The Character is Always Right...Ugh!

When I first heard Kim Woodhouse say that good authors talk with their characters, I thought she was crazy. Characters aren't real people, right? Wrong!

Ok, so they're not really real. But my characters are alive in my imagination. Remember when you were a little kid and playing house? Maybe you were always mom, Joe was dad, Bob was the little son...but who was the nosy neighbor? Your imaginary friend Susie, of course! It's the same idea with book characters.

For the first eight years of my childhood, I was an only child. Whenever I got lonely, I would play with an army of made-up people. Even after I got siblings, I kept contact with my pretend friends. Those habits stayed with me, only now they are much more than friends.

In the teen novel I am working on right now, there are two main characters. One is Nillah Clark, an average American teenager. The other is Leila Nejem, a Palestinian refugee. After writing ten chapters, these two girls are almost as real to me as my real friends. So real, that they argue with me.

Nillah is actually pretty well behaved. She mostly does what I tell her to do. It's her personality that we disagree on. I want her to be a model Christian: respectful, obedient, close to God, and very selfless. But Nillah has decided she is actually the opposite! She keeps astounding me with how selfish and naughty she is. But, at least she follows my plot.

Leila, on the other hand, frustrates me to no end. Originally, she wasn't supposed to be a main character. She wasn't supposed to be a Christian. She wasn't supposed to be pretty. But, of course, after hours of stalling and arguing, I had to agree she was right. I also had to agree she was right when she decided to turn my plot upside down and not get kidnapped. So much for advance planning.

So what did I learn from days and weeks of fighting with my characters? The same thing many men advise each other about their wives. She is always right. Even when she's wrong, she's right. But what do I care about being wrong? As long as the story is good, I'm happy!

Guest Post!

 One of the most helpful people to have on your writing team is what I like to call a "writing buddy". A writing buddy is, essentially, someone who is close to your age and experience and who you can swap ideas, critiques, and pointers with. The extra help and encouragement you get from each other is extremely helpful!

So, without further ado, meet my writing buddy, Danielle. I met her at a Christian writer's conference and have been emailing back and forth ever since. Here is lovely sample of what she can do, both with words and a camera. Enjoy!

Childlike

When do children stop being children? When they become tweens? Teens? Adults? When do they stop being childish—or more importantly, child-like?

I’m not sure. I do know that when I was a child, I was fascinated by all kinds of things. Grasshoppers, sand castles, cacti, silly string, glass Gerber baby food jars. Trees—oh yes, the lovely leafy portals to the sky. Quartz rocks and ant lions. Almost anything—life itself?

Technically, legally, I’m an adult now. Somehow between child and adult, I neglected that fascination, funneling it into a few specific areas and forgetting to use it everywhere else. Why? I’m not sure. Efficiency, probably—why “waste” time marveling at the crisp feel of pencil lead skating across scrap paper when I had math to master? Chores, homework, TV shows, videogames: so much to do, so little time. I could obsess, perhaps, or grow through fads, but as I became bigger, my awe at overall existence… it shrank.

God kept it with me, though: He gave me a cheap camera. Well, I say He gave me; I mean, my parents did, but certainly God used it. Maybe it was His idea in the first place and my parents caught on later. Anyways—a cheap camera with macro and panorama settings. I learned that to use it well, I couldn’t just point and shoot. I had to see what I was looking at. I had to think. I had to take in what was around me. So I learned: I saw jetstreams in the sunsets, buildings in the city skylines, and closer still, the pattern of light and shadow, the texture in the page of a book or a brick wall or even a housecat. When I carried a camera, even if I didn’t plan to use it, I began to see photos, and with them: beauty. It was fascinating.

Still learning, I am. Learning to delight in these moments, in the detail and grand scale, the sights and sounds and sensations. Learning to look around with the alacrity of a tourist and the appreciation of an artist—even on grocery runs, even on school days. I’m learning to take Father God’s hand and, childlike, chortling with joy, tug Him over:

“Look, God!” I’ll point out the finely-flowered, full-leaved lilac bush nearby, bursting with color, grinning ear to ear. “Look what You made! It’s so pretty!”

Or I’ll gaze down an alley as we drive past, see lines and shapes and shadows and squeal into God’s ear about the rule of thirds, architecture, and intersecting planes.

I’ll smile into my coffee or the grains of sugar spilled on the faux-granite countertop and murmur about lighting, depth of field, texture details.

I’m learning that God hides things in the mundane—He works His creativity, his beauty, even glimpses of His glory into the people and places around us. He’s tucking little Easter eggs into the everyday, planting clues, setting out a scavenger hunt for us on our credit union runs and gas station refills, our school passing periods and employment hours. We may think ourselves wise and clever, but God shows us great and mysterious things when we are seeking Him, childlike.

Maybe the question shouldn’t be, “When do we stop being childlike?” Maybe we should ask, “How do we return to childlikeness?” Meekness and faith and simplicity and joy, and even fascination.

Commas!

Misplaced commas are one of my worst pet-peeves. They drive me crazy! For example, "Bob, drove ninety miles-per-hour around town." You actually don't need a comma at all in this sentence.

 Or "Sara, bright eyed sat down to eat the chocolate." Yikes! There needs to be a comma after "bright eyed" to make this sentence clear.

While there are many, many ways to misuse a comma that are not included in this video by TED Ed, I figured you would laugh a bunch and learn something too! Enjoy!