My Characters Won't Behave

I know I'm not the only person that deals with this. I just feel like complaining... I started having trouble with a character being overly hostile. When I complained about it to my family, I was told to just make the character behave. I wish.

"Don't you control your characters?" No. No, I do not. #amwriting #NaNoWriMo

— Ashley (@DixielandOkie) November 5, 2015

Non-writers seem to be under the impression that writers control their characters. For me, it's more like I rent head-space to my characters. Except I don't actually get the benefit of collecting rent.

When I was dealing with this particular character, I had intended for her to be rude, but the intensity of her behavior was unexpected, and told me there was more to it. So I took a day and explored why she was behaving this way. What I got at the end of the day was her character arc. It was important for me to know, even if what I actually wrote gets scrapped.

This is why I don't bother getting too detailed with my outlining. Things go off on tangents too often and I would have to scrap half of my outline. It's what works for me.

Before that I had a side character decide to tag along for the whole adventure...and become the love interest. I was not planning on including any romance in this story, but he's not going away. I'm trying telling myself that it helps add to the conflict.

So...only a week into NaNoWriMo and things are spinning out of control nicely. I've come to the conclusion is that if the characters are behaving perfectly, something is wrong.

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