Saturday, March 17, 2012

Creating a fictional character who isn't like you

I'm more than half-way through the first draft of my third novel. I've written the stories of two of the three women  principals, the mother and her biological daughter. While neither one of these characters is exactly me, they have characteristics of me. Now I'm moving into the story of the adopted daughter, who is not at all like me. Or should I say not like the me I let myself be.

Callie is a rebel, a bad girl. Selfish, impulsive, prone to the illegal and the spontaneous. And since this doesn't describe me, not in any lived experience, I'm finding it quite a challenge to get under her skin and see how she acts and responds. What will she say? Who will she find attractive? What is she willing to do to get her way?

I realized all this more clearly this morning as I was writing. The writing was going more slowly than it has in the other two sections. I'm having to sit longer, wait for Callie to show up and speak to me. It's a curious process, this fiction writing.