Anyway, that digging deep post really set me thinking about the problems I’m having with this current WIP. I know these characters so well now that I am forgetting the reader doesn’t. Remember the hero burning his toast? And the digging deep we did below the surface? We found out his real fear is that he’s inherently unlovable. Now the thing is, he doesn’t know that in chapter 1. In fact, in chapter 1, he’s fine. His life is great. It takes the whole book for him to realise that he’s not fine and it’s not until right at the very end that he understands why he isn’t.
Make sense?

Well, imagine my burnt toast hero thinking he’s not lovable in chapter 1 and that’s pretty much sums up my problem with my wip. I’m revealing my characters too early. I don’t have much in the way of external conflict – okay ANY external conflict – so I really wanted to get to the heart of their problems, get that conflict down on the page. I had my heroine – who doesn’t want a relationship – freaking out in day two of them seeing each other. But come on, really? She’s having a nice time with him sure but would she really be feeling worried? Just because you’re having a nice time with a guy doesn’t mean love, marriage and babies is on the cards. Especially if that’s not what you want. Besides, as far as she’s concerned she’s having a holiday romance, there’s no way she’d want anymore so freaking out about enjoying herself the second time she sees him is a bit odd wouldn’t you say?

Bascially what I did was dig too deep, too early (made her too self aware if you like). Sure, you need to let the reader know she’s enjoying herself, and maybe hint a little that she hasn’t had so much fun with a guy for a long time (cos this is special yes?) but save the freaking out for when she really needs it.

Which brings me to my blog title. Without mentioning stripper poles and pasties, I went for the tasteful option and thought about it in terms of veils. You need to reveal your characters conflict slowly. Like the dance of the seven veils, you drop one veil at a time. Mine didn’t want to do that, they wanted to drop three. Hey, my heroine went for broke and threw them ALL off, the silly girl! Anyway, slow is what you want so that by the end of the book, all the veils are down and we can see what’s at the heart of the problem for these characters.

Other people have other ways of saying this. Kate Walker I think calls it the layers of the onion. I quite like the veil analogy because it’s also how the characters reveal themselves to each other as well as the reader. Slowly, as trust grows between them, they allow another veil to drop, letting the other person see a deeper part of them. Not having conversations about how they hated their parents in chapter two after they’ve only just met (Jackie, take a bow!).

Anyway, that’s just my take on it. The speed at which your dance progresses really depends on the story though. Sometimes it’ll be fast, sometimes it won’t. But what you don’t want to is have naked characters half-way through the story because then there won’t be enough conflict to get you to the end and you’ll be forced to throw in a car chase or something.

So, anyone have problems with their characters throwing off veils willy nilly or is it just me?

You see, when I was a little baby writer, I used to get really annoyed with characters that seemed wholly blind to their problems. So my characters would always know what their problems were. Most of the time, they knew and still acted like idiots (my heroes here) because they were so tortured and well, just generally angsty. This was before I knew about conflict, about action, about pace, about anything really! I know a lot more about that stuff now so it came as a bit of a surprise to me that, as a big grown-up writer, I was still making my characters too self aware.

So, what is all this self awareness stuff? It’s being aware of your feelings and the reasons for them basically. For example, my hero wants to succeed in his business. It’s his goal. If pushed, he might admit that his drive to succeed is based on leaving behind a troubled youth. But what he wouldn’t admit to is that his drive to succeed is based on a fear that he’s really no good because his father walked out on him when he was young. He wouldn’t admit to it because he doesn’t actually know that at the beginning of the book. Unless you’re me of course, who did actually make him know that in the first chapter! The problem with this is that if they know their fears right at the beginning there wouldn’t be any sense of discovery about the character. Plus the fact that if they know their problems right at the beginning, why don’t they do something about them right then and there? And you also lose any emotional impact because there is no slow revelation or sudden insight by the character about their behaviour.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that I have to learn to pull back on the awareness. I found myself getting into trouble with this rewrite because of that and it meant because I had made my hero too self aware too early, I had to give him another problem so he would still grow and change. Which meant I complicated the conflict. Remember the KISS principle? Keep It Simple Stupid.

Now, all this might sound as though I’m making my characters do stuff instead of being guided by them. That may be true but I don’t think I’m doing it this time. If I think about it, my character is an alpha male who wants to prove himself. Admitting he’s scared of not being good enough would be something he would never admit to. So making him aware of this fear too early on IS making him do something he doesn’t want to do.

All this stuff about self awareness is making me appreciate the layers of the onion metaphor that Kate Walker talks about. I knew what she meant, but I never really saw it in my own work until now.

So, what does everyone else think about this? Are your characters too self aware like mine? Or are they appropriately dense?

Anyway, trying to do the first two with the third has been a bit of a mission. Especially since all I wanted to do was sit at my desk and write my ms – apparently not a good thing with a twisted ankle that should be kept elevated.

However, I have been making respectable progress. I will be finishing it this week which will be great. The only problem with writing a novel in about a week and a half is that no doubt I’ll need to spend a month editing the thing! I’m almost afraid to read what I’ve written – it’ll be dreck I’m sure of it.

And it hasn’t been all all plain sailing with the writing either. I have a big problem in that I tend to make my h&h too self aware too early. In fact I didn’t even realise this was, in fact, what I was doing until Dr Jax rolled his eyes and pointed it out to me. The issue with making them self aware – ie being in love – is that if you do it too early, you run into the problem where it’s not the conflict keeping them apart so much as the being in love and not wanting to be. So the focus changes from the conflict – eg, my heroine not wanting to be protected – to her not wanting to be in love. Same with the hero. He fell in love too early and so his angst stems from not wanting to be in love rather than wanting to hold on to someone who doesn’t want to be held.

Tricky eh? It’s my own fault really. I love angst which is why I make them self aware – the anguish of loving someone but not wanting to! O the pain! But if you have two people loving each other and yet not wanting to be in love, how does this resolve the conflict? All there is angst with nothing really progressing. Which is why I felt I was writing the same thing over and over, having my heroine constantly go over the reasons why she doesn’t want to fall in love and yet nothing really happening with her real conflict.

But then, how do I include the angst and tension? You’re supposed to have it right? Which is when Dr Jax pointed out that the conflict provides the tension not the ‘I’m so in love and yet I can’t be’ kind of thing. Another Aha moment for me. So I’ve pulled back on the awareness, let the conflict provide the tension, and my characters will not be falling in love until right near the end. That’ll teach ’em.