Control

I've heard some writers say they have a hard time controlling their characters. I've heard other writers say that you created them and therefore you are controlling them whether you think you are or not. I think the truth falls somewhere in between.

Yes, they are our creations. Once we create them, they have lives of their own. It would be nice if our creations would behave the way we want them to, just like it would be nice if our children would behave the way we want them to. If you have children, you know this is a crap shoot on the best of days. Taking this a step further, I imagine the gods spend a lot of time throwing up their hands and rolling their eyes at the way we act, too.

I've spent a lot of time on my current draft of my novel trying to make my female protagonist behave. She's a hormonal young adult and is willing to throw herself at the mercy of her male counterparts all too easily. I feel like I've done nothing but snatch her out of someone else's bed time and time again. What she wants to do is not what's best for her or the story, so I keep prodding her. I imagine the gods do the what they can to influence us, but ultimately, they have to allow us to be who we are and we have to let our characters have their heads, too. Like raising children, complete control is a myth. Watching them bump their heads is painful but it nets change that moves them forward or changes their direction completely. Neither one is all good or all bad and it's almost always interesting.

In the end, I usually let my characters have their heads through the first draft. In the second draft I do some pushing and molding. By the third draft, they have generally figured out who they are and so have I and we work together reasonably well, but sometimes I still struggle with letting them just "be".