A to Z Challenge 2013

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Character Dilemna

I have a WIP called "A Moment To Breathe", and one of the main characters is a rather evil politician. The problem I am encountering is that I don't think I can actually take this gentleman down the path I was intending, because its just not realistic. What I had intentionally meant for him to do would not be plausible for my readers, even in the realm of fiction. In fact, I'm going to have to completely recreate who he is and what he will do. A politician isn't going to work here, so I have to change him to be something different.

One thing I have always enjoyed with my favorite authors is their ability to make things just realistic enough so that it makes me sit back and say, "Wow, I can imagine that happening". The story is still fictional, but there's enough reality thrown in to keep it within reach. So where do I go from here? I am already 40K words into this book, and I had not intended to do any editing until I at least finished the first draft.

I am fairly certain I can still use this character, though I'll have to change a great deal of background information on him as well as actions he's taken so far. Do I do that now? Or do I just omit adding anything more about him for now and edit later? Since this is my first time crafting something like this, I'm just not sure. If anyone has any thoughts, feel free to let me know.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well conside yourself lucky to have this figured out while writing! I would suggest checking him out and seeing what you can for him now rather than wait. This way as you write from here on you know what his "new" intentions are and that they will fit for what you desire. It's strange how characters take on a mind of their own--but I love it!

Anonymous said...

Hah! As you can see I don't type hard enough on certain letters! "consideR!"

Michelle H. said...

Iffy. I understand you want to wait until the end to do revisions, especially if you feel you might lose the flow of the story if you start and stop and start again. But I personally would change what needs changed now, simply because I might find new interesting avenues for future chapters that I never considered.