Farewell my friends, it's been great! by Khyiah Angel

They say the second novel is harder to finish than the first. I’m not sure about that. My second novel, the one I’m writing now, is coming along just fine. At least it was until I reached the climax— it was only then that it came to a grinding halt. But the same thing happened during my first novel. I began writing the climax where something major happened to one or other of the main characters, and then it all stopped. It wasn’t that the inspiration or plot ideas dried up because I knew what was going to happen, what needed to happen. Nor was it the normal run-of-the-mill procrastination or busyness of life. No ? it was more of a mind-numbing, hair-tearing, fear inducing, writing catatonia that lasted for months.  And now it has happened again. Aaargh!

I don’t know why. At least I didn’t until I chatted to some of my writerly colleagues. Apparently, it seems to be a little more common that one would think. There are a few theories floating around about why writers may suddenly find themselves staring forlornly at the screen wondering what happened to their muse. Probably the most common of these is the attachment we feel to the characters we create.

A writer typically spends quite a long time with these characters inside their heads. Conversations happen at all hours of the day and night for months (sometimes years) at a time. To write effective narrative, characters must be authentic and to be able to communicate this authenticity it is imperative that an author knows their characters inside out and back to front. We have to know their likes and dislikes, what sets them off, what calms them down, how they might react in any given situation; we have to know all the nuances of their personalities. We need to know the type of person they’re attracted to, or repulsed by, where their soft spot is, what makes them jealous, what excites them. And to get to know them we talk to them. Often. And everywhere. They come with us in the car and on the bus or train. They’re with us when we walk the dog and when we’re having a shower. They come to work with us and accompany us shopping and visiting. They are there, in our heads, all the time. Is it any wonder then that we find it difficult to write trauma into their lives?  Or to let them go?

During the drafting process of my first novel I wrote and rewrote the last few chapters so many times it was ridiculous. I spent more time on the final three or four chapters than I had done on the preceding twenty. After many a sleepless night I finally gave in to the distress caused by the experience one of my characters, and wrote the trauma into another character’s story-line. I slept well after that and it was then that I could write the ending satisfactorily. But it took months of angst.

This time round, I am facing a similar dilemma. Not so much the reluctance to write trauma, but to progress the story-line beyond the climax. Something is yet to be resolved. I just don’t know what. I know how it ends. My kids (aka my four YA characters) are with me constantly but, as happened last time, now they are waiting patiently for me to finish with them. Maybe it’s because I need to adjust the plot line a little, maybe I have to be far more disciplined with them and just tell them how it’s going to be, or maybe I need to be patient and wait for them to tell me how they think it should end. Or maybe it’s because  I’m just not quite ready to let them go yet.

How do you farewell your characters?