Awkward Pauses

Our WIP is part of a trilogy with a sizable cast, including multiple POV characters. In this book, there are several new viewpoints. Some of them are new characters altogether, while two others in particular have been on the page before. But, we’ve never ridden around in their heads until now.

The brand-new characters’ viewpoints have turned out to be easier to write than the returning ones, which surprised us. But with one set it feels like being a stenographer scrambling to keep up as the dialog flows, and with the others it’s as if they keep glancing over to be prompted for their lines.

The reluctant duo are beginning to loosen up, though. The more scene-time they get together, the more their personalities solidify. It’s a matter of us as authors getting to know the characters better, but it feels more like the other way around. It feels very much as if the characters are becoming more relaxed around us.

One possible explanation has occurred to us for why it was the returning cast members we ran into this with, rather than the entirely new ones. Part of our process involves role-playing as our characters, typically when we go out for dinner. And this is something we made heavy use of with the newbies, but did far less of with those we had worked with before. It seems we slightly underestimated the magnitude of making someone a POV character. (Sorry, guys.)

A writing partner is someone with whom you can pretend to be fictional characters, in public.