WIPs and Chains

I’m done! I actually finished Office Wife! I have to say, I was worried about my ability to actually finish another manuscript. Of course, it’s far from done. My first drafts are really rough.

On to the next part of my process. I know every writer does it differently, does it their own way. With this very rough first draft I will now go through it about a million times with a list of things to work on. The first thing will be my characters. I want to make them strong, sympathetic, memorable. Will I achieve that? I don’t know, but that’s my goal.

I have gathered materials together from a variety of sources about characters. I’ve read books and taken notes, done on-line workshops, read blog articles. I’ve pulled bits and pieces from all of these sources that I find helpful. I’ve created my own character worksheet. Now is the time to go back and look at those worksheets for these characters and make sure I’ve really shown all the qualities these characters have. Or have I shown different ones and I need to re-think the character? I have to make sure the characters have grown and changed through the story. I have to make sure people will actually like them and care about what happens to them. I have to make sure they are multi dimensional. Whew. Like I said, still a lot of work to do!