Member Blog Post

Half through book one of my four book series, and I had to go back and rewrite all the descriptors of my main two characters! This is an author's nightmare. It happens when your characters take on a life of their own. I don't know how other author's work, but before I write, I have envisioned my characters....what they look like, what their personalities are, their likes and dislikes, even their funny little quirks. I make notes of all of it. I have filled as much as three notebook pages with aspects of a single character before.

Sometimes, however, as you are writing, your character takens on a life of their own and you find all of your notes are worthless. They will react to things in ways very different from what you had planned, and you realize it does make the story a lot better. But then you have to go back and rewrite things, or else it looks like you can't remember how your character started out.

It's bad enough when this happens to ONE character. For the first time ever in my writing career, I have had it happen with two characters in the book, and both of them mains.

At least I saw it happening now, and didn't wait to see it until after the book was completed. Rewriting through an entire book is a lot worse than rewriting through half of one!