I am feeling overwhelmed by this story idea that has been building in me. It has, as most new ideas do, consumed my brain. I have been taking notes and dreaming and imagining almost constantly. Which doesn't do wonders for my homework, let me tell you. However, it is different than pretty much anything I have written before, and I am realizing--well, not just now--I have been building to this realization for a while now--I don't write my characters with the devotion to individuality that each of them deserves. A lot of what they end up doing in my stories is going through the motions. I am pretty good at plot, and getting better all the time, and I feel I am damn good at world building (you should see the places that exist only in my head!), I am okay with dialogue (I can write fairly natural sounding speech, but it doesn't always do anything, which is important). I have mixed feelings about action. I feel like I do it well at times, other times not so much. I think it is a case of sometimes being able to see it in my head, and sometimes not.
Anyway. Character building isn't too difficult for me. I like to know where they have been and what they have done before the first scene breaks. The hard part is writing personality without each character sounding like they are me, or each other. The last two NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month--look it up if you don't know what it is...or I guess you could wait until I decide to talk about it) challenges I have participated in have ended up with rather similar characters. NaNoWriMo is a hard time to judge, because the words are coming out of your brain so fast you don't have time to think, which is kind the point, but as other characters, both written and still living in my head, flit through my mind, I am realizing that so many of them share similar qualities. I have to wonder if I am writing myself, or if I am writing what I want to be. In the end who I am writing doesn't matter. What matters is that I can make them different enough to be interesting. What is important is that I let them act on their own, rather than simply have them do what the outline (well, if I used one generally) dictates. They need personality, and that is something that I have a lot of trouble with.
The reason that this is coming up is because the story that is brewing right now involves an extremely complex man as homicide detective with some serious trauma built up from his childhood. And a schizophrenic serial killer. In a modern city with a hidden magical underworld. It is better than it sounds, promise! Or maybe it sounds better than it is. I'm not the most impartial judge.
This is not the magical underworld you read about in Harry Potter Or twilight, if you read that one. This is a city (aptly called The City) that I have been building for several years now. Think...Anita Blake and Merry Gentry by Laurell K. Hamilton mixed with The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher mixed with the movie Underworld mixed with the movie the Covenant with a healthy dose of myth and fairy tale. Several not really connected stories are building out of this world. But I am going to stop there, because I don't want to go on about it, because I could fill several pages (actually, I have a moleskine dedicated to this world) of information about it.
Anyway, as I said earlier, I haven't ever written any sort of murder/police/mystery/crime/psychological thriller before. And with as complex as both the antagonist and the protagonist are becoming this is going to require a lot of research. It is probably going to be my summer project. (when I am graduated! with an associate's degree! in english! and will have nothing to do until I start at BSU in the fall!) Except I have to finish editing the last draft of the Mad Queen so I can possibly have a thing published. But that shouldn't take too long, a week of working at it hard should get it done, unless I follow through on my promise to add another thirty thousand words to it...
Anyway, this blog has gotten way too long, and probably boring to everyone but me...so, to reward you for reading, go read this blog by Neil Gaiman, who is much more famous and awesome than I am: thoughts on writing and driving in fog by Neil Gaiman
The easiest portrait for a painter is to paint is the features most familiar to them. One must be ever vigilant that they don't find their own eyes staring at them from the canvas.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you feel! I write myself and sometimes when I get an idea it's hard to put it away for a while because I feel like I'm going to lose it.
ReplyDeleteCreating the characters is difficult for me too; I'd rather just get to the story and develop the characters as I go but sometimes that's not always helpful to the people I let read my stories. (I don't usually let people read what I write, not sure why though haha)
Letting other people read your writing is very hard, imho. I think a good deal of that is because it is so personal. Especially in something like fiction, or certain types of essays, you are building something out of what you have inside you, and to let someone read it is to let someone see inside you. However, on the other hand, we have to let people read it, to see our thoughts, maybe respond with their own, but to see the ideas that we have. Good luck with your writing! ;-)
DeleteI would say that character building is one of my weak suits as well. It's hard to develop characters in a story for me because it seems like its the lasting thing that is done but should be one of the first. When I start a paper usually i know who I want to be in it but then its hard to build that character to present him the way the I want. It sounds like you have a challenge ahead of you with this story but I also sounds like its going to be quite a read.
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