Writing Techniques - Have Fun with Your Fiction

Oftentimes in writing, writers find themselves frustrated when plots, characters, and other elements don't seem to be working out as they expected. At those times, many will turn to serious editing, stress-inducing rehashing of plots and character development, painful rewrites, or even scrapping their stories altogether and starting fresh. In this and subsequent articles, I invite you to consider a far less painful alternative: playtime. Together, we'll begin to look at several different ways you can begin to engage in "play" with your plots and characters. This first installment takes a look at the problem of a character who seems to kill your perfect plotline.

In fiction, even the most seamless and original plot can be mercilessly torn to pieces by unsatisfactory characters. While working with several other writers on revamping dying stories, a common notion occurs time and again: "I love my plot, but I hate my main character!" What makes these once adored main characters become so unruly and despicable? Sometimes it's the realization that a character comes off as one-dimensional and boring. Other times, a character may have too much in their dossier of traits, and the story becomes bogged down in trying to figure out how they fit together, if indeed they do at all. In other cases, a character may be expected to endure a change the author realizes they can't figure out how to bring about without completely recreating the character. In any of these cases, one of the most painful situations in writing come to play: your character is destroying your story, and seems to be taking you down with it! In such a scenario, you could scrap the story altogether and start fresh. Or, you could take another route: play with your character.