the soul of a character

After I questioned every scene in my outline, it grew from three pages to twelve. Snippets were written and added, and by this morning I had sixty pages.

*sigh*

 Now, to question the characters.

The process is akin to what I did to the scenes. Who’s the protagonist? What do they want? What do they hope for? What do they fear?

I’ve asked the questions for every book since I learned about them in a workshop, and they now feel like an ice breaker (one day, I fear I will slip at a Christmas party and run them past the people around me). The questions help entrench me in that character’s life, allowing me to see past the surface to the soul beneath.

And draw it out.

If the character’s defining trait is that they’re compassionate, can I write a scene where they’re the opposite? If they’re afraid of the dark, is there a place in the story where I can make them go into it? If they want to protect their loved ones, how far will they go? Dying for them is easy; would they be willing to kill? What will they do about the love of their life, who serves evil?

Some of the answers come easily because I’ve gone through them before in book one. At other times they take longer because the characters have changed. In book one they thought they could save the world. In book two, they’re simply slowing down the inevitable. Don’t get me started on book three (the room mate did, and then she couldn’t get to sleep for hours).

The questions excite me, though. I thought I knew the characters before; now, they surprise me. These are intrigueing people who keep fighting and loving. I look forward to spending six hundred pages with them.

Written by Luisa Prieto

Dark fantasy writer by day, dark fantasy writer by night. I'm charmingly dull that way ;)
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