Getting inside their heads.

I have stated earlier that over the past two years I have read countless books on the subject of writing. Many of the books offer various tips on how to develop one's writing skills. One such tip I found interesting was to write a biography of sorts about your character. But the twist was to write the biography from the character's perspective. Until yesterday I had not tried the technique. I was finding it difficult to get into the mind of the Queen from whose POV begins Chapter 31. My experiment resulted in unexpected success.

The intention was to write from her POV to get a better feel for how she would think. I achieved that goal, but I also had a interesting byproduct. Several of the lines that I used in my 'doodling' found its way into the actual story. Concepts and phrases that I had used in the blog fit perfectly into the exposition of the Queen in the story. An additional byproduct was a clearer understanding of the Queen as a three dimensional character.

I had been worried that all my antagonist characters were forming to be carbon copies of one another. Granted that they all have similar objectives, but their 'personalities' sort of blend together. I was finding that phrases I used with the Ace found it's way into the mouths of the Hatter - or Pepper - or the Queen - or the Six. I needed to further seperate the emotions, motives, and morales of each character. The challenge of having so many antagonist characters (even as secondary) is to make them uniquely individualistic. I think that by writing the mini-bio on the Queen helped me achieve that for her.

I think that I may want to do that for more of the main characters. It'll help me get into the 'mood' of that character. I also think that when I go back over the different sections I can read the bio to ensure that I am on the proper wave length. A method to make sure that I am staying true to the character's profile.

The fact remains a story is about the characters. A good book has a cast of characters that are unique individuals. As a writer it is our job to develop the separations.