GETTING INSIDE THEIR HEADS....

Characters that is. Honestly who would have thought that after creating them it would be so much work to really understand them?

I'm reworking my YA novel (based on feedback received) and while a lot of the story works...more understanding of several of the characters was needed. Which of course made me think. Long and hard about the story as a whole.....does it work? Where is it headed? Is it believable? What does she want? What is stopping her from getting it? All the basics really...but then I had to think deeper....

And of course that is where tangents lie.

Because the more I thought about characters and setting and plot and storyline- I then thought of timelines and subplots - secondary characters, point of view, landscape as character, context, theme etc etc etc.

Thinking about your work is vital. But where do you draw the line and decide okay, that's enough time to get on with it (yet again). And often the thinking, the planning and to some people the research is all the fun....the writing is the hard stuff. And the reworking- the editing- that is the hardest.

I think that's where I am. Trying to figure out what to keep, what to delete, what adds nothing, what is an interesting subplot and can build character depth....but as often occurs it's a case of taking two steps forward, one step back.

During this 'thinking' time there have been a few aha moments....a twist here, understanding of her mother there....and at the moment I'm working through the chapters, printing them out so that next weekend (cup weekend) I'll have a hard copy in front of me...ready for the next step.

But I will also have notes on my characters. A lot more information than I will ever use (how important is it to know that her brother loved double vanilla milkshakes when she thinks why bother with vanilla it is so not a flavour?)...only time will tell what is important and what isn't.

But I'm in their heads. I'm understanding what makes them work, why they do the things they do (even if I disagree with so many of their actions).

This is the hard part. The reworking, redrafting....trying to sort all those tiny words and fragments and pull them into shape.

I'm hoping for a bookish shape. Wish me luck.



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