by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The thing I’m really focusing on when it comes to this novel is fleshing out my characters. I have been so obsessed with plot that I have woefully neglected character. In fact, I think it’s how threadbare my characters are is the reason why my alpha readers haven’t finished the novel — they just don’t care.
With that in mind, I’m trying to build out a little bit of a “story before the story” that would give people some reason to invest in my heroine before the story begins. Hopefully — hopefully — this will be enough for them to actually care about the words on the page to the point that when I go through the beta reader process that readers don’t get bored.
I feel a bit sheepish that it’s taken me this long to realize the importance of character in writing this novel. Character and plot, at least in my own mind are kind of fused together and it really shows if one or the other isn’t developed and interesting.
As such, even though I pretty much recently finished the first chapter of the second draft, I am back to square one. I am trying to be as methodical as possible in fleshing out the individual characters in the novel so they’re engaging and interesting and you care when they begin to interact with events.
One thing I also have to work on is making my characters a lot less passive. That’s been a real problem for me. To the point that I will suddenly start when I realize that my heroine isn’t driving the plot, but rather reacting to it.
A lot of this wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I wasn’t developing and writing it all in a vacuum. But dem’s the breaks. I can’t help who I am and I can’t help my lot in life at the moment.
