Before you read down to the Five, don’t forget to check out my interview with Kathryn Fitzmaurice on her wonderful new MG historical-fiction novel, A Diamond in the Desert. Leave a comment at that post to win a copy of the book!
And onto the revelations. Which aren’t necessarily HUGE revelations, but–you know–those small moments that come along as you think and write, the ones that make you say things like, “Oh!” and “Really?” and “Well, Duh!” But at least they come along.
1. Anger is so often fear externalized.
2. My MC’s mother may have been the youngest sibling in her family, not the oldest.
3. The opposite of the thing you want most can be pretty powerful in its own right. Maybe frighteningly powerful.
4. Finding pieces of yourself in a character can be shocking, informative, and–once more–frighteningly powerful. Phrase of the week?
5. Little things like a sudden car repair and a surprise afternoon of playing bocce ball in the bright sun can throw a wrench into your writing time. Happily, weekends are available to help you (still) hit those goals.
What did you learn about your WIP (and/or yourself!) this week?
Becky Levine 
#4–definitely! It scares me sometimes how mean my antagonists can be–especially when I know that came out of my head. Hopefully some of my characters’ good points come from me, too. But it’s the neutral ones that are “real” that I think make the best grounding for a book.
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I don’t want too many of my good traits into the antagonist, but I know what you mean!
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#4 also. But what did Rose mean about “neutral ones”? Dialogue needed here!
#3 intrigues me as I realized today I needed to figure out what my character doesn’t want.
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Carol, the opposite thing is one of the big parts of using Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook–it helps (I think!) you get to character conflicts and tensions.
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