THE Group for Authors! discussion

You know those characters you just have to write but who challenge you in ways you never imagined? I'm blogging about just that today and I invite you to join the conversation at https://brendawhiteside.blogspot.com/...

Don`t you find the more complex and challenging any character is the more you feel the need to write them into the story? That way they sort of end creating themselves

I think you're on to something there, Liam. Those characters with hidden depths tantalize and tempt the writer into exploring them more and more. And some of those characters turn out to be fan favorites, possibly because they've prodded the writer into making them 3-dimensional. As an "into-the-mist" writer, I go where my characters take me, and some of those have been pretty wild rides.

Helen wrote: "I think you're on to something there, Liam. Those characters with hidden depths tantalize and tempt the writer into exploring them more and more. And some of those characters turn out to be fan fav..."
Couldn`t agree more Helen. Most people are a mix of good bad and whatever else and they will more readily identify with these faults and good points in others

I think fiction suffers when characters are stereotypes instead of complex. The problem comes when they don't challenge the writer or when the writer does not allow a challenge.

I couldn't agree more, Carolyn. My original post was about characters I wrote who made me stretch my creative muscles to, in one case, imagine life as a nearly blind, orphaned young teen, and in another, to figure out why my hero refused to tell even me--his creator--his real name. He did, finally, but I had to write half the story first and allow him to develop organically on the page.

Sometimes the reader must be asked to make up their own mind on why a certain character will react in a specific manner. Hopefully by now they have developed their own idea of each character`s personality

If we've done our job right, yes. All the necessary clues will be there.