Motivation

Firstly, yesterday's stats:
Current word count: 3912 (less than 3000 words behind)

Food & drink: One hot meal.  Not enough water - need to drink more!

Meds: no - forgot.

Weather: Overcast

Health: Slightly better

Mood: OK.

Activity: At home all day, but not asleep so much.

Yesterday saw me write nearly 2000 words, which is the best I've done so far this month.  I hope to equal it today.  Yesterday also saw me type the first piece of dialogue for "The Listeners": I've been working on "The Last Days of Lucanium" up to now.  The "Lucanium" story is one I like, and think worth telling, but the "Listeners" is the story that's been brewing in my heart for over two years.  When November arrived I decided to push on with the Lucanium story first, for several reasons:

• It was likely to come out at under 50,000 words (at least in the first draft), so I would have one completed manuscript for certain by the end of November.
• The storyline is a little simpler, making it easier to get into.
• It was more fully outlined

And

• Most of the characters in "The Listeners" still don't have names.

I ddn't realise it until this week, but that last reason is the biggest one.  The names themselves don't matter, but the fact that I can't decide on names for these characters tells me that they have not yet developed properly in my imagination.  I know what they are like in terms of plot-line personalities (Angry Woman, Professor, School Teacher, etc) but I haven't given them any depth.  Why is she angry?  What other traits does she have?  How are the Professor and the School Teacher different in their approach to education?  Why did they choose their current jobs?  I began to think about the characters in October, but when I go back to the character outlines I made for the Listeners, I realise that they are awfully one-dimensional.

One-dimensional characters are not only boring and predictable, they are also unreal.  Many people have one or two major character traits, but nobody has only one or two sides to their soul.  This is one of those homilies that we all know in our heads, but can easily forget when our emotions join the game.  This happened to me yesterday.

Someone on the NaNoWriMo froums posted a link to an inflamatory anti-NaNo article published in an online magazine.  I won't link to it, not only because I don't want to fan the flames, but also because it was very badly written.  If you're desperately interested and have time to waste search for "salon" magazine.

The writer of this article, Laura Miller, was torn to shreds on the NaNoWriMo forums, and also in the comments section of her article.  Most of the points made against her in these posts were valid - her arguments were flimsy and most of her "facts" consisted of anecdotal "worst case" scenarios, which she presented as typical of the WriMo community as a whole.  However, things criticisms were intertwined with comments about her character: she must be a bitter, failed novelist, she has a grudge against the world, she wants writing to be an exclusive profession, and, naturally, she's an evil old hag who peddles poisoned apples.

I got swept up in the rush of feeling against her, and the carefully reasoned rebuttals made the insults and slurs seem reasonable, at first.  Then I realised that something felt wrong.  Just like naming my characters, I couldn't see just what the problem was but I knew it was there.  That's when I realised, I was seeing Laura Miller as a one-dimensional character, "NaNo Hater".  What do I know about her, for sure?  All I know is that she wrote an article saying NaNoWriMo is a waste of time.  Why did she write it?  Getting past the gut reaction "because she's a *&!#%", she herself must have thought she had a valid argument.  What was going on in her head, and in her life, when she wrote that magazine article?

Of course, the answer is I DON'T KNOW.  With made-up characters I am free to invent all kinds of explanations for their behaviour, with real people I have to acknowledge that I don't know.  But I do know that no-one, ever, wakes up one morning and thinks, "I'm going to be evil and horrible to as many people as I can, just because."  There is always a reason.  It might not be a good reason, but everyone is sane and reasonable in their own eyes.  Because in real life, there is no such thing as a one-dimensional character.

Learning to see things from other people's viewpoints is not easy, and it takes a certain amount of guesswork and imagination.  Fortunately for me, I'm a writer.  Imagination is something I can do.

Oh, before you get the idea that I'm setting myself up as some kind of all-forgiving saint, I should add that I have named one of my characters since yesterday.  The villain, to be exact.  No prizes for guessing the name...