I wrote this a few weeks after I drafted my novel (first novel?). I’ll indent the part I wrote then, and add some comments over 2 years later. I’m learning how to be an author as we go….so maybe some of this is obvious to others. Who really knows? But apparently, characters in fiction are, well, see below.
The author appears to be closer to the characters than the readers:
Me, Mike
I have written what I think is a good plot. It takes place in a unique world. There is action throughout. But, the characters are generic. At least they are for the readers. In my mind, they have feelings and goals and wants and desires. When my test readers read it, the feedback I get is that the characters are not memorable, nor do readers feel connected to them in an emotional way. In looking at my book from here, I can see that. I hint at things like attractions or sadness or other emotions, but rarely explore them. Since I received this feedback, I’ve re-read some sections. The characters are cookie cutter, good guy types, even though in my mind they are all distinct.
I didn’t edit any of that…..
About, I don’t know, 6-8 months after I wrote that, I re-wrote the first two chapters, and showed them to my wife. Remember, she had read the entire book, where these characters spent a couple hundred pages doing things…..and her statement was that now she understood the one character better than she did after reading over two hundred pages.
That, to me, was fascinating. She learned more in about ten pages about a character than she had in reading dozens of pages that featured that character across the whole book.
The lesson I’m taking from this is that I need to pick the characters that matter, and make sure something happens early in the book to help the reader RELATE to the character, if not fully understand the character.