Let Your Characters Guide Your Scene

I’ve read a lot of blogs and articles that offer advice to authors. That advice comes in many different flavors, and sometimes seems to contradict advice you find elsewhere. I think the reason for this is that authors aren’t all the same. We process information differently because we’re human and we’re each different.

Now… I’m not going to claim I’m an expert writer. In fact, I’m rather self-conscious about my writing skills. However, one thing I’m confident in is my ability to craft a story. One of the key factors for that, in my eyes, is that I give all of my characters a voice; a distinct personality that tells me how they behave, how they think, and what they would do given a set of circumstances.

This mental process was enhanced quite extensively during my years of pen & paper role-playing. Without those gaming sessions, I doubt I’d be able to do what I do now. All in all, I find my mental process for handling characters a little hard to put into words… but I’m going to try. Ultimately, when I succeed in my efforts… my characters write my scene.

Develop Your Characters

Some authors talk about questionnaires they might fill out, or ‘face claims’, etc. Some even draw quick little sketches of their character. If that is something that helps you, I say go for it. To me that seems like overkill. I’m not saying you shouldn’t figure out things like motivation, height, weight, and the like, but… are all of those details always relevant? Personally, I don’t think they are.

What is relevant to know about even temporary characters is their personality, how they speak, how they think, their status in life, and nuances that might spark specific motivations that they might have. To me, it’s less about documenting why they’re in your story and every minute detail, and more about deciding that so-and-so doesn’t like nobles, or never learned proper grammar. You can do this even with characters that persist for a single scene, and there doesn’t need to be some extravagant documentation process to make the character feel real.

The more personality you give your character, the better your conversations will flow, and the more likely that character will take over the scene and guide you.

Now, I have mentioned twice by this point that I don’t document all the decisions I make for a character. That may seem odd to many of you. The reason for that is I simply don’t work that way. I use the skills I developed while running pen & paper campaigns to slip into that character, imagine myself as them, and allow their personality to speak through me.

Every time I find the need to give someone a name, I close my eyes and think, “who is this person?” I imagine who they might be, what they might look like, what they might sound like, and how they might view or interact with society. How might they respond to the protagonist they’re about to interact with? How would they feel about the blood on the hero’s armour?

For some characters this process takes just a few minutes, but on occasion it can take several hours. The length of time I spend on a character depends on how complex I need them to be. However, the clear point is: not a single one of my characters is ever devoid of personality in my mind. This means that when they speak, they are speaking as them.

Write From the Mind of Your Developed Character

When I go into a scene I often know the outcome of that scene, and who is involved. That’s it. I then choose who is primary to a scene, and I let the writing flow. That character’s viewpoint, responses and interactions dictate what happens. Nothing is forced, I don’t follow a script or an outline. I let the scene grow homogeneously and naturally however the characters see fit.

It was an attack that her true identity was famed for, and she had used it recklessly in a moment of hate-fueled rage. The only thought on her mind had been, ‘how fucking dare you?’

The above is a snippet from a scene I recently wrote for Bathed in the Blood of Ravens. I was writing that scene and when I returned to one side of the battle to address a specific character, her personality took over. Without even realizing it, I exposed a secret she’d been trying to hide from her companions.

I could literally feel the rage she was feeling as the fight progressed, and could feel the release as she performed the maneuver this excerpt is referring to. Still seething with her rage, I wrote those final two sentences of the paragraph. Coincidentally, this is a prime example of why my books will never qualify as ‘Young Adult’.

My point is, this one character drove that part of the scene. The attack she used was not planned in advance. I made no conscious decision to include it. There was no forethought or planning as to how the scene would unfold. None. Group A was arriving at the location of Group B and combat had to occur, with Group A being the victor. That was the sum total of my planning.

Group A was filled with characters I had fully developed personalities for. As I whipped around the field of battle, describing what each person was doing, I wrote through the perspective and personality of each attacker. When I found myself writing this one character’s perspective… the above happened. It was freaky. It was exhilarating… and I couldn’t wait for my proof readers to experience it.

This happens often in my writing. Some scenes, where there is no specific character perspective, I struggle a bit more for words, or to figure out how to advance to the next location. Yes, that happens. However, scenes which include characters I’ve developed tend to fly right out of my fingertips before I even realize what has happened.

There are many scenes in my book that only exist because a character wanted them to. As I was writing something else, I realized said character needed to do something, or had a desire, and I added scenes to make those things happen.

In fact: the entire short story Threads of Night was the byproduct of a thought Sorscha had while I was writing a scene for her in Bathed in the Blood of Ravens, which inspired me to tell the full story behind what she was alluding to. That story didn’t fit within the confines of the novel without a flashback, so it became a prequel tale outside of the novel.

Summary

This process is my process and it may not work for you. I freely admit that. I’m an odd duck, and my brain refuses to behave in standard ways. I admit that too. However, my hope is that this might help at least one other person. Someone, somewhere thinks the way I do and will benefit from seeing that they’re not alone.

Drop a comment below and let me know if this helps, or if you think I’m wrong, or if you think I’m crazy. ;)