After my first round of revisions with my editor at Delacorte Press, she suggested I add a journal that my character Annie would be keeping over the course of the summer while her father was overseas in the Air Force. This journal, a gift from Annie's father, would add a more definite connection for the two of them, as well as a means for adding more internalization of Annie's emotions after the death of her baby sister. I agreed that the father/daughter relationship was tenuous because her father was not an active character throughout most of the story, and I had every intention of following through with this advice.
However, every time I tried to add a reference to the journal or an actual journal entry, I could not get it right. The results were stilted or seemed to interrupt the flow of the story and did not fit Annie's natural voice. It wasn't until after a number of failed attempts that I had one of those "aha" moments and realized why Annie couldn't write down her thoughts in the journal as her mother drifted deeper and deeper into depression. If she wrote those words down on paper, she was afraid that's how things would stay--her mother forever lost in the depths of depression and the entire family grieving over the loss of the baby. Life would never be normal again.
Once I realized the reason, I was able to follow my character Annie's lead and work her resistance to the journal into the plot of the story. In the end, Annie adds tangible bits and pieces of her summer to the journal like a scrapbook--a curl of a wood shaving from the cradle Grandpa was making, a sliver of shiny mica from the creek bed, a loop of green thread from the sampler she weaves, a blackberry jam thumbprint from the mess she cleans up in the kitchen, etc.--as memories to tell her father. And when he finally returns, Annie knows that Daddy will understand why she had to wait and tell him everything in person.
My advice to new writers: Get to know your characters so well that you can trust them to take over and lead the way.
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3 comments:
Edie. A great reminder that sometimes insghts/progress come from unanticipated activities and frustrations. Good advice about knowing your character, too. Thanks for sharing.
This piece makes me see how REAL the world of the character has become to you. Interesting!
Excellent advice, Edie, about letting your characters take over. There are times when I try to force my character to do something I want them to do because I think it might be funny or because I've got a plot idea rooted in my mind, but if the action is not true to the character's personality, the story won't seem believable. It can be hard to let go of your characters and trust them, but it's often the best thing to do.
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