{"id":2868,"date":"2013-06-05T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2013-06-05T10:00:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T14:00:46","slug":"q-do-your-characters-ever-surprise-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/birthmarked\/q-do-your-characters-ever-surprise-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: Do Your Characters Ever Surprise You?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"CharacterSurprise\"

Shadows in the Attic<\/p><\/div>\n

A: \u00a0Yes.\u00a0 Regularly.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t simply that they make choices I didn\u2019t see coming or say surprising things.\u00a0 There\u2019s this play between what I consciously expect them to do when faced with a problem and what spontaneously happens once they\u2019re in a scene.\u00a0 Sometimes they do what I expect, but their reasoning for it is more complicated than I thought.\u00a0 Sometimes they say what I expect, but it turns out to be a lie.<\/p>\n

What I especially like is the way characters keep evolving through different drafts.\u00a0 The layers help me better understand their motivations, and how they\u2019ll feel in response to a comment from another character so I can convey that emotion.<\/p>\n

For instance, I have a guy character who seems well adjusted and easy going.\u00a0 He\u2019s smart, modest, and from an intact, wealthy family.\u00a0 I think of him as classy and deeply good, which presents a special challenge.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to generate a lot of interest for a guy who is good.\u00a0 If he\u2019s predictable as well, he risks coming off as boring.<\/p>\n

A bad guy who\u2019s complex and conflicted can\u2019t really hide that he has problems. \u00a0Such a character is easier to write about, in a way, even if he\u2019d be awful to live with, so it has been tempting to play around with making my good guy character secretly troubled.\u00a0 This morning, in a pivotal scene in Project Next, he let drop a comment about his righteous older sister, and all the sudden, I had a completely new glimpse into why he is the way he is, and the costs for that.\u00a0 Do I have him all figured out now?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Will this completely change the entire novel?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 But this new angle of him changes how I see him and every interaction he has, and it is certain to shape how I revise from this point onward.<\/p>\n

It helps to remember that characters are entitled to true personalities, and human personalities are a combination of the ways we change and don\u2019t change over time.\u00a0 In real life, we can be surprised by people we know, but deep down, we know if they do something out of character.\u00a0 When a friend unexpectedly takes up dancing at age thirty, or decides to divorce her husband of forty years, it\u2019s natural for us to wonder how well we knew her before and adjust our views.\u00a0 When book characters make big choices, they reveal their true personalities, and this liberates us to vicariously make choices, too.\u00a0 Those are the surprises I appreciate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A: \u00a0Yes.\u00a0 Regularly.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t simply that they make choices I didn\u2019t see coming or say surprising things.\u00a0 There\u2019s this play between what I consciously expect them to do when faced with a problem and what spontaneously happens once they\u2019re in a scene.\u00a0 Sometimes they do what I expect, but their reasoning for it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[246,326,37],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked","tag-project-next","tag-revising","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2875,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}