In my last post, I shared a little about the process of writing, and what a special moment it is when characters show me, the writer, their pain. I wanted to build on that a little, because not all non-writers may understand how this even works. How can a character, someone I as author created, reveal something to me? Isn’t it all in my own brain?

Yes, it is…but if I’ve done my job well in creating him, it feels as if the character has taken on a life of his own. That means he’ll make choices that I can be surprised by or choose to show me something I wasn’t even aware of.

Chatty and Quiet Characters

Authors sometimes talk about chatty characters or dead-quiet ones. With chatty characters we mean that the characters in our story are “talking to us”, meaning that when we sit down to write their story, they’re cooperating. When characters are chatty, we have a good sense of who they are, the things they would say, and the choices they would make in the circumstances we put them in.

Chatty characters are easy and fun, because the writing flows…but they can also be tiring, because they “demand” their story be told right NOW! When you have a story inside you that’s dying to get out, it’s both a rush and super tiresome. I once wrote half a book in a few days because the characters kept talking to me…even in my sleep. It was exhilarating, but I was dead tired afterward.

When characters are quiet, it’s the worst. That means sitting in front of my Mac, trying to force something that’s not gonna happen. Now, usually when I find myself with dead quiet characters, it means I somehow screwed up. I made them do something that doesn’t fit their personality, or I’m forcing chemistry with a love interest that’s not there, or somewhere, I took a wrong turn in the story or got a background fact wrong. Figuring out where I went wrong is always a challenge, but once I do, the characters usually start talking again. Yes, it all happens in my head, but the characters still need to behave consistently, or I’ll end up with plot holes the size of Texas.

An Example

To give you an example, in my latest release Alpha’s Sacrifice (which is an MMMM mpreg), I had originally pegged my alpha character Lidon (that’s him in the pic above) as a super dominant, bossy alpha who was on the gruff and taciturn side. But when I tried to match him with a super sweet omega called Vieno, it wasn’t happening ‘cause the omega wanted nothing to do with him! He was scared and he needed someone who would approach him with some tenderness. Then Lidon told me he really wasn’t the bossy alpha-hole I had expected him to be, but had a sweet and tender interior, and once I understood that, the two were a perfect match.

Sometimes, I can’t see what the problem is, why characters are quiet or why a story isn’t coming along. When that happens, the best approach is to put it aside and work on something else. Nine out of ten times when I pick the story back up after a while, I immediately see the issue because I have more emotional distance. Or maybe because those stubborn dead-quiet characters have finally decided to open their mouths because they’re tired of waiting for me to figure it out, who the hell knows, haha.

(PS Luckily, the characters of Alpha’s Sacrifice are super chatty, which means I’m closing in on finishing the sequel called Alpha’s Submission. The expected release date is the second end of May.)