Character development

Character development is something I don't generally give a lot of thought to. I let my characters tell me who they are so I don't need to put a lot of thought into who they are and how they are going to develop throughout the story. But character development is something that happens whether we think about it or just let it happen. 

When we sit down to write a manuscript we may already know who our characters are or we may be starting with a stranger, figuring out who they are as we go. I am one of the writers that starts out with strangers. They aren't old friends whose story I am telling because it is one I know well thanks to hours of planning and research. They are people I have never met until I sit down to write those first words. 

By the end of my manuscripts they are old friends whose inner thoughts, likes, dislikes, and mannerisms I know as well as I know my own. But they had to develop throughout the manuscript. In manuscripts, like real life, that happens through daily life, through trials and sorrows, through joys, through people that enter into our lives for a lifetime or a moment. Those are the things that make us who we are.

A hero that watched his little sister drown when he was five and was powerless to save her might have a fear of water and a strong protective instinct where women and children are concerned. A heroine that grew up in foster care might have a fear of love and shy away from long term relationships. 

A person with a deep faith may avoid relationships with people that don't share that faith. Someone that doesn't believe in God may stay far away from those that do. A hero with a serious handicap may see himself as having nothing to offer in a relationship and avoid emotional entanglements. A woman that has been in an abusive relationship may have a hard time opening up to the hero. 

And the list goes on. Our characters are developed based on their life events. As are our own lives. We face those days and trials and developments as they come and our characters, both real and fictional, develop along with them. 

Some of those things are easy to remember. A left handed character isn't going to use his or her right hand to write a letter. Someone with a fear of water isn't going to be a competitive swimmer. They might live by a lake or the ocean but they aren't going to be going in it. I know someone in real life that will go to a water park and not get so much as the tip of her toes wet. She cannot swim and had a scary experience at a water park once so now stays out of the water. 

That is how character development happens in real life. It is also an example of how far fear can carry us in our development. 

I eat health food. It is so much a part of me I could not walk into a fast food restaurant and order a meal with the intention of eating it if I wanted to. I am cautious when I shop. I read ingredient lists faithfully.
There are many ingredients I avoid like one would avoid a starving lion intent on eating the first thing that crosses it's path. That is an example of how too much knowledge and caution can effect our personalities and who we are. 

Would I like to be able to walk into any grocery store, pick groceries based on price and taste, and think nothing about what is in them? Yes. Very much so. But I simply can't. How does that work when you pair someone like that with someone that eats anything?

It gives plenty of opportunity for conflict if both aren't real careful. Or maybe...if a heroine had that trait she could be paired with someone that only eats in restaurants. Or grocery shops at convenience stores. You get the idea.

It's all about character development. And a bit of conflict. It makes people both real and fictional who they are. And sometimes it's very hard to work into a story. Because every so often we create a character who we like just the way they are.

How do you develop your characters?

He calls me His

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Hebrews 11:16

Writing a manuscript sometimes becomes a balancing line between what we want to write and what we're allowed to write. Between what we feel will make a good story and what we know the industry requires or won't allow.

For me...I let the words flow as they come. Every so often I write something that I question whether it will be allowed if that manuscript makes it into print. I have one manuscript that has my hero and heroine sharing a hotel room with a single bed. And they aren't married. I have doubts if an agent or publisher would allow me to leave that in. 

I didn't plan to put that in there but my manuscript, as with real life, had things going on that landed them at a hotel in the middle of the night where only a single room was available. What are the characters to do? He is injured and unable to drive and she's too tired to keep driving. Life happens. Even in fiction.

In this case that put them in a situation where they have to share a room with one bed or keep driving. They took the room.

But I don't know that that scene will be allowed by industry standards. I may need to rewrite it if that manuscript ever gets accepted by an agent. For now I am leaving it because it worked well with the story. And I have read numerous other books where the hero and heroine spent the night alone together without marriage. 

All that to say there are many times in writing that I, as an author, straddle the fence. Are my characters growing too close too fast? I don't like conflict between my hero and heroine- but it is required by the industry- so my conflict often gets solved, or close to it, too early in the story. Then there is the issue of my characters faith. Are they showing enough of it? Is it deep enough? Can my readers grow in their own faith based off something in my characters faith? Do I have enough Bible verses in it? Too many? Are my characters showing dependence on the Lord as they face the many trials I send their way? Can you tell by their actions and lives that they are followers of the one true Lord?

Our Lord is never ashamed to call His people His. He gladly calls us His children. If we belong to Him. There is a whole lot of security in that. It is what I cling to when I need to know I'm not alone. When life becomes more than I can bear instead of panicking I turn to the only One that can make a difference. To the One that can change the outcome if He so desires. And I place everything in His hands. Because I am His child.

And He calls me His.

But do my characters show that? Will my readers see it in their lives? Will my manuscripts give hope and edification to those that read them? 

My ability to write is nothing short of a gift from God. If I fail to use that gift in a way that glorifies my Lord than I am not using my gift to the best of my ability. 

And so...I straddle the fence. I try to write to please my Lord while still staying within industry standards. Do I accomplish both? I do not know. I can only pray that with every word I write I am pleasing my Lord and that He knows I am trying to write in a way that brings glory to Him. 

Real life or fiction?

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16:11 ESV

 

 

Rules.

Before I became a writer I never imagined all the rules involved in writing a manuscript. There are rules, or standards, for the type of font used, for the size of the words, for what you can and can’t write. And then there are rules that aren’t really rules but more like guidelines.

One of those guidelines says that I should never write about my own life. That real life doesn’t make good stories no matter how much you might think they do. As a writer I have taken that rule to heart. I do not write about my life. There are some things I encounter in real life that have turned up in my stories. A little girl in one of my books is based off my cousins daughter, a couple in my second manuscript married in the same way my great grandparents did. But that is as far as I’ve gone. Just little things. Small details that don’t delve too deeply into real life.

Recently someone close to me told me that events that have happened in my life lately would make a good book. That it has all the elements needed to create a good story.

And they are right.

My life lately would make a good book. It has all the basic elements to make the plot intriguing and to keep the reader interested to the last page. If I picked up a book about the events in my life lately I would want to keep reading to the end just to find out how it all turns out.

But it is my life. And the ‘rules’ say that real life does not make a good book. Maybe it would if someone else wrote it but it apparently will not if I write it.

Which is a shame because I can almost see how it would unfold in story form.

But there are those ‘rules’ that mean I should stay far away from writing anything that remotely looks like my real life. Because real life does not make good fiction.

Or does it?

Have you ever written a story based on real life? Yours or someone else’s? How did it turn out? Was it published?

The intersection

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

I write because I can't not write. I didn't choose this. I didn't ask for it. For as long as I can remember I have enjoyed writing but it wasn't until my teen years that I started trying my hand at writing fiction. When I was sixteen I attempted to write a manuscript. By hand. In a spiral bound notebook. 

I don't remember how far into it I got, probably no more than a chapter, but even then writing was just in me. As the years passed I focused my writing on letters to friends and family and journals. It was enough. Until that fateful day when I gave in to my daughters pleas to 'write a book.' And the rest as they say...is history.

For me it was historical fiction. But it wasn't something I chose. I just fell into it and discovered I not only enjoy it but the words and stories just come without much work on my part. A bit of concentration, a lot of time, plenty of prayers and...a story comes to life before my eyes. People that didn't exist before become real. I learn their likes and dislikes, their fears and hopes.

But I did not choose this.

It is a gift from the Lord that I will use as long as He continues to let me use it. For some reason it is part of the plan He had for my life.

Much the way my faith in Him was. I did not choose that either. I grew up in a Christian home. My grandmother is the daughter of a preacher. I can't remember a time when I didn't know about Christ. Even in the times when I wasn't close to Him, wasn't following Him, He still knew me, still had plans for me. And He never left me. He kept using circumstances in my life to get me to where He wanted me.

Everyone knows writers have great imaginations. We have to have. All these made up stories could never come to life for us if we didn't. But never in my wildest imaginings could I have imagined the places He would take me. The gift He would give me. For that is what my faith in Him is. A gift. Something I could never have achieved on my own. It was given to me. And He used all those things in my life to bring me to that day a little over a year ago to when I typed those first lines in my first manuscript. But that isn't all He did. He planned my life in such a way as to give me things I would never have known to ask for.

My life is like a long road, taking me on a journey I do not know the destination of. Or it is a like a book that does not have anything written on the back cover. There is no jacket blurb, no synopsis, no introduction. Only a blank cover with pages inside. I can read the words describing where I have been but I cannot make out the pages that are yet to come. The ink is blurred. And yet...my Lord knows what those words mean. He knows what they will say.

For He knows what is to come before it comes. He planned the intersection in the road I am journeying on that brought you, dear reader, and I together today. He had a reason for me to write this post and for you to read it.

You may have planned to visit my blog today or you may have stumbled on it by 'accident.' It doesn't matter. The Lord knew you and I needed this moment to come together for a reason only He can see. And He planned things so they would happen just this way.

We may never be able to understand why He does the things He does but we can know that He has a plan for everything. As I sit writing this I am more than a month past the date at which I was supposed to hear from an agent that is considering one of my manuscripts. It has been in her hands for many months and I was told I would hear something in September. Here we are at the end of October and I haven't heard anything.

Once I might have been concerned or worried. I might have struggled with whether or not to contact her. To ask, or beg, for her decision. But I have relinquished my manuscript to this agent just as I have given this gift of writing to the Lord. If it is meant to be it will happen. And if it isn't...

I greatly enjoy what I am doing now. Writing stories and blog posts is fun and encouraging for me, as I pray that the things I write are encouraging for my readers. Thank you, dear reader, for giving me an audience to write to. For taking time out of your busy day to read what I have to say.

The outlaw hideout

"It's a cave." I pointed to the opening in the downed tree that was just the right size for young children to crawl through. What seemed so obvious to me was escaping the notice of the two young boys at my side.

A tree that did not survive the wrath of the recent tornado had fallen in such a way that it looked like a child’s paradise to me. I could picture little boy forts and secret gardens for little girls. Somewhere that they could pass hours of happy imaginative play. The little boy with me started forward, encountered twigs with leaves intact and backed up.

“I don’t want to go in there.” Said the little boy now standing at my side, his nose wrinkled, a hatchet clutched in his hand.

“Why not?” My mind was still seeing all the fun to be had in that cave-like opening. I couldn’t fathom them not wanting to play in there.

“Because it’s messy.” The tone of his voice seemed to question whether or not I was seeing the same thing he was. “Look at all those sticks on the ground.”

Now I was questioning who was seeing what. Aren’t kids supposed to embrace this sort of adventure?

Not this one.

No problem. Writers have good imaginations. And it just so happens I write historical fiction. I had plenty of imagination of my own. If the two boys couldn’t see the fun waiting for them I could help them.

“It’s an outlaw hideout.” I pointed out the thick leaves at the back of the ‘cave.’ Showed them the ‘room’ inside the opening. “It’s just a little dirty. All outlaws have to clean their hideouts. When we get it cleaned up it’ll be nice.”

I borrowed the hatchet from the four year old and started cutting off small limbs and twigs, tossing them aside. After a few minutes the two boys joined in, breaking off small twigs, throwing sticks out of the ‘cave.’

We were happily cleaning ‘house’, the boys doing their best from inside the ‘cave’, me sitting on the downed tree chopping off as many twigs as I could hack through with the hatchet. A nice pile of debris was piled up outside our ‘hideout’ when my husband came looking for us.

Busted.

I was caught playing outlaws in the woods with the boys.

But it was a good thing he came along because he thought of something I never would have. All those rejected twigs and branches coated in leaves…were needed for cover over the ‘cave.’

Within minutes the girls discovered what we were doing. Finally the reaction I had expected from the boys. Their faces lit up and they took over the cleaning of the ‘hideout.’ I was happy…someone saw the fun in what I had noticed several days ago when I first spotted the tree.

The boys were tired of working on the ‘hideout’ so we left the girls to it. The boys were more interested in burning leaves and sticks in the yard than in making a hideout. Not so the girls. They happily worked on the hideout, hauling the wheel barrow and other needed supplies to their new ‘hideout.’

Tomorrow I may have to go play outlaws with the girls and leave the boys to do whatever it is that little boys like better than what I could easily see in that downed tree.

And who knows?

That ‘outlaw hideout’ may just be the place where my next story idea comes from.

 

 

The offering

His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider’s web.

Job 8:14

 

“Look it.” A small voice sweetly proclaimed as the young boy stood at my knee.

Without thinking I reached out to take his offering expecting to be handed a flower or a rock. At the very least I expected something friendly.

That wasn’t the case.

Just before the surprise in the boys hand switched from his fingers to my palm I got a good look at what he was trying to give me.

And jerked my hand away.

For there clutched in his little fingers was…

A spider.

It’s gray legs were twitching in the air, it’s oval shaped red body wiggling as much as the boys grip would allow. It was ugly. It was the stuff that causes chills to run up my spine. And it was almost in my hand.

Now I know that the spider in question wouldn’t bite or otherwise hurt me. Daddy long legs are harmless. But someone forget to tell my natural instincts that when one is almost handed to me. I did what anyone would have.

I recoiled.

And told that sweet boy to take his offering back outside.

That is what most people would do. Right? Not that I thought through my reaction. It just happened. One of those moments where reaction overrules all other thought. Before I had time to think about daddy long legs I yanked my hand away as my brain processed that it was a fat body with wiggly legs.

And…

I would do it again.

Because one thing I do not want in my hand is a spider. There is no such thing as a friendly arachnid. Or in this case a harvester- yes, I do know that daddy long legs aren’t really spiders. But there’s that saying that if it walks like a duck and it acts like a duck…

In this case it may as well be a spider.

And I don’t want those twitching legs on my skin. Even when I feel bad refusing the innocent offering of a very small child trying to share something he found fascinating. That’s something I can’t share his joy in.

And now…

I’m very careful when I hear the words ‘look it’.

God's mighty power.

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

 

 

The pen is powerful. Or in this case the word document in my computer is powerful. If you’ve been following my blog posts you’ll know that my last post was about the power of books we read and the responsibility that that puts on writers. Whether or not an author ever stops to consider how their manuscript affects their readers or not, the responsibility is still there. We may never think about it, never acknowledge it but…

It’s.

Still.

There.

Power is a mighty thing. How much power is there in things we never stop to think about? How much power is in the blowing of the wind? In the turning of the earth? In the crashing of waves against a beach? More than our human minds can ever fathom.

I have spent many hours walking the beaches on both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. I have waded in the waves, swam in the salt water, relished the peace found in just digging my toes into the sand and looking out over the water. There is power in the waves that tumble one after another onto the sandy shore. And they never stop. They just keep coming. Some are bigger than others, some are foamy and white capped, others more gentle but they are all powerful in a way that no person will ever harness.

I am right now sitting on the outskirts of a town that was hit by a tornado last week. If I step outside the front door I can clearly see the damage left in the aftermath. A few miles down the road I can see it even more plainly.

I was not here when the tornado hit but I was here a couple of days before and almost a week after. In my mind I can clearly see the before and after of how the tornado effected the landscape and the houses.

The destruction shows the work of a mighty powerful hand. Sixty plus foot trees are snapped in half or flipped on their sides, completely uprooted as if they were nothing more than toothpicks snapped in the hands of a man.

What kind of force is needed to snap a tree in half like that? What kind of force does it take to toss a huge tree on its side and keep the roots intact?

In my manuscripts I have written of tornados several times. I have ‘set’ in a cabin as a tornado blew through the town where my characters were. I have taken my story through the aftermath of one, had my hero help in the cleanup and rebuilding. My heroine has comforted orphaned children that were traumatized and needed care when the storm passed.

But until yesterday I had never before seen the aftermath of a tornado up close. Several years ago a tornado hit my town. It damaged buildings but did not leave significant damage in its wake. It lifted roofs off houses and set them back in place again. When it was over there was very little evidence left that a tornado had ever passed that way.

It was nothing like what I have seen in the last twenty four hours.

And the tornados I have written did not come close to capturing what I have now seen with my own eyes. The shock and emotions that swept through me as I looked on a forest that just a week ago held tall trees that filled me with peace and made me marvel at the wonders of my Creator.

I now look at broken trees and uprooted trees that make me marvel at the power in my Creator. This tornado swept through woods and town. It destroyed. It demolished. And yet there were no fatalities. The Lord kept his hand on this place as that storm was blowing through.

I am like one of those trees in the midst of that storm. Tossed here and there. Bent and swayed by the trials and stresses of life. And yet…He keeps His hand on me. He draws me near when I feel like I can take no more. He’s there to comfort and shelter me when life is more than I can bear. And when the storms of life pass He shows me what He brought me through as I look back on the trial I thought I couldn’t handle.

And I marvel at the power of my Creator, my Savior. My Lord has tornados to oversee, people to protect, an entire world to take care of. And still He cares about me. He holds my hand when I walk through trials. He cradles me in his arms when I have no strength to stand on my own. He is there when I am close and He is there when I let space get between us.

God is the greatest writer there ever was. And I am grateful that He is writing the story of my life.

 

In the begining...

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1

 

In the beginning…

As a child of Christ I know what those words mean. As a Christian I know where they came from. If I hear them spoken in town or from someone that’s passing through my life I automatically think of…

Genesis.

Creation.

God.

All of life on earth, even earth itself, started…In the beginning. Before there was anything. Our Lord took nothing and formed this intricate planet and all of the heavens that surround it. Because it was His will there was Earth and life. Something so complicated we can’t even fathom how to make one tiny speck of it and He made it from nothing.

Amazing.

Miraculous.

Wonderful.

Humbling.

When I look at a tree, something so normal, so everyday ordinary that it barely gets noticed, I have to stop and marvel at the power of the hand that formed it. What would it take to create something even a speck as intricate as a tree?

As an author I start with nothing. A blank white slate on my computer screen. A white page that holds nothing when I start and days, weeks, or months later it holds the story of imaginary people.  But I do not start with…In the beginning. I start with…Once upon a time. Only I never use those four little words. I create a made up world, with made up people that make others say “That was good. Can I read more?”

And yet nothing I will ever write will ever come close to the miracles that were done…In the beginning.

Do we as authors ever stop to think about the power we hold in our fingertips? Do we consider the impact we may have on another’s life? Some of my most favorite books of all time were the ones that managed to make me laugh and cry all in the same book?

Why?

Because they touched my human emotions. In those books, in the stories of those made up people that someone else wrote I was touched on an emotional level. I laughed. I cried. I bonded with those characters. I was able to ‘see’ their lives, to feel their feelings. To experience their happiness, suffer their pain.

I have read books that brought out my own hurts, read some that healed wounds. The power that a book holds over us goes far beyond the handful of hours we spend reading it. And the power our stories hold over others goes just as far.

If a story I write touches just one person’s life it has the potential to be life changing for them. That is a huge responsibility. I do not plan my stories. I just sit down and start writing with a single thought, character, place, event, opening line, or whatever it is that gets me started on a particular manuscript. The stories just flow. They have a life of their own and I write them because they are there and need to be put into words.

But…

Words are powerful.

They have the potential to touch people, to change lives, to heal…

To harm.

It’s possible that something I write could bring someone to Christ. Or it could make them stumble. That is a huge responsibility. One I never considered when I started my writing journey. It didn’t occur to me that I might one day have that kind of influence on someone.

Now that it has…Wow! What a huge thing to consider when I sit before my computer typing words as fast as my mind can form them and giving life to people and places that only I can ever see. Books are great. I own hundreds of them. Everything from children’s picture books to multiple copies of the Bible.

But as a writer do I remember to weigh my words carefully as I give my stories life? That is a question I will be pondering further with every manuscript I write.

How have books influenced your life? Was there a particular book that touched you deeply? Why? What made that book so special for you that it impacted your life?