Writing Wednesday — getting out of your characters’ way

My friend Donnell Bell found this quote from me, in a long-ago online discussion, in her files and made this fun graphic. I honestly don’t remember the context or the conversation, but I know what I meant — or what it means to me now. To create a well-rounded character, you need to give them deep backstory. Give them baggage — experiences, emotions, biases, misconceptions they don’t see or don’t want to change, flaws they don’t want to acknowledge or fix. Aches, joys, jealousies, regrets, and fantasies. When you give them a full suitcase and you know what’s in it, you can unpack it at just the right time. You can pull out an experience that gives your character a particular way of seeing events and responding to them, you can hear that amazing bit of wisdom or that horrible misjudgment come out of their mouths. When they act from their own mixed bag of life, they’ll come alive on the page.

And what do I mean by keeping your own baggage to a minimum? Simply that you need to stay out of your characters’ way. When they horrify you, let them. When they say something that makes you cringe, write it down. Reserve judgment. Let that first draft be all theirs. Only when you have a complete draft is it time to exercise some judgment. Maybe the character showed a side of himself that’s exactly right and you didn’t plan it or expect it, but you unlatched the bag and out it came. In revision, you can decide if it’s too much or needs to be played up. Your writing voice, your subconscious, may have seen opportunities your conscious mind would have been blind to. Get it all out, see what you have, and then edit, sharpen, and polish.

That’s the best way to take your readers on a real trip.

Law and fiction — blogs with a real-life view of lawyering

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Writing a character who is a lawyer, but you’re not one — or closely related to one? A recent post on favorite blogs for lawyers on the Washington State Bar Association blog mentioned these, so I took a quick look. Good inside info.

Corporette: subtitled Fashion, Lifestyle, and Career Advice for Over-Achieving Chicks. If your image of women lawyers is pumps and charcoal gray suits, take a look. Things have changed, thank goodness!

Attorney at Work: No pictures of shoes or ruched-sleeve jackets (love ’em!) here. Lots of practical advice for the working lawyer, including ideas for business development, better meeting strategy, and being a good employer. I like this for writers because it reminds us that lawyers are business people, too — and like all business people, some handle it better than others. The pieces here will give you a better idea of a lawyer’s daily life, and may suggest some conflicts, small and large, that you haven’t thought of.

More than 50% of lawyers work on their own, or with only one or two other lawyers. Solo Practice University gives advice for the solo and small-firm lawyer. Like Attorney at Work, quite a few posts apply concepts from other fields to lawyering, which I like very much.

Remember that the more you understand about your character’s real life and daily struggles, the more conflict you can add to your stories and the more fully you can develop your characters — and understanding what they want and will do to get it is what leads to plot. Blogs are a great way to catch a glimpse of daily concerns and struggles, the very stuff that help us build intiguing characters on the page.