Strange perhaps, but true
Today was my monthly writer's club meeting. We were supposed to write something on "character" for reading out loud at the meeting. I naturally rushed to do it at the last possible moment. I decided to interview myself on the topic. It was a lot of fun, interviewing myself. This was the first time I'd tried it, and I noticed I knew all the right questions:An Interview About Character
With Linda Martin
November 18, 2002
What makes a good character for a novel?
It may be their legacy. If the character is memorable, it succeeds in a novel. However if you forget the person you read about within a week, it’s a clear sign it wasn’t well developed enough.
Do you think your characters were developed enough for this newest novel?
No, not hardly. I feel I still need to study character development and work on that part of the art before I revise the novels I’ve got rough drafts for.
How many novels now?
Three complete rough drafts and one that is unfinished - that I’m working on completely redoing now.
Of all the characters in your most recent novel, who do you think will be most memorable?
Hopefully it will be the protagonist – a young girl named Maralin. She’s a freedom fighter – she was raised to value freedom and has to deal with having her freedom taken away over and over again during the course of The Seagull Rebellion.
So this is a novel about freedom?
That’s right.
How do you keep track of your characters?
I started The Seagull Rebellion in a kind of haphazard way starting with an unfinished character summary for Maralin. During the course of the novel I felt the need for more organization because I remembered – during the writing of my first novel The Scribe of Irohila, I got very confused about my character and place names and how to spell them – so when I get around to revising that novel - I know I have a confusing mess awaiting my attention. I didn’t want that to happen this time so I started an index card file for characters for this series. I would like to write at least five more novels in the series and maybe more, and develop them and reuse characters from one novel to the next - so it is essential that I keep track of the people - and their character traits. The index cards are an easy and manageable tool for me and much cheaper than printing out character sheets with dozens of items that don’t apply for these people.
So when you started the novel, your only character that you summarized was Maralin – none of the others?
That’s right – I was in such a hurry to start – I didn’t take time at the beginning to plan everything. I had Maralin and her father in mind – and about seven chapters worth of plotting which was a list of scenes. Even that didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, since the scenes I’d planned were all used up by day two (chapter four) and from that point on I was winging it with my protagonist, Maralin, leading the way. For a long time there – I didn’t know what to expect from day to day – but Maralin was such a strong character – I just developed the story along the path of what I knew she would do in the various situations.
What will you do differently next time?
Near the end I discovered a software program available online called StoryWeaver. Next time I’ll use that to better develop the plot and characters before I begin.
Thank you for this interview.
Sure – anything for my writer’s club!
LOL
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