Writing hard-to-work-with characters

[Christa M. Miller]

I've struggled with a character in my novel for as many years as I've been writing it. It wasn't that I was trying to make him do something that went against what he wanted to do. I realized a long time ago that he was repressed.

Therefore, finding things out about him was always more like creating him from scratch, rather than his telling me as I went along (as the other two main characters did). Figuring out his motivations, weak points, etc. however? Not like pulling teeth - more like extracting impacted wisdom teeth. With no painkillers.

I think I finally managed okay, but I still worry that he's the weak point in the whole novel. He's definitely necessary, but I just don't want folks to reject the ms based on the fact that he was hard to write (thus potentially stilted-sounding action).

Anyone else ever faced this? What did you do about it (unless of course you just decided to cut the character, or let him do something else)?

[Christa M. Miller]

Thanks, Jack. I guess, since the novel is just about done save some revisions, the only thing I can do is send it out. Agent reactions will tell me for sure!

[Jack Getze]

Hey, Christa. Thanks for the Backstory comments. I had to jump in here because of what happened to me--setting aside the thriller and going back to an old story that I had an emotional connection to the protagonist. The protag of that thriller was the biggest problem. I struggled and struggled with him. I couldn't get him to relaly comes alive. I'm not giving advice, only relaying my experience, but my writing took off when I went back to a character that was "easy" for me.

[Christa M. Miller]

Thanks, Stephen. I thought about that. Problem is, if I wrote him out altogether, the story would be "missing" something. His story is necessary. That's why I tend to think he's repressed. Like he needs to figure out how to be less so.

I have often thought that I have the most problems with him because he's the most like me out of all 3 characters. I don't think I'm repressed, but I do think that I'm trying not to put too much of myself "out there." If that makes any sense.

[Stephen Blackmoore]

In cases like that I find that I have to rethink the whole character. I've had situations where my protagonist was just plain boring. The villains were great, but the good guy just came across as, well, kinda limp wristed. I realized at that point that I wasn't telling his story. I was telling the villain's.

Try asking yourself, when he's in the scene, whose scene is it? Is it this character's scene, or is he just there to bounce dialog off of? Is he the guy moving it forward, or is he just local color? If it turns out that he's the "Second Man In Restaurant", then you should seriously think about removing him or puttin him into a less important role.