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This is the first in a series about character development for characters in Young Adult Contemporary Fiction. In the series, we'll talk about their drive/motivators, goals, research, and more. These are simply my tips and tricks of the trade. Every writer has a different process, and I want to learn about yours!
Today, we'll talk about my first step in getting to know my characters. --- On Instagram (stephanielogue_writes), I’ve been talking about my characters in The Right Kind of Light and my current WIP a lot. A lot. So much, in fact, that I’ve had people commenting and asking questions about Ginny, Lou, Greta, and Annabella. The questions have all been fabulous (I feel so famous!), but the most thought-provoking question for me, as the author of these four women, is: how did I develop them? Friends and fellow writers: I named them first. Ginny came to me in a hazy idea at an Ed Sheeran concert in 2015. Its the last summer before college, my subconscious said. Missing her best friend. Fell in love with best friend’s ex. Works at a place like Storybook Land. Got it. Got it. Got it. Brett drove us home after I finished fangirling over Ed, and I grabbed the first notebook I found and wrote down as much as I could remember from whatever I saw during “Photograph”. Somehow, even in that moment, Ginny’s name was Ginny. My paternal grandmother’s name was Virginia, and I always knew that I wanted to name either a daughter or a character Ginny. That one was easy. The remaining three girls were…(mostly) easy too. Here’s how Lou, Greta, and Annabella came to be: Lou: As Ginny’s ex best friend, I knew they were polar opposites. The kind of people who would push each other to be their best, and maybe bring out each other’s worst when they weren’t cohesive anymore. She needed a harder name. Something with implied edge. I’m a sucker for a.) old school names and b.) names that belong in a traditional sense to a man or a woman. Louise = Lou. Bad ass, strong, take-no-shit lady. Greta: I knew she was sweet as pie and desperate to find her first love, but with a spine of steel. “Pearl of a girl” is a phrase that I heard in a song lyric a gazillion years ago. I don’t remember what song (and now its going to haunt me all night.) Turned out Greta means “pearl”. Its ALSO an old name. (Double check in the pro column: Greta is a name for a supporting character in a series of stories I wrote in junior high and high school. A tip of the hat to my…self, I guess.) Annabella: AB for short, but only her best friend Ed calls her that. Annabella is a Latina and comes from a traditional Catholic family, so I wanted something respectful but fitting that I could see her parents perhaps choosing. The name means “grace” which is a larger plot point in my WIP. Here’s the thing about characters though: They’re gonna tell you what’s actually up about everything, including their names. Lou, for instance. She’s the most delicate little sunflower I’ve ever encountered in my life, and I have a golden retriever that’s afraid of laundry baskets, empty storm sewers, and open refrigerator doors. When I was writing The Right Kind of Light, I didn’t realize how her motivators would evolve past Ginny. And Annabella: this woman has had two name changes, her direction changed more times than I can recall, stripped of her nickname only to get it back, and her girlfriend’s name changed too – when I realized their names rhymed and that was just too weird in all the “ella”. My only goal for all these four women is that I continue to channel honesty and sincerity into their hearts. Girls aren’t rainbows and butterflies. We’re eye rolls and loud voices and periods. We drink too much alcohol and coffee and we’re vain and go to sleep with toothpaste on zits. We say stupid shit to our best friends, we cheat on our boyfriends, and we hook up in backseats at parties by lakes. But we’re heart, and we’re hope, and I will be damned if I contribute to any conversation about young adult girls and women in college in any way that isn’t as truthful as I can make it. So when I write a line that seems to manufactured or trendy (or wannabe trendy), it hits the slush pile. I can usually hear her, whoever’s head I’m inside at that very second, tell me they’d never say that. And my god, as a writer, its so helpful. Yours in Devotion to Voices in Your Head, Stephanie PS – there’s SO MUCH more to character development. Another trick I like is to make playlists for each book or piece I’m working on. Head on over to my Instagram to learn more.
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 I start with a quote from a guy who was wildly brilliant and cross-sector with that brilliance. So I feel like he knows something about art.
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Leonardo da Vinci Uplifting quote to really warm you up to writing today, right? You know that piece you just finished? The one that took up your heart, soul, and brain space for months? Time to abandon it! Okay. Abandon is a big, scary word. And for this writer, not the best fit. Perhaps…transfer its energy. Give it to the community. Time to (and I’m sorry parents) just…let it go. I struggle with this concept. Calling a writing piece done is a complicated endeavor. How do you know when its done? On the flip side, say you know it’s done – how do you leave it alone? Intellectually, I know my piece done. It’s gone through a beta reader – usually more than one, it’s spell checked (ten gazillion times) and if I’m brave enough, its even got my mother’s stamp of approval on it. And yet. I tinker. During intense quarantine last spring, I picked up a short story I hadn’t touched in literally years and rewrote the entire thing to present tense. Once the tense was switched, I had to find bits that had fallen out of sense and shove them back into formation. The word count got tighter, which is almost always a win, but seriously. Seriously? Seriously. I should have been working on my WIP. I could have been washing my hair, getting caught up on overdue tasks at work, or, like, doing dishes occasionally. Rather, I used it as a procrastination tool to skirt around what I should have been doing in that moment. So how do you stop the tinkering?
Listen, we all know that writing and publishing is never entirely done until the ink is wet. Even then – we live in a digital era. Sometimes there’s no ink at all. I promise you that once I hit post on this blog post, I have the liberty to read it again in a few hours, and if I find something I hate, I’ll change it. I’m better at letting go than I used to be. Not perfect, not at all. But who is? Yours in not-yet-abandoned-work, Stephanie Dear Reader,
How much Folklore is too much Folklore? I ask for a friend. Lies, you say. This is a self-serving request. You know me well already. I ask for me. Swaying dramatically in the driver’s seat to “I can see you staring, honey/Like he’s just your understudy/like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” at a stoplight. Mouthing each f-bomb (of which there are a delicious, but not shocking or inappropriate amount) as I run to the coffee shop a block from my office. (BTW, remind me to tell you the story of the time a colleague asked me if I swear in my head, and what it looks like in my brain space when I do it. It was a delightfully eloquent conversation about the merits of a good swear, and the space in which it takes to get it right. The balance, she’s delicate.) But seriously: Folklore. I wrote The Right Kind of Light’s really ragged outline in my head at an Ed Sheeran concert (inspired by “Photograph”, thankyouverymuch), and spent the year drafting it to X. Reputation came out around draft 3, and the beat was too strong for my girl Gin, so we stuck with Ed’s ÷. I started querying, and now here we are. But Folklore would have DRIVEN Ginny’s story. Taylor might have taken the wheel and driven Ginny off a cliff for all I know, but I would HAVE BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME, in the backseat, squealing my head off that a.) Taylor took the wheel of my car and holy shit, and b.) how do you groove along to “rosé with your chosen family/and it woulda been sweet if it coulda been me” as you fly like a bird to your death with Taylor Swift and your MC? I have a problem. So the larger question, outside of my Folklore love, and my bow-down appreciation for Taylor Swift’s sister album Evermore: is it bad to let your artistic voice be driven so erratically by another artist’s voice? Once upon a time, there were plot points that were derived directly from Ed’s “Photograph” that I thought were a nod to the concert where I had my grand flash of My First Novel, but eventually all but two of them were removed. (Read my book! You’ll know! They’re very obvious!) Those pieces were removed because they ceased to make sense, they didn’t move the book along, etc. All the legitimate reasons why anything is ever cut from a novel. I sincerely hope that while people read my work, they wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I look a good mellow jam, occasionally intercepted by banging pop Or, Carole King’s entire catalog. There’s definitely a thread (an invisible string, if you will I’M SO SO SORRY I can’t stop), that pulls an album along start to finish, and if a voice is distinct enough, that same thread pulls an artist through a career. Obviously, the metaphor works for writers as well. I like to think that my portfolio pieces compliment each other, rather than fight, and they’ve all been driven by different playlists on my iPhone. What do you think? Is it bad to be so immersed in an album that even your three-year knows the words to every song? Does it inhibit your process? More so, would you miss that music if it was gone? Let me know! Love you to the moon and to Saturn, Stephanie |