It’s the first Wednesday of the month, meaning it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group!
What has me insecure this month? Honestly, not that much.
My rewrite of my prologue passed critique group approval, and I’m halfway through rewriting my big battle scene. One of my fellow critiquers commented that my story is like a balloon, I squeeze it in one place (cut 2K from the prologue) and it bulges somewhere else (I’ve added 2K to the final battle so far). It’s not untrue. As far as insecurities go: life and work has been busy lately, so I haven’t been able write in over a week. My goal was to finish all my edits by the end of June. As today is July 3rd, well, we see that I didn’t make it.
Rather than dwell on my deficiencies, let’s move on to the question of the month!
IWSG Question of the Month: What personal traits have you written into your character(s)?
Ha! Unfortunately, it’s my less desirable qualities that have made it into my characters. MaTisha is a control freak. Cera has an inflated ego. Alberich lacks empathy and coldly analyzes everything (I do have empathy, but it’s a considerably low amount).
On the positive side: I do care about my family, which is a trait that comes out in almost all of my characters.
Do any of your traits make it into your characters? Have you had the “balloon effect” with your writing? Can you believe the year is halfway over?
About Insecure Writer’s Support Group
You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s shocked the year is half over. Where did it go?!
Ooh, control freak! I forgot to add that to my list. Sometimes my characters have too much empathy and fail to take care of themselves.
I love your blog title!
I like that balloon metaphor. I know I’m definitely guilty of that.
My characters seem to either care too much or not nearly enough. Not sure what that says about me, though. 🙂
And no. I can’t believe the year’s half over. I haven’t even finished my goals from last year yet!
Just set a new goal of the end of July instead.
I don’t think I have a lot of empathy but everyone says I do which is why they like to talk to me.
My kids and I decided my husband’s empathy levels are pretty low. He just can’t understand how people can’t get their um, stuff, together. And he’s also a bit of a control freak…hmm.
Awesome that you have a prologue done that your critique group likes. That’s hard to get right. And I think adding the type of personality traits you use can lead to interesting conflict between characters.
As they say, “Write what you know.” To be honest, my character personalities and traits usually come from whatever will make the story more entertaining, so their personalities evolve over the course of the story.
If you’re freaking out about it being July, just wait till we hit October! You better get a lot done in the next three months! 🙂
Don’t be too hard on yourself. If it’s a big battle scene, I’m sure it takes a lot of time to get just right. You’ll get it!
Hey, your prologue passed critique! That’s something to celebrate! And look at you still writing with life being busy (it has, RIGHT?!?!) I have no doubt you’ll get your edits done here soon enough 🙂
Being a control freak is a bad trait? Whoops. 😉 I’m also low on the empathy scale, at least with respect to people who just want to complain rather than work towards positive change. Like you, family is everything to me, and that does come out in one of my MCs in my WIP. Forward progresss with those edits!
When I cut, it usually just falls to the cutting room floor.
Writing like a balloon – what a marvelous metaphor. If I ever have a characters who is a writer, I’d want to use it!
Yeah if any of my traits make into my characters then I am sure it is the bad ones. lol. Wishing you the best with your edits.
I suggest starting June over again by flipping the calendar back. What’s important is doing it right. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
I hate to admit to the “control freak” in me, but it’s there and fight it as I may, I can’t rid myself of it. Now, I’m wondering if I’ve written that into any of my characters. I’ll have to take a look.
Happy IWSG Day! Congrats on keeping the writing going despite setbacks
You can come over and add words to my WIPs. I have the problem of them being too thin. Sigh.
Always good to know I’m not the only control freak in the room. 🙂 I put my worst traits into my characters too. I feel like it’s more interesting that way. haha
Elsie
Hey, removing not-good words in one place and adding gooder words in another is a net positive! Hopefully they’re better words than the ones I’m using. :-/
It’s always great to read when someone isn’t feeling too insecure. Seems like such a rarity for all of us. I can’t believe it’s July either – ugh! Good luck with your editing. 🙂
I never feel like I get enough done. i love this blog hop due to people like you who are so inspiring. Happy IWSG!
If being a control freak would mean I wrote as much as you, then I wish I was one. None of my characters shares my trait of prevarication – well, not that they admit it.
Some of my least desirable traits made it into my protagonist when I was drafting Lost Girl Road. After the last five years of upheaval have I only been able to realize how I was subconsciously creating a character that reflected the conditioning I was not aware of in many ways until long after stopping the writing…
Oh my gosh, what a fun metaphor! I’m picturing a manuscript like a balloon animal now. 🙂
My sarcasm is evident in a lot of my characters. It amused me to no end when a male reader/fan thought that I’d put a lot of myself in Flora, the female scientist in Monsters in Our Wake, when Flora is actually nothing like me.
He should have looked closer at the sea monster. Seriously.