Juggling Characters

When I was eight I begged my mom to take me to a tight rope walker audition after I found an advertisement in our local paper. Does this surprise you at all? Not if you’ve come to know me it shouldn’t.

I love to try new things, take on exciting adventures, and balance like no writer has balanced before.

But it’s tricky and now that I’m editing one novel while writing another, I find it’s rather easy to drop some balls.

What helps me keep my characters straight? Well, I whip out my handy dandy notebooks (thanks to Blues Clues I’ll forever have that etched in my mind) and I review my notes. But there’s more to juggling characters than keeping them straight.

Here are other aspects I need to juggle while taking on the complicated challenge of editing and writing two different works:

Tame InconsistenciesIn the unfortunate event I begin to tangle character traits and other such details between the two WIPs, I must find ways to domesticate this process enough to delineate what’s happening to whom.

Motivation StationI have to refresh my memory of my MC’s motivation in each scene. Doing this helps me balance better.

Acrobatic Ease & FlowJust as acrobats practice their swings in the air so they appear flawless and fluid, I have to cultivate a certain kind of flow with the work I’m tackling at present.

Mood Rings TrueEach MS has a mood I aim to capture. As I sit to either write or edit, I close my eyes and imagine myself in the scene. This injects me right into the mood of the piece.

No Clashing under the Big TopI confess, I can’t write and edit in one sitting. I usually need an hour between working on each project. My schedule right now consists of editing in the morning and writing in the afternoon.

Keep the Bears & Odd Characters DancingThere’s a certain mystery that brings each project together, a dance shall we say. And as all writers know, the editing dance is entirely different than the writing dance. An editing dance has sharp, calculated moves while the writing dance is free flowing and daring. The point is not to quit—to keep dancing.

Fire Swallowing Plots
With each work my ultimate goal is to have the reader feel the fire of the piece in their belly. In order to accomplish this, I need to douse each plot with an ample amount of conflict and seamlessness. Upon sitting to write or edit, I reengage with the plot, I reassess where I want my characters to move—the fires I want them to swallow.

Have you ever tried to juggle characters from two different WIPs—editing and writing at the same time? What helped the process go more smoothly for you?

*photo from Flickr

**this is the 300th post here at the Alley!