My Novel is Slow Going-- But What'cha Gonna Do?

I’ve been noticing that my main character—the one that I initially thought of when I started writing is the worst character. Her scenes are the sketchiest, her personality the flattest, her motivations the most forced. However, her two sisters, who are the other two main characters, have caught my inspiration more and more. I was thinking about dropping the middle sister, but she is necessary to further the action of the story. She’s a catalyst.

I think the reason why she is the most boring is because she is the character who is most closely based on myself. I mean, all characters are partly the author, but this is the one who is the “me,” and I think because of that, she becomes a cipher. I can’t see her from the outside, so I just can’t really see her at all. It’s something my writing has suffered from before, not a new problem at all. The other issue I’ve had in my writing is writing “around” the heart of the matter, and then when I get to the real rough stuff—the pain, the meat, the moment—I rush right through it.

Writing brings up so many of your personal issues. Anyone who has ever said writing is easy either has never written, or is rather oblivious to their own psychology. When I was a kid, writing was easy. The ignorant are blessed in this situation.

But now I know my problems, and I can see my character who isn’t there. I’m hoping that as I read the rest of the novel, she will become clearer to me… I seem to remember that her character made a lot more sense to me as I wrote the novel. It’s just been so long since I wrote it, and I wrote it so quickly that I don’t remember her, I just remember a vague sense of plot.

Blarg.

The only hope for my troubles is a straight forward one—

START WORKING SISTER!

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