I Learned More About My Characters Today

[queenoftheskies]

The newer ones that haven't been with me throughout the development of the series.

These characters were designed specifically for this first book and, until I started working on some of the scenes I'd skipped (because I didn't know the characters well enough to flesh out the scenes at that time), I really didn't know them.

But, now, they're really coming to life for me and the writing is developing out of these new characters, their interaction with the plot, and their interaction with my series characters.

Quite a satisfying feeling.

I'm getting very close to winding up. Very close. But, I might top 140,000, unless I find other scenes I want to take out. There's one I'm waffling about, but I think it's going to end up finding its way to Dawn of Destiny like a couple other scenes did.

Ancient Secrets 3,008 words today

135,274 total words to date

135,274 / 140,000 (96.0%)

And, my julnawrimo word count for the day:

25,887 / 50,000 (51.0%)

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

It helps. These people aren't necessarily the MAIN characters of my story, but they are the catalyst for moving the opening along and causing the trouble in the first place. :)

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

Do you ever get comments or worry that you have too many sideline characters? I constantly worry about that. I have this whole thing about realism in stories and one of the drawbacks is that in real life, people interact with hundreds of folks all the time and usually don't realize the sheer number of people they at least vaguely know. I don't like tv shows where there are one or two convenient sideline characters who more or less stand in for the general public.

But that means sometimes I end up with tons and tons of sideline characters, and often if I give them more than a line or two, I also want to give them enough presence to be somewhat meaningful.

In movie terms, this means I sometimes end up with an extremely large cast. Some people seem to like it, but others find it confusing and hard to keep track of.

Just wondering if you find the same kind of problem.