I was working with a character I hadn't touched in about two weeks, and I discovered that I had completely lost the feel of her. There was something completely undefinable that was missing.
I could explain her, obviously. I could list her physical features and her emotional tendencies and her personal history. But all those things didn't amount to a character. She had become - the horror! the horror! - a collection of quirks, exactly as I had criticized in the characters in Heroes and Lorna Doone. Such amalgamations result, at least in cinema, in this sort a thing:
Do creations go wrong because they receive insufficient attention and love from their creators? Mary Shelley might say so. Frankenstein is supposed to be one of those dark-side-of-art kind of novels, isn't it?
It was fascinating to realize that this could happen not though some active mistake on my part but through the simple failure to keep giving her life by writing about her. I left her alone too long, and like a plant unwatered, she died.
Anyway, since my character was insufficiently human but rather seemed to be a mere amalgamation of traits, all the dialogue I wrote felt like it belonged in the sequel to the Fantastic Four movie. I can think of no greater way to describe its deficiencies.
It was fascinating to realize that this could happen not though some active mistake on my part but through the simple failure to keep giving her life by writing about her. I left her alone too long, and like a plant unwatered, she died.
I feel fairly confident that I can resurrect her - that decrepit house plant you forgot about while on vacation is rarely actually dead - but it's going to take some time and reinvestment of energy, and it took me months to get her "living" and "rounded" the first time around.
It's made me realize that I need to be spending at least a little time with the novel every day, lest something like this happen to its other hapless denizens! Consider this reason #692 that writing is never just a hobby. Hobbies don't require daily attention.
I think it is very wise to spend a little time each day with your characters... even if ponderings never make far onto the page. Perhaps envision a conversation with them. "Say, [insert character's name here], how was your day today?" I know it sounds like utter corn mush, but it makes them more real in a way.
ReplyDeleteGive her time and plenty of water. She'll grow! Don't be afraid to pull her out of the box at the back of your imagination, dust her off and let her walk to some place new on her own. What I've found is that a character that is grown stale is revived when I apply something totally new to it... an idea that at first seems outrageous and far-fetched, but makes them unique.
I experience character metamorphosis every so once in a while. I think I told you about the title character of my novel and how he doesn't seem to be "there" a lot of the time... because I am focusing my attention on other characters these days. But I know that redirecting my thoughts about him has helped already.
Go anywhere! Envision anything! And the character will be brought back to new life - more exciting than she was to begin with! Just wait!