Protagonist Problems

They make us laugh. They make us cry. They infuriate us. They electrify us. Torture us. And give us a greater meaning for what being truly alive is like. Characters are the ultimate example of using a lie to tell a greater truth.

Nevertheless, characters are some of the most ill-behaved, inconsistent, and incomprehensible forces in fiction. Am I the only one who struggles with actually loving her characters? I envy the authors who can create these full, conflicted, yet beautiful creatures without much trouble. I force them to be less ambiguous. I push them to say (or not say) what they feel. And they'll start out great - in theory. After the first few chapters, however, the inciting incidents of the novel no longer carry sufficient intrigue to uphold these skeletons.

Yet I feel like I try harder than I should. I try to "flesh out" this epic cast, but instead of using better words to personify them, I end up using more words, which is totally counter-intuitive and looks like endless narrative on the page. Then I try to balance it out and make up for the narrative, and for the next two days I'll write nothing but dialogue with the occasional beat.

Where is the well where lucky authors dipped their hands and pulled out the makings of a Jo March, a Sherlock, an Anne Shirley, a Gollum? These are the characters that we would brave any story for. The characters with which we would sail oceans, climb mountains, and stay up until three a.m. to discover the next steps of their saga.

My characters are on the verge of mutiny. But I may just send them to the locker first.