Confusing Characters

Last Monday I blogged about characterization and about how we can alter a character's persona by choosing his personality traits.

The comment left by Teresa at Journaling Woman inspired today's writing post about character interaction so, "Thanks, Teresa!"

All of your characters have distinct personalities and their own agendas. Right? Right. If not, go fix it and come back when you're done.

Moving along . . . each character is going to react in a different way to everything that occurs to them in the story. Some reactions may be similar; but for the sake of dramatic tension, not many should be.

For example, your ladies are at lunch. Any ladies, from hookers to mommies to business women to students to Red Hatters. Or a mix of that.

Anyway, the server trips over a dropped napkin and food and drink go flying. No one at the table is spared. One may be angry, one amused. One charmed by the server, one irritated or even offended. And more. The possibilities are endless.

You can take this another step down the path by having reactions to the initial reactions. This would then create a new action for other characters to react to.

Confused yet?

Don't be.

Give it a try and you'll see how it works.

What are you waiting for?