Today, I finished my guide character interview and started creating my best friend character.
Wrapping up the guide was a relief. He is constantly depressed and loathes himself because of a failure in his past (that really wasn’t his fault at all), so his interview was a little depressing to write. But I feel like I have a firm grip on his character now and how he will act.
After finishing his interview, I started the best friend character. Although I already have an idea of what he will be, after all, I wrote him into the book jacket description that I completed earlier in this process. But today, I started exploring why he is who he is.
Applying my lesson from last time, I started with the emotional wound before anything else, including his name. I hadn’t thought about that part of his character before at all when I created his rough sketch in my mind, but it clearly makes sense. While I only got as far as the wound today, I think it is a strong basis to continue his description over the next few days.
Not having a best friend or ally was one of the biggest problems with my last novel attempt. My character in that book had nobody to talk to, so too much of the story happened in his thoughts and it bogged down the pace. I am excited to have a best friend character this time for banter and to help elucidate the story and hero as I go along!