Unexpected Reactions

I had an early, early appointment with the fabulous Carrie Saturday morning. Afterward, I went across the street to Montague's coffee shop. They weren't officially open yet, but said I was welcome to sit until they were.

Montague's is the coffee shop I'd open if I opened a coffee shop. Almost all the chairs are big comfy wing backs. Or overstuffed couches. I picked out a nice table by the front window and set about writing my morning pages.

After they opened, I got a cup of coffee and a pastry and returned to my table. I started in on character sketches using the list of questions compiled from several different online sources. About halfway through the first one, emotions threatened to overwhelm me. The deep motivations of my protagonist hit pretty close to home. Okay, I thought. Understandable.

But what knocked me sideways was my reaction to the antagonist's character sketch. My "bad guy" was suddenly a vulnerable, damaged man instead of a purely evil cad. He still does bad things. I wouldn't want to be married to him. But his motivations and past do make a difference.

These reactions are going to significantly change the tone of the book. And it will be closer to what I wanted when I first started writing MMG all those years ago. Weird. I thought I really knew these characters before. I needed to ask myself the right questions to finally get to their true selves.

Have you ever had a reaction to your own writing (or planning for writing) that surprised you?

Odds and Ends

There was recent thread on an email loop I belong to. It went along the lines of "Our writing group needs to be able to meet online. But a lot of our membership isn't very comfortable with computers. So suggest a solution that is easy for computer illiterate types."

Excuse me? How many problems in logic can you see in those 3 lines? You have computer illiterates who want to meet online? And these are writers who aren't comfortable with technology?

I'm sorry, but in this day and age a writer must be comfortable with computers, the Interweb and all that goes with it. Fact of life. Tool of the trade. You don't have to know how to put a computer together or even how to program one, but you'd better be savvy with some kind of word processing software, email and search engines. Most agencies are moving to email queries and submissions only. How are you going to get your work out there if you can't navigate the Interweb?

And whatever happened to the past tense of so many irregular verbs? Words like "swam" and "sank" and "stank" and the like? All I see now are phrases like "The boiled cabbage stunk" and "I sunk the basketball." No, you didn't. You sank the basketball. You may have sunk many basketballs in your lifetime, but this particular one you sank.

Okay, I guess it was just odd and end. Thought I'd have more to vent about, but apparently not right now.

Carry on.

When Characters Nag

on the next Montel.

The One And Only Iron John recently posted about a character who is demanding John's attention. He wondered if it happens to everyone, how to deal with it, is he going crazy, etc. As to the last question, the answer is, "You're a writer. Of course, you're crazy."

I have to admit that I have a character trying to get my attention right now. Like John, I want to do something else first, but she doesn't care. I guess I can't blame her. I've been creating this person for five years--that's twenty-five in character years. She's all grown up and wants to go explore the world. Guess I may have to help her do that.

The character in question is Kitty from MMG. And it's not just her. Bits of narrative and description intrude when I'm in the middle of something else. Other characters pop in from time to time to let me know how they've changed in the past few months. But that's not the catalyst that's sitting me down this weekend to begin the rewrite.

No, what convinced me that it really is time to rewrite is a dream I had last night. Now I've dreamed stories and characters before, but never agents. Then Dan showed up to tell me he's waiting.

Hmmm. Thinking I shouldn't ignore that one.