What your life has already taught you about your character

I started three novels, wrote thousands upon thousands of words, and ground to a halt every time. I got to 30,000 words in my last manuscript before I discovered the thing which unlocked everything for me. And it was something I had within me all the time.

I’d mined all the craft books in the hyperfocus way I have: beat sheets, plot structures, podcasts on story formula. I would think hard about what should happen next. Something dramatic. A twist, maybe. Would this create tension? Would that keep a reader turning the page? I was building from the outside in, event after event, and somewhere underneath it all, nothing was actually holding together.

The manuscript stalled because I was asking the wrong question. Not what happens next, but why would my character do that.

What changed everything was understanding that a character's belief shapes her emotion, and her emotion shapes what she decides to do, or not do. That decision is what carries into the next scene. Not the plot event sitting on the surface, but what's happening emotionally underneath it. Once I could see what was happening with my character’s inner world, the next scene stopped being a guess and became something I could find.

That's the piece I'd been missing. I didn't need to learn anything else about beats and structural frameworks. Instead I needed to start from my character, and let the shape of the story come from there. I went on to finish that manuscript at eighty thousand words.

This is why I work with women writers the way I do. We start with the character. What happened to her before the story begins. What she believes about herself and the world because of it. What she wants, and what she's afraid of. The plot isn't something forced from outside. It's what happens when a person like that is placed under pressure and has to choose.

I think this is also why the women I work with are often so well suited to this way of writing, even if they don't see it in themselves yet. A woman who has lived through real change, a career left behind, a marriage ended, children grown and gone, an identity shifting in midlife, already understands how belief shapes a decision, and how a decision changes a life. That understanding doesn't need to become a memoir. It isn't therapy writing. But the same emotional intelligence that helped her make sense of her own life is exactly what her character needs her to bring to the page.

If this sounds like the piece you've been missing too, I'd love to talk it through with you. I offer a free 30 minute call, no obligation, just a conversation about your story and where you're stuck. You can book a time here.