A to Z Challenge: L is for Listening to your Characters
If you are a Pantser like I am (see blog post Plotter vs. Pantser), then you are perhaps more familiar with the idea of listening to your characters. In other words, letting your characters guide the direction the story you are writing will go.
We may create the characters themselves, but as our stories progress, they can grow a mind of their own.
There have been many times when I planned for a scene to go in one direction, but as I approached the destination, my characters had something else in mind. Perhaps I was taking them somewhere that wouldn’t have worked in the long run.
A side character may decide they don’t want to be as much in the background, but want to play a larger part in the overall story instead. Maybe you planned to kill off a character but that character’s protests helped you decide, at the very last moment, they would live to see another chapter.
This is writing organically, or letting your story and characters help guide you to the end. Allowing yourself to listen to your characters and the direction they want you to take them, makes your story that much more exciting to read and to write. They will help your writing be less predictable. If you didn’t even know the direction your story would go, how could your readers?
There have been scenes in my stories, that I’ve discussed with my husband, where he wasn’t so sure I should include them. It’s not that they were bad scenes, he just didn’t know how I would tie them in. Sitting down at my computer, I looked at the words and scenes, and thought about them. Ultimately, my main character would push me toward keeping them in, and I would have to listen. Sorry hubby!
I’ve had main characters who were dancing around a budding relationship. Their best friend (a side character), who didn’t want to be left out of the dating game, would decide for me that they too should have the prospect of a man. Why not?
Let the story play out how it will. Allow your characters the freedom to change the direction you had thought your story would go. Who knows? They may have a better idea you just haven’t thought of yet.
Have you ever had your own characters take you in a different direction than you had planned? Did you listen?
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8 Comments
Rowena
Great topic and I was kind of relieved to read it because I’m not feeling quite as crazy writing letters to dead poets, asking them questions and then getting answers pop in my head out of nowhere, which may or may not be the answer to the question I’d asked. These letters are mostly non-fiction and include a fair bit of memoir but the whole thing is deliberately organic.
The other thing I’ve found is that putting these poets together in alphabetical order has been quite interesting. There is the common thread that they’re all poets and ones I’ve related to, but there’ve been taken across 35 years and my interests have changed. I’ve gone more from the English romantics and some real dark angst poets to Asian poets and Kahlil Gibran, Rumi. So the switch between poets can be quite choppy and unpredictable. I didn’t put out a list beforehand either to keep the suspense. Some of the poets have committed suicide and John Lennon was shot so alot of intensity to deal with and quite a few ethical issues too. My head has been very full. Thanks again xx Rowena
JHWinter
You are really having to listen to your characters/subjects for this A to Z Challenge! It would be amazing to read the letters they could write back to you with answers to your questions, wouldn’t it? I always thought you had a wonderful idea for the challenge. Keep up the great work!
Katy Walker
I am definitely a panster so far. But, now that I am rewriting parts for a 3rd time, maybe I need to give my characters a little bit of direction. They are CRAZY.
JHWinter
That can definitely be the case sometimes. I’m somewhere in the middle (leaning more toward being a Pantser though). I like to have notes written up about some of the characters, potential scenes, the possible climax of the story, etc. This gives me a general direction, but also allows things to be fluid enough to change them if I need to.
Patricia Lynne
My characters do this to me all the time. It’s why I can’t plot. That and because the time I did plot a story, I lost the will to write it because I knew what would happen so where was the fun?
~Ninja Minion Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
Story Dam
Patricia Lynne, Indie Author
JHWinter
I just write down ideas/concepts for a story before I start. I don’t have anything set in stone though and it makes for a book that is much more fun to write, because I don’t even know where it will take me. It always ends with something very interesting though 😉
Crackerberries
This is so true about our characters… we have a plan and they somehow take over the plan we have set and go in their own direction. Great post for today’s L Challenge. It’s always when we don’t listen to our character that things go wrong… thank you for sharing this today, it will help me where I’m stumbled on my own L Challenge. Cheers!
JHWinter
Thank you for stopping by! Our characters are pretty intuitive when it comes to how the story should go. It’s best we listen 😉