Characters Tell the Story

My boss recently told me how impressed he was with my fiction writing. It made me nervous. I write romance novels! I don’t need my boss reading that!

Then I remembered that, although I am writing these novels about these characters, they are not me. It’s like being an actor. Jim Carrey is not a pet detective, Christian Bale, as much as we might like to think so, is not Bruce Wayne, and Matt Damon is not Jason Bourne and capable of killing. They are playing characters, and doing a damn fine job, and that’s what being a writer is all about.  

Being a writer is like your character speaking through you. Like they have a story to tell, and they are using you as the vessel. Okay, that might be strange heebie jeebie stuff, and it isn’t as strange as it sounds, but believe me when I say it is my characters who tell the story, not me. My characters do go silent on me. They stop talking to me, and then I’m lost in my story, trying to find my way through a really confusing path. It isn’t fun.  

As a matter of fact, the ones I’m writing now have done so. I’m trying so hard to tell the story they want me to tell, but I got stuck because I was trying to write things the way I wanted to write them, and not the way the character wanted me to. I think I’ve finally figured it out, but it’s still a really long process trying to weed through those, well, weeds.  

So todays writing tip is to listen to your characters! Don’t let other voices get in the way of your voice. You have your own voice, and it usually comes through when you listen to your characters, because they are the ones to ultimately tell the story! If your writing is based on plotting more than character, then listen to the plot, because your plot is your character! And don’t be afraid to go all out. If others don’t approve, well, that’s their tough luck!