Sometimes, characters surprise you.
It’s the reason that I have difficulty writing on an outline, and why I can’t seem to keep a story consistent between drafts.
I’ve been sick the last couple of days (sinus infection, ugh) and hadn’t been writing. I sat down this morning to revise chapter seven. In this chapter, Lucy has learned that the things she imagines becomes real, so she decides to create a way for herself to escape. Only, naturally, it doesn’t go as planned.
In this rewrite, Lucy’s character has evolved a lot. When I wrote this story back in 2011, I didn’t have a really good grasp on age and behavior. Lucy is an eight year old, and now that I have a six year old niece and my best friend has an eight year old daughter, I’ve really had to alter the maturity of the character to be more realistically correct. Instead of being sad and scared and weepy and lost, Lucy Brown is a stronger girl. Yes, she’s still scared. But she’s also smarter, angrier, and braver. As silly as it is, since she’s fictional, I’m actually really proud of her. I’m excited to see how she continues to grow and evolve.
19k words (and change).
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