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The Mother, The Writer: History repeats itself.

When I was pregnant with my first child, experienced parents approached me and my rounded belly and always smiled an empathetic smile.

One by one, they hinted at what I was in for once that baby arrived: no sleep, life as I knew it would be over, and the crying…oh the crying.

I heard them, but I didn’t heed their words, because I was riding high on the excitement of holding a baby in my arms. Sleep is underrated, I thought. Life is boring anyway, and a baby’s cry? Like the sound of sweet music.

But after my son was born, I realized the crying of which they warned me were the sobs of a new mother. Cries from me, falling apart after several sleepless days and nights and battles with feeding and a moment in the hospital when I feared I would never be a good mother.

“I told you that you’d feel this way,” my sister said, through her own tears, as she tried to comfort me.

My recent attempt at fixing my WIP brought with it a similar flood of emotion and self doubt.

I’ve read over and over how novel writing is hard work – the first draft may come out easy, but the real challenge comes in rewriting. I nodded each time I read those words, because the logistics made sense. A first draft is never perfect. I got it.

Then, I pushed those wise words aside and set my gaze on a dreamy image of me holding a published novel in hand. I told myself, I can do this rewrite thing, chapter by chapter. And, character development (my latest issue)? That’s easy enough. I’m the author. I can make up whatever I want.

But, that’s not exactly true. While I, the author, control all the variables, those variables must make sense in relation to the real world. As Larry Brooks says it in his book on character development*, a character’s “…major behavioral tendencies and specific actions need to be in context to psychological truths, and if [they aren’t] your story will suffer for it.”

After a few days of scribbling notes and typing frantic details into a new document, I stared at my WIP with wide eyes and climbed aboard that same roller coaster that new mothers ride. My head swelled and my stomach fell and soon enough I said out loud, I’m not so sure I can do this. What if I get it all wrong? What made me think I could ever write a novel?

As I write this post, it all sounds so dramatic. But, that’s the way I felt in the last few days. And, I don’t think I’m alone.

Ray Bradbury was talking to some self-doubting writer when he said, “You fail only if you stop writing.”

And, Amy Tan was easing the fears of another writer when she said, “I started a second novel seven times and had to throw them all away.”

Whether I start over completely from scratch, or I get back into the ring with my main character and wrestle her into confession, I’m not sure. Regardless, I have a WIP in my hands, a story that needs finishing, and I am the only one who can do it.

~

* Brooks, Larry. 2010. The Three Dimensions of Character Development: Going Deep and Wide to Create Compelling Heroes and Villains. [e-book] Larry Brooks, available at www.storyfix.com.

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Plot Holes and Character Development

Last Tuesday, my WIP was put to the readers’ test. Now that the dust has cleared, and the flurry of emotion settled, I see that some of the feedback I received points to key structural problems in my story: plot holes and character development.

I’m not surprised that my main character lacks depth and definition in many areas. I’m still in the early drafts (as a good writing friend reminded me). But, a recent post this week on Jason Black’s Plot to Punctuation blog (“What potholes can teach you about plot holes”) brought to my attention how underdeveloped characters negatively affect plot.

Jason Black talks about two kinds of plot holes: strange actions and strange inactions.

A “strange action” is when a character does something that makes no sense to the reader. A “strange inaction” means just the opposite: the character sits, unaffected, and doesn’t take action when the reader expects they will. The reader asks, “Why?” She might say, “What the heck?” She might even put the book down.

Those kinds of questions, Jason Black suggests, are clear signs that a story contains plot holes.

After I read Jason Black’s post, I remembered moments during my critique when readers asked why. They said they wanted to empathize with my main character but couldn’t. They said they couldn’t imagine my main character taking any action that might lead to her radical evolution suggested in my synopsis.

I couldn’t give a good answer to their questions on the spot. Later, I realized if I couldn’t explain the why’s or why not’s, I had an even more serious problem at hand: underdeveloped characters.

Of course, they haven’t read the whole manuscript, but their feedback began to make sense as I compared Jason Black’s post to Larry Brooks’s (from Storyfix.com) book on character development (The Three Dimensions of Character: Going Deep and Wide to Create Compelling Heroes and Villains).

In his book, Brooks introduces the first, second, and third dimensions of characters.

The first dimension equates to an “exterior landscape” of the character or – as Brooks puts it – the character’s “surface traits, quirks and habits.”

In my WIP, my main character has plenty of quirks and only a few surface traits, so I already had some revisions on my list. Then, I read this:

“…Newer writers [often] infuse their characters with all manner of quirks and kinks and little tics designed to make them either cool, weird or supposedly – best intentions – compelling. But if those quirks and kinks are all you offer the reader, in the hope that the reader will fill in all the blanks, then chances are you’ve created a one-dimensional character” (p. 17).

Oops. I did that. I created an odd woman as my main character but never explained why she was so odd.

The second dimension reveals the character’s “inner landscape,” the reasons why she does what she does.

“Glimpsing an inner landscape allows the reader to understand, which is the key to eliciting empathy – [and] the more [empathy] the reader feels, the more they’ll invest themselves in the reading experience” (p. 20).

That information about the second dimension suggests I need to create a slew of new scenes that will allow my main character to explain herself. Those explanations might come in the form of backstory or dialogue.

The third dimension gives real definition to the character through the character’s “decisions and behaviors” (p. 23). The reader understands the character’s core being at the beginning of the story, through the character arc, and at the end of the story when the character comes out a changed person.

As a new writer tackling my first novel, I jumped from exterior descriptions of a character to her actions and decisions. That only got me so far with the readers. Brooks makes a good point when he says, each layer – each dimension – of character works together “to create the most compelling, complex, frightening, endearing and empathetic character that you can” (p. 25).

If I neglect to write in even one of the three dimensions, the character falls flat and the plot begins to buckle.

Lesson learned. Now, I get down to business and dig deeper into my character’s psyche.

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Writing Past the Pain of Critique

It’s funny how fate plays a role in your writing sometimes.

Today,I woke up exhausted, my head thick with a fog that settled in after lack of sleep and a hangover.

Sleep deprivation was a result from spending two days home with a sick child. Prescribed certain medications, she becomes a toddler-on-the-move who’s stuck on fast forward and can’t even pause for bedtime. At 10:30 last night, her feet kicked up and out and down on the bed and her hands clapped and she whispered stories non stop.

The hangover came after a night of novel workshop with me and mine in the hot seat. Though the critique process worked well – the author sits quiet and listens while the readers discuss – the feedback weighed heavy against my chest when I finally fell asleep.

I’m a newbie, and I imagine first critiques always cut deep. So, I’m following Becky Levine’s advice, from her book, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide:

Most of our bad feelings don’t come from the words written on our manuscripts…or from the person who writes them. Instead they come from within ourselves. They reflect our own doubts about ourselves as writers – as skilled, creative craftspeople.

Be ready for [those feelings] to come, and, when they do, recognize and acknowledge them. Then, get to work (p. 242).

I decided to pushthose critiques to the side for the day and to tackle Wednesday’s Word.

And, funny enough, the word that rolled out from Wordsmith.org this morning was bayonet — a call to arms, an insistence to fight, a subtle reminder that this is where the rubber meets the road, missy.

Critique or no critique, get writing.

So, here goes. Read at your own risk. And, if you’re feeling feisty, put a link to your version of how the word-of-the-day’s call to action translates into your writing. Camaraderie is always a good thing.

*****

They were back, the whole lot of them.

Phi Delts, from the frat house down the block, stormed into the bar as soon as she unlocked the door that morning. They slurred on and on about another 24 hour party, chanting rugby cheers and demanding multiple rounds of Bloody Marys.

She stood behind the counter and emptied bottles into glasses like she worked on an assembly line.

They harassed her and called her a hard ass when she tried to measure the vodka and told her to “lighten up.”

The one with the U of M baseball cap and stubble leaned over the bar, grabbed her hand, kissed it, and then begged for “three more of those plump…green…olives.” She jerked her hand away.

She picked up a cocktail sword and stabbed three times into the dish with the habanero stuffed olives. She held them up close to his face and smiled.

“Here you go, Mr. Rugby.” Then, she excused herself and walked calmly to the restroom.

She barely heard him over the noise of the hand dryer as he coughed and sneezed and pleaded for water.

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