The Surprise Character

Finally, I'm writing again. It's been hard since I haven't had any space to myself in months and nowhere to set up and get comfy. A writer needs a place to write; at least this writer does. And where I live currently has an 89 year old woman with severe dementia (my SIL's mother) who likes to sit with me when I'm at the kitchen table and tell me about how she doesn't have a working heart, she's related to every president ever and the Pope kills nuns.

Now I have a bedroom of my own. And a desk. And I can write.

So I'm working on a story that is just starting to move and I needed my heroine to get access to spy on someone and so I gave him an older assistant who is starchy and slightly mean. And I love her. She's insulting the heroine right and left and being a wonderful old bitch and she's just what the heroine needs.

So she'll be staying.

She wasn't planned at all and my original intent was to have her get fucked over by the heroine (it would make sense in the context of the story) but well... I like her too much. And it amused me to realize that although the story does have a plot, there's a subtext that I thought I could fill with planned characters but then this starchy old lady showed up and decided to change my plans.

And that makes me so happy.

I've always wondered about writers who have their stories completely mapped out and stay to a plan. I write with a premise in mind and as I write the story starts filling itself in. And the characters evolve and change and sometimes they dictate the story change with them.

So I'm a happy little writer now. I'm letting Ann change the story and change my character and it makes me purr in delight.