Getting the Best Response From Your Characters

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Don't confuse your readers by mixing up what happens when and why.

When one of my nieces was little, she'd tell me stories about her day. They usually made no sense, and not just because she was seven. She'd always tell me what she did before she told me why she did it.

"I cried on the swings, because it wasn't fair and they yelled at me."

It often took multiple follow-up questions to get the real story that she got scolded for playing in a sandbox she'd been told three times not to play in (the reason why involved a cat mistaking it for a litter box).  

Granted, few writers write a novel like a seven year old telling a story, but mixing up the stimulus/response structure happens all the time. Usually it's a small mistake that readers can figure out and move on from, but sometimes it's a big error and leaves them confused.

Two Words That Lead to a Stronger Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

There’s a fine line between a series of things that happen and a plot.

Seeing exactly how a novel unfolds in your head is both a blessing and a curse. It’s helpful to know how the story plays out, but it’s also easy to get scope-locked on what you know happens that you forget to include the why or how of it. The protagonist’s actions might make sense on a first glance, but when you ask questions or poke at the plot even a little, it falls apart.

Things happen because they need to happen for the plot to work, not because the characters made them happen. There’s no cause and effect. There’s just effect.

Basically, characters are following instructions, they’re not living their lives and dealing with issues.