarrived? Or given me gifts? Perhaps there are trade-offs. Perhaps if I saw my world in completes instead of parts, I’d not see things in the way I do, and in not seeing them in the way I do, perhaps I would not have "met" the characters who have come to me in visions of eyes, mouth, and hair. Perhaps I’d be someone else. Then I would not be me. My writing would be someone else's.

Embrace You. Be true to your writing, to yourself. Write What You Know means much more than what is apparent.

One more week for the book give-a-way! On Friday, I will collect all the "entries" and publish them on this blog. Then I will put up the names of those entires. Everyone will read these beautiful writings placed here and vote on the one that somehow tugs at something visceral - that has them think "oh!" or that makes them laugh or cry or think or that excites them - whatever it is that will cause one to say "That's the one I choose."

(google image from fr.fotolia.com)