I’m stuck with these rotters now. these characters. they’re so good/awful. I love them all so disgustingly, ugh
Monikers and things
on a normal project, I take incredible care and time in choosing my names. I like to research meanings and historical uses of names before I bestow them on a character.
and I’m doing that, to some extent, with A God Grown Old, but I’m also wrestling with a bit of a legacy these characters already have. both Tikva and Jaren are the original names of characters my sister and I pretended to be when I was 10 and she was 4. they’re so intimately associated with the characters that I’m afraid to change them. but are they the best names for the characters? Tikva means “hope,” and that’s ironic in light of his (vastly changed from his origins) character. Jaren means “cry of rejoicing” – again, not particularly relevant. and Karru, whose name is about six years younger than theirs, means “ploughshare.” no idea why I chose these at first, but…they’re starting to seem a little weird.
can I change them, though? it’s not a legitimate question, it’s a rhetorical one for myself. it’s an interesting thought exercise. would I get more out of the characters if I broke them out of that box? it’s a little bit tempting.
names for characters I’m creating just for A God Grown Old are certainly being chosen with care and pickiness. the ostrich, Luta, is named after my boyfriend’s parents’ two obnoxious animals, Lucy and Pita. it’s very intentional – the ostrich is a pain in the ass, and it’s a fun way to pay tribute to the time of my life during which I’m writing the novel. I’ve also had to use a few names from the myth, which actually works out well because they really do fit.
I’m thinking about changing up the names on the outline and seeing how it reads, and maybe having a few brainstorming sessions where I use placeholders just to see if there are possibilities I’m missing because I’m trying to revert to their original characteristics.
Conversations with myself
I’m sure that if mental physicians everywhere had their way, I (and many other writers) would be diagnosed with something serious. I’ve been writing Serious Character Bios (read: three handwritten pages per main character, which so far is six pages and will eventually be 15), and this has caused me to love my characters. Even my antagonist. Which is good, because even villains have mothers who love them (or something).
Anyway, now that I’ve fleshed out Cleo and George, in particular, I’ve started to have conversations with them. Sometimes this involves acting like I’m listening to said fictional entity telling me about themselves or a situation; sometimes I take on the role of the character and monologue to myself while in the bathroom (no, not while it’s otherwise occupied, I’m not that confident in my ability to prove my sanity). It’s actually a helpful exercise, because it plays on my one strength as a public speaker: spontaneity. I like to connect dots that were never supposed to be connected, and this happens best when my brain is in GO mode without the ability to censor a connection before I can see where it goes. Having conversations with myself is kind of my version of freewriting, especially because I’m slow to write by hand and typed freewrites feel like cheating. Weird quirk, right?
What kinds of quirks do you indulge in as far as your writing practice?
13 and counting
Sufficient sleep has eluded me lately, but it’s not been all bad; a tired, loopy mind is a fertile place for brainstorming to occur. I sat down this morning and wrote outlines for each of the secondary characters’ arcs, all four of them. I won’t include at least half of what I wrote down, because it’ll be happening off-screen, but I’m finding it to be an incredibly useful exercise. Now, when my secondary characters are off-screen, they won’t be like puppets: useless unless I have my hand up their asses. (Wait. What?)
Inevitably, my favorite character in (insert show/book/movie/fandom here) is a secondary character, but I’ve yet to quite capture a good supporting cast. I think this might be the secret: giving them lives outside of recorded events, especially when the tale is told in a limited p.o.v. (in this case, third-person limited, probably to two characters max, barring the epilogue). Of course, it does help that I’ve known these characters for 13 years, but still, they were never this vibrant before.
Now, to figure out how to make the main character likable and not just a whiner. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
