Putting Your Characters in The Driver's Seat
June 2003 HODRW Meeting Recap
by Maggi Landry
Sharon Mignerey does it again. Her program and wonderfully detailed five - page handout laid it all out for us. Her opening statements summed it up neatly.
Emotions drive the story, not events. All stories are character driven. The conflict drives the romance and the romance drives the conflict. Thus your characters and their emotions cause the conflict to intensify as the conflict heightens your character's emotions.
Using Sharon's handout we drew an imaginary set of characters and began to flesh out the circumstances, the problems, and emotions that causes an inciting incident to begin the story. The handout enables the author to personalize the hero and heroine, or even the villain, from physical description to personality traits, strengths, and flaws. Next we learned how to use the characters' emotions and traits to deepen the conflict to the breaking point. We found that our characters can both share and have opposing goals. This determines how we can complicate or raise the stakes for our characters.
There are several questions to ask yourself about your characters.
Make sure your characters have reason to be committed to stay in the situation and then raise the stakes. The black moment is that time when the hero or heroine's (or both) most cherished belief is put to the test. Several possibilities can occur from the black moment. Will the character remain steadfast or will they change? Either can be effective.
Sharon shared her belief that you can have up to two external coincidences in one story--all else should be a consequence of your character's actions. As simply stated in the beginning, your character's emotions should drive the story, not events.