Kris, baby brain doesn’t help. But I also think looking at work as an editor is different from looking at it as a writer. It’s a different thing to teach someone how to do something, than to do it yourself.

Witness: me going on about character arc this week, and I’ve really only done minimal work on my own heroine’s character arc… whoops.

And baby brain doesn’t help matters in any way, either…

Jan, don’t forget, there are SO MANY different ways of doing this stuff. This is just the way I think about it.

I know what you mean, about people taking the external “trappings” of a book and thinking that’s what’s the important part. It’s the character that’s going to hook you, and you can’t copy that.

I’m glad these posts are addressing something useful for you. Me, I could use some hints on how to come up with plot. Because plotting really doesn’t come naturally to me at all.

Food for thought!

I think it’s a little bit of both. For one thing, I think there is a formula to writing any fiction, but only when it comes to structure, not content, and even then, the “formula” is unique to each individual author. I also think there are some authors who, either due to inexperience or laziness, see what works for someone else and adhere to it without understanding why it worked. Harry Potter sells well, so I’ll write a book about a boy wizard. Twilight sells well, so I’ll write a love story about a vampire and a human. Pride & Prejudice is revered, so of course my hero and heroine will be just like Elizabeth and Darcy. This isn’t the case all the time, but it does happen, and if a reader is, like you say, blind to the internal workings of the story, the structural similarities can be jarring when it does.

Julie said: “Everything about this character will be determined, in some way, by her inner conflict, even if this particular aspect might seem contradictory.”

Not to make light of your post, because I’m dead serious about this, but I’ve seen this in action SO MANY TIMES on America’s Next Top Model. Take a girl who already thinks she’s masculine-looking, stick her in a house with 12 other beautiful women, cut her hair into a pixie ‘do, and then tell her to be sexy. Most likely, she will cry and cry and cry until she either owns her fierceness, or is booted for not having any confidence. I point this out because just so true of human nature, and characters behaving as humans is what makes them… well, human, right?

I’m right now preparing to get started on a novel after an extended period of being away from writing, and these character arc posts are helping more than you can imagine. Plotting and pacing have always been my strengths–not character, NEVER character–and one of the reasons I’ve been putting off this particular project was because I knew the characters and their internal conflicts were going to play a heavy part, and I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. Reading these posts, this one especially, has given me ideas on how to weave what I do have (plot, action) with what I don’t have (internal conflict) together in a way that almost feels cohesive enough for a first draft. It’s still a huge step outside the norm for me, but after reading this, I feel pumped enough to at least give it a go. Thanks!