Me: Hey dude, what’s happening?

Stubborn Character (SC): Not much

Me: Oh, okay. So, the last time we talked, or I should say tried to talk as you weren’t very cooperative, I asked you what was bothering you. You didn’t really say anything. Are you ready to talk now?

SC: *shrugs*

Me: Hmm, okay. I get it. Someone has hurt you, right? Why don’t we talk about this?

SC: *shakes head*

Me, with a slight note of desperation: You gotta give me something here, man. I’m trying to write your story. Don’t you wanna be with that sexy hunk I picked out for you? Apparently, he’s a great cook as well.

SC: *steals glance at sexy hunk* *blushes*

Me: Okay, why don’t you start by telling me how you feel about him?

SC: *shakes head*

Me: *flings laptop across the room*

I’m not even kidding when I say that I’ve had conversations like this with my characters the last week. Holy crap, they’re being a bunch of obnoxious assholes. I’m trying to write their story but they’re not cooperating. I tried to work on Smolder, the second book in the dystopian Ignite series. The three main characters had ended up on an abandoned farm in Wyoming at the end of book one, and the first two chapters of book two went fine. But then they stopped talking. I’m trying to get them to do something, to move, to make a decision. But they’re all being nah, we’re good, thanks for asking.

Assholes.

It seems to be in the air as well because several author-friends are reporting the same problem. A case of spring is the the air and that makes our characters go haywire or something? I don’t know but it’s hella annoying.

So what can we do as authors when our characters just refuse to cooperate? Well, we can try to be patient and fiddle around a bit. Or work on a different scene, which is something that has sparked inspiration for me in the past. I don’t mind writing out of chronological order, so I may do a little jump ahead and write something new. Sometimes, it means we made a wrong decision in the previous scenes and we need to fix that. Or we are the ones being stubborn because we’re trying to force our characters into a situation they don’t want. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

But every now and then, nothing works. Look, I’m not someone who is dreamily and lofty about inspiration and creativity. I’m more of a disciplined, butt-in-chair author. I sit my ass down and I write, simple as that. It may not always be high quality, but that can be fixed later. It’s called editing. And I rarely have writer’s block or whatever you wanna call it. That’s when your whole head goes blank (or black, depending on who you ask) and you can’t write anything. I don’t know why, but I think I’ve only had that once.

What do I have occasionally, are stubborn characters. Characters who refuse to cooperate, who stay silent, who mislead you or deceive you. It’s the most annoying thing ever, let me tell you. ‘Cause here I am, all ready to crank out some major words, and…nothing. Crickets. Three mutes in my head, in this case.

Assholes.

I tried it again the day after. And the day after. And even the day after, and then I was done. I’m not known for my patience anyway, so I think giving them three days to reconsider the error of their ways was pretty lenient of me to begin with. I’m now done with these three, and I’ve started working on something else, a plot bunny that popped into my head while I was traveling recently. Those two guys, now they are talking. Big time. See how easy it can be?

So yeah, that’s what we do when stubborn characters won’t talk to us. We move on to a different story, and they’ll never, ever get their happy end. They’ve had their chance, and they blew it. Bye, bye.

(PS, hush now, don’t tell them, but I’m trying a scare-tactic now in the hopes that that will make them talk…. I’ll keep you posted! If not, I’ll just keep working on the other two guys’ story, because admit it, a best-friend’s-son trope in a daddy-kink romance sounds pretty good as well, no?)