087: What to Do When You're Struggling to Write Your Main Character

 

Struggling to write your main character? Whether you can't access their voice or don't have a great understanding of who they are, this episode is for you! I share 4 tips that can help you access your character and get them on the page.

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What to Do When You're Struggling

to Write Your Main Character

Hi, friends, welcome to the podcast. As I'm recording this, I am doing like three loads of laundry, because I'm getting ready to pack for a big trip that I'm taking next week. I think by the time this episode comes out, I will have taken the trip already. But I'm going to Scotland for a week, Sam and I are going and we're calling it like a baby moon, essentially, we're just taking a week and having a trip, just the two of us before the baby comes this fall. And we're doing it now because I'm 21 weeks pregnant. And it's gonna be a lot easier to travel and, you know, do all of these things while I'm in the second trimester instead of waiting till later. And Scotland has always been on my bucket list to go to. So I'm really really excited.

 

Here's what we did, I'm going to tell you what we did to decide on Scotland because I have a lot of places on my bucket list. And we we knew we wanted to go kind of on a bigger trip, we haven't done a big trip in years. So we had enough SkyMiles like frequent flyer miles where we could get one ticket free. So what I did is I went on Delta and I looked at all the places we wanted to go, I put in like four different locations, four or five locations, and looked at the week that we wanted to go in June, I knew it was going to be this particular week. And I just was like, okay, where can we go, we could get a free ticket. And Scotland was the winner it came back the cheapest. So that's how we decided.

 

Anyway, it's gonna be a really, really fun trip. I'm completely unplugging. Well, you know, be I can't ever completely unplug from the business 95% unplugging from work, I'm still going to check in with some coaching clients while I'm gone. But I'm officially putting something on email, so that I am like, letting people know, hey, I'm away, I'm on vacation. I will get to your email when I get back. And I'm not going to do any client work. I'm not going to be checking my email, which is going to be really hard. But I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do anything else work related other than just checking in with my future few coaching clients. And just yeah, having what I hope will be a really, really, really fun trip with Sam. I'm very excited. So yeah, that's that's coming up next week.

 

So I wanted to record some podcast episodes just to have done before I leave. Which brings me to this episode. This is a conversation around characters and a feeling like you're struggling a bit to access a character. This has come up in some conversations I've had with clients lately. And this is also something that I went through with my last book where my protagonist, Jamie, she felt at different points in the writing process, she felt a little bit like a tough nut for me to crack. I had an idea of how I wanted her to be on the page, I had an idea of who she was.

 

And I had to shift that because it turned out that my original idea of who I thought she was just wasn't totally right for the story. And it made a lot more sense for her to be a little bit less antagonistic towards the people in her life. And so I needed to make some adjustments. And I remember I got some feedback from someone who read an early draft of well, not an early draft but read a draft before I started querying again last year with the book to try to find a new agent. And one her big feedback was okay, Jamie, I don't really have a good sense of who she is, which to me was a huge red flag like oh, okay, that's that's a big thing.

 

I mean, I think characters are incredibly important no matter what genre you write, and it was like, okay, I've got to do a little bit more work to really make Jamie stand out on the page. And to make her more dynamic. And so that required me doing a little bit more brainstorming and tweaking her character on the page. And I think the final product, the one that I settled on is really she's a lot more solid and clear, and a much stronger character than she was in the beginning. So here's some helps if you are in kind of a similar boat where let's say that you are just not really sure who your main character is. And I'm talking about main character singular in this episode. But if you are writing a dual point of view, if you have multiple main characters, this can apply to, to any of them, if you are just not really sure who they are yet, and so it's preventing you from doing a lot of writing because you're having trouble harnessing them, if you're struggling to step into their shoes, to embody them in the story to write their voice, like maybe you can't really figure out how they speak, how they act, anything like that. No matter the case, whatever's going on, if you're just having trouble accessing a character, here's, here's some tips to help you through that, that struggle.

 

Okay, first thing I want you to do is just an assessment, see if you can pinpoint specifically what it is about this character that you are having trouble with. It might just be a vague sort of feeling that something's not working, and that you're not really capturing who this person is on the page. And if that's the case, if that's really, if you can't get any more specific, that's okay. But I will, I would encourage you to dig deep and be like, okay, specifically, what is it? Is it this characters dialogue, that I can't figure out how they would talk to other characters? Is it the backstory, I can't figure out what makes sense for this character? What happened to them before the book started, just see if you can identify what specifically is hard. It might be multiple things, that's okay. Once you have that data, then you can problem solve and troubleshoot. But if you just have this vague sense that something is wrong, it's hard to know what to do to fix it. And sometimes it might just be if you again, if you do have that vague sense.

 

Sometimes it might just be the case where you just have to sit with it a little bit longer. Maybe keep writing, you know, remember that? I should say this, like if this is your first draft, and you feel like you're having trouble with the character like that's okay. Your first draft is you figuring out the story, right? And part of you figuring out the story is you figuring out the characters. So if you feel like they're not totally fleshed out, and you're not quite sure what's working or not working, that's okay. It doesn't, I don't mean to be like, something's wrong, you have to fix it. But these are just, this is like what to do, if you're in a place where you want to address it. Okay, so first step, assessment, what is it specifically?

 

Step number two, I think it's a good idea to do something like a character profile. But it doesn't have to be that specific and official of a step. I have a free character profile template that I will link to in the description of this episode that you can use. And basically what it is, it's like a four or five page document, and it has all kinds of questions that you questions and prompts for you to really think about your main character and start to make decisions about who they are using something like a character profile helps ensure that you are creating a well rounded, strong character doesn't have to be necessarily likable, doesn't have to be necessarily relatable, but just a strong character.

 

Another option, if you don't want to do a full character profile like this, is to just jot down some bullet points and assess like, what do you know about this character? What is their personality? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? How would other people in their life describe them? Like just get a couple of bullet points? And then look at okay, what don't you know, yet? You can even think of doing this like in two columns. So what do you know about the character? So everything in one column, again, can just be bullet points? And then in the other column? What don't you know, what are you struggling to identify and looking at it in black and white on paper can sometimes help you identify what the problem is? And maybe if step one, you weren't totally clear on what the problem is maybe doing this step and looking at what you do know about the character, and what you don't know can help give you some clarity around what needs to be addressed.

 

Step number three is to do some free writing or just a writing exercise as if you are that main character. So let me give you an example of what this could look like. One of my favorite writing prompts for this is to imagine that you are your main character. You are coming home after a long day. And you decide to journal. It does not matter if your character would never journal if your character is the type of person who would never own a journal or do any sort of journaling, that's okay. Just set that aside for the purpose of this exercise. Get out, you know, your notebook or you can do this on your on your computer to and journal as if you are that person. So it's all going to be in first person, even if your book is not in in first person, that's okay. Do a journal entry just do a brain dump. As if you're that character.

 

What is your character thinking about? What's weighing on them? What happened during their day? What are they stressed about? What are they thinking about in the future, just write as if you're that person. And sometimes that can unlock something, it's like you go a layer deeper, of really understanding who this person is. Because when you are journaling, you're not censoring yourself, because the point of a journal is not for people to read it right. It's just you getting your thoughts out on the page, getting all of that stuff that's in your brain out, it helps you process it. So if your main character is doing that, and you are doing that as your main character, sometimes that can help you unlock and go a layer deeper to figure out, you know, who they are, what's important to them, what's on their mind.

 

Step number four is going to be perfect for you if you're having trouble accessing their voice, meaning like how they speak, if you are writing dialogue from this character, and it just sounds off and not right, and you don't know how they would say things. This is a tip or strategy that you can use to help you in copywriting and branding and marketing. There's something called like a brand voice guide. There are a lot of different terms for this. But you can also call it like a brand style guide, or a brand Bible or a rule book or something. But essentially, a brand guide is a document or set of documents that explains and lays out how a brand should be portrayed through media and images and logos and fonts, and all of the copy all of the words that appear on their website, in their marketing, social media, etc.

 

So that when someone is writing something to in the voice of the brand, like let's say someone is working on a social media post, or an email that's going to go out to people, there should be a consistency in that. So that if you are a brand, who is very who has this image of being very elevated, and a luxury brand, right, that you're not just going to write a really casual email or social media posts with tons of emojis and lol and whatever, like you're probably going to have an elevated voice when you write in the voice of that brand. So you can do a similar thing for your character and create a kind of a character style guide. So think about how your character would speak. Does your character use a lot of slang? Do they pause a lot they trail off? Do they speak in a confident way? Do they lack confidence? Do they stutter? Just think about how this person speaks. Make decisions.

 

If you're like, I don't know how they speak, this is the time to make decisions based on what you know of your character and who they are. How would they speak. And then just create a document that has some bullet points. This can be as formal or as casual as you want. But I think bullet points are just the easiest way to do this. And say, Okay, this character speaks with this kind of slang this pair this character speaks this way they use nicknames for these people, they etc, etc. This can be a helpful reference guide so that when you are writing dialogue in the voice of your character, you can reference this and be like, Wait, is this on track? Does this match how I want this character to speak and present themselves in the book? Yeah, that can just be kind of a helpful document for you to have.

 

And it can also be really helpful just for you in the creation of it so that when you are thinking through the character in your writing your bullet points in this character style guide that you know, you kind of have have all this all of these points of reference about how the characters going to present themselves to other characters when they speak. So yeah, give all of this a try. And if nothing else, I want to just echo something I said earlier, which is that if you are still in the drafting process and getting your first draft out, it might just be that you get the bare bones of the character You're on the page in that draft. That is my kind of process. I do some character work before I start because I want to know who this person is. And then I get some of that on the page in the first draft.

 

But I always have to go back and do more character work, to make sure that everything is clear to make sure that they're consistent and making decisions that make sense based on who they are. Making sure that they are strong that they have agency, all of these things that come that are really hammered home in later drafts. So if you are still in the first draft, all of this is great to think about because it's going to make that draft stronger. But don't worry too much about making this character perfect on the first go around again, you are still discovering what the story is you're still discovering who this character is. So don't feel like you have to nail it on the first draft.

 

Alright, I hope that was helpful for you. Good luck with your characters. Go through all these steps. And that should give you some some insight and hopefully you can kind of get over that block of feeling like you just can't quite access something about them.

Katie Wolf