Monday 15 March 2010

Characters

Where do these characters come from?

It’s strange, isn’t it, how a character can suddenly turn up and make him/herself known to you. As if to say

“I’m going to be in your story too – only you don’t know it yet.”

I’ve just had one such character walk into my WIP – quite literally – he just opened the door and walked into the room. I hadn’t planned him, and while I was writing his scene I was puzzling over him. Why had he appeared now? He clearly had a part to play in all this – but what?

“Well,” I thought. “I can always delete you later.” So I carried on writing.

And a few days later it hit me! He actually has a crucial part to play in this story – I need him!

But how come he knew this before I did?

4 comments:

  1. It's a strange and wonderful process isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That happened to me with my last novel, and it really helped improve the narrative. So far not in this one, but then I'm not that far along either. I love it when that happens.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's all part of the adventure isn't it - I wonder what other surprises are in store for me now :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. These characters are crazy! I do love them though. It is strange how it all works.

    ReplyDelete

Please share you thoughts, I'd love to hear from you....