Today we're going to wind back the clock to the WriYe Blog Circle prompt from February about character connections. Since I am someone who writes more for the characters and have the plot wind around those characters, I'm surprised I haven't looked at this sooner. The connections between characters, the frictions and the sparks, is what drives the plot forward for me. Two people hate each other or love each other or something else entirely and then their lives spiral off because of it. I think it's why one of my favorite movies is The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Their two characters swap houses for Christmas due to needing to run away from their lives / situations and how doing so makes them meet and touch other lives.
So, yeah, I love plot that happens like that. I try to make my own stories and writing like that because it's what I love. And, when you write what you know / like / love, then you are going to be successful in getting your writing project done. That all said, let's get into the questions.
How do your characters connect with one another? What kind of connection do they have?
Well, they're going to be one of three things - acquaintances, friends, or lovers - and react to each other as such. For example, using Mystery of the Dark's Kate, she's going to react differently to the person who take her food order differently than Mark or Justinian. To the person who takes her food order, she's going to be polite, use please and thank you, and not think of that person beyond that small interaction. With Mark, a close / best friend, she's going to be a lot more open and honest. She'll still be polite, but there will be times when she forgets to say please and thank you. However, it's different because she still wants him to be her friend at the end of the day. That means trying to not kill him over the stupid things he does and so on, like one would do with a normal friend.
Now, with Justinian? Oh boy. Yes, he's her love interest and eventual partner (sorry, spoilers), but he's still a vampire. She kills those things for a living. The two don't get off on the best foot but it'll come around in the end. In the beginning, she doesn't want to connect with him. She wants to write him off, make him into an acquaintance, but it's the strength of his character that makes him into her love interest. He pushes back and makes himself stand out in a way that she starts to take him seriously. It also helps that they go through a trial together and come out the other side whole time and time again.
How do you connect your character to your reader?
Well... I try to make the character feel like someone the reader can relate to. That, despite the fact that they might only be half human or not human at all, the character feels human. That they are human after all and has just the same problems that the reader might have on some level. I think that connection makes the reader want to continue reading to find out the plot. When it's the other way around, when it's more about the plot than the character, I lose interest. I don't want my readers to lose interest, so I make the characters interesting and then I make the plot interesting.
So, dear readers, what are your connections and how do you show them in your characters? Feel free to leave a comment below or connect to me on Facebook or twitter. Until next time, keep on writing.
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