It is difficult sometimes to remember that the characters have to progress as well. Characters must be well-defined and rounded, so that readers can get involved in their story. The main character(s) have to have their own development, have to go on their own journey. Sometimes I forget that.
So what do you do when the novel is already written, and you don’t know whether your characters really have a story arc of their own? At the time Intruders was 58,000 words – that’s a lot to pick apart and look for character arcs. Then I had an idea.
I made a spreadsheet! Listen carefully. Column 1: Chapter and Scene number. Column 2: Scene title. Then one column for each character – I put main characters first, then everyone else in alphabetical order, to make them easier to find. Then I went quickly through each scene and noted down under the relevant characters what each character did. It only took me a couple of hours while watching TV.
Then, I made a tab for each character and copied columns 1 & 2 and the character’s column to the relevant tab. Having separated the characters, I could go through each tab and delete all the blank scenes (where the character didn’t appear). Bingo! Each character’s arc. Now I can see where the holes are.
As you can see, the first three chapters are largely about Enns, she has a part in chapters 4 and 5, but then nothing until 8, then 12, then 14. This may be fine according to the story, but it does highlight where she’s missing, and I had to think if I was happy with that.
Sometimes they are only minor things, but still important. For example, Balitoth is missing from the first part of the story because he is in hospital. I realised after doing the analysis that when he comes back, no one comments. That’s odd. Surely his crewmates would be glad to see him.
I found this extremely useful. I think it’s definitely worth doing, as one of the checks when you’re editing.
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