#23 – Get Inside Your Character’s Head

It’s natural when writing a novel to assume the role of master planner, the decider of who does what and when. This is especially true for plotters, those of us who need to know exactly what course our story will take. Recently, I discovered a downside to this approach, at least for me.

I was writing a sequence of action scenes. Progress was slow, but I was hitting my daily target. This particular sequence was leading to a big showdown involving several characters. As I neared the crucial scene, I became unsettled and anxious about the quality of what I’d written. Initially, I shrugged it off as the usual self-doubt and reminded myself that it was only a first draft – of course, it wasn’t perfect. But as I pushed each character towards the big confrontation, I felt there was something important missing. After reading through what I’d written, it became clear.

I was pulling all the strings. I was telling the characters exactly where to stand and what to say. The result was that it sounded too procedural, too choreographed, too perfect. The characters were following my directions like robots executing a set of programmed instructions. They experienced emotions and reacted accordingly, but it didn’t feel real.

In life, when we are stressed, afraid or distraught, we behave differently to our ‘normal’ behaviour. Our primal and survival instincts take over, and our usual composed selves get pushed into the back seat. We make what might seem irrational choices for a variety of reasons, e.g. we aren’t thinking clearly, our safety is at risk, we are out of our comfort zone, we are overwhelmed with emotion (pleasant or otherwise).

To solve my problem, I needed to consider how my characters would behave in the scenes, taking their individual personalities and backgrounds into account. Three people in the same situation will likely respond differently. Therefore, my characters would react differently to how I would.

So for each one, I sat with my eyes closed and imagined myself in their situation. I explored how they might feel and react. Which emotions would be strongest for them? Would they give in to those feelings or choose a different course of action, driven by a deeper instinct or need. I took into account that character’s past experiences, priorities, fears, hopes and motives. The results were mixed, some as I had written, but just as many were entirely different.

I then had to decide whether to change my storyline or not. In most cases, I did and was rewarded with more authentic scenes. Writing this way, I am being true to the character and am giving my readers a richer experience. I am also presenting a broader variety of characters as they now are all behaving according to their own personalities, not mine.

Happy writing,
Harry

Useful Links
‘A Simple Trick For Getting Inside Your Character’s Head’ by Jennie Nash
‘How To Get Inside Our Character’s Heads And Make Readers Care’ by Lisa Hall-Wilson

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