Why Characters Do What They Do

A few years ago shortly after I published my first Shaker book, The Outsider, I talked to a book club in Washington state. They were having just their second meeting as a book club and they had picked my book. They must have contacted me to have a call-in at their meeting.

I’ve always thought being in a book club had to be the best. For years, that’s all I did — think of the fun of getting together to discuss books. Only recently, after years of not being part of a book club, I joined with some other writers for an on-line book club. I don’t always get the book read, but now that I listen to audio books while I’m busy with this or that necessary chore in between writing times, I can usually get the book read or listened to.

I’ve had fun hearing what the others think of the stories. Often, it’s very different from what I think. While that book club experience is new for me, for years  my sisters and I have talked books when we get together.  We don’t always agree on which books are best either, but it’s fun talking about the different ones we read.

My oldest sister has kept a list of the books she reads for years. I tried doing that a few years ago, but I couldn’t remember to write the titles down. I guess I was too eager to get to the next book to read. Goodreads is how some readers keep up with their books, but I’ve also met people who have a computer program of some kind to keep up with their books. I admire them and all those I’ve met with their little notebooks at book fairs checking which books they’ve already read so they won’t buy duplicates. I love to read but sometimes I have to do my reading for research instead of for the fun of it.

Stephen King says if you don’t read, you shouldn’t try to write. And I can’t argue with that. I tell the young wanna-be writers who ask me for advice that the best thing they can do to prepare themselves to write is read. I don’t think they believe me, but I know it was true for me. I’m thankful for the years when I was a teen and had extra reading time to let the words of other writers bury themselves in my brain while I absorbed how they put together those words to make a story that entranced me. I do try to carve out more reading time every week, because I need those fresh words of other writers to keep my own writing fresh. Audio books help, but I think reading the words is better for absorbing the writing skills of the other authors.

But back to the long ago book club visit. One of the book club members wanted to know why one of the characters in my book, The Outsider, had done what she did. Why did I let what happened to the character happen. Perhaps you’ve read a story where the character did something you didn’t like. I certainly have. I’ve read books where I wanted to tear out the last chapter because I wanted a different ending. But as long as the author can make me believe that yes, that is what happened whether I like it or not, I’m okay with it. That’s what I try to do with my stories. I don’t remember the character or event she wanted to be different. That was too long ago. But The Outsider is set in 1812. Life was different then. Fevers were deadly. Women had few options for independent living. Most religions had strict moral codes. War was as much a struggle against the elements and disease as against the enemy. I tried to keep my characters within the history of the era. Those all sound like fine reasons for whatever might have happened in that story. I do remember that there was some dreadful history about the War of 1812, but it was accurate to the war events.

However, the characters I dropped down into that history were fictional. I could have written their story differently. But the real truth of why any of my characters do whatever they do is because that’s just what they do. When I’m writing, the characters’ lives unfold in my mind. At times I point them in this or that direction, but once I get them going along my story road, sometimes I’m simply along for the ride. I might have a general idea of where they’re headed. Especially my historical books where I fit my story into a historical timeline.

I didn’t have that with my Hollyhill books, Scent of Lilacs, Orchard of Hope, and Summer of Joy. Story ideas developed through Jocie and the other characters as I wrote. I didn’t plan Wes saying he was from Jupiter until he said so. I didn’t plan Aunt Love’s story until I was writing it.

So far my characters have come to life enough in my head that I’ve been able to let them live out their fictional lives. That’s not to say I don’t do a little guiding as I go along to keep from getting completely off track with my story. I suppose it’s a delicate balance letting your characters tell you their stories and letting them take over your story. And you know, after I wrote that sentence, I’m not sure which way is best. What do you think?

Of course, every writer has his or her own method and way to write. What works for one might not work for another. If I had wanted to, I could have told Wes that saying he was from Jupiter was just too strange, but the story wouldn’t have been as much fun and we wouldn’t have gotten to know Wes nearly as well if I’d done that. And what happens in The Outsider fits the time and the history and the characters.

The same goes for my many characters I have followed down story trails since those books were publishes. I hope I was able to make you who may have read them believe that. That’s the real trick – to make up a story that readers believe.

Do you get upset when characters does something really dumb?