Falling Out of Love with My Main Characters

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”  — William Faulkner

Some have said Faulkner meant writers should edit out their superfluous prose when he said “kill all your darlings.” Others believe the darlings he referenced were our all-too-perfect main characters.

We all do it, how can we not? We write our main characters because we like them, sometimes we go so far as to love them. It’s the point, is it not? Who would want to write about someone they didn’t like? Or at least find interesting? We spend a lot of time with our main characters. If I didn’t like him or her, I wouldn’t want to hang out with them as much as I do.

When Catie was visiting last weekend, we talked about some of my main male characters (MMCs). We talked about which ones we liked the best, and what was going to happen with the next two, who we meet in book two of this series. 

We also talked about book three’s main female character (MFC). I made the mistake, at the end of book one, of telling Catie I didn't like a particular character very much. I may have expanded on why. I can’t remember anymore, because now, the character I didn’t like, is the MFC of book three. Consequently, Catie doesn’t like her. And she isn’t very happy that this MFC will end up with the hot MMC, who we’ve both already fallen in love with.

Confused? Yeah, try living it. You think falling in love with them while reading it is bad? I have dreams about these fictional characters . . . even after I’ve moved on to another book. They come and visit me in my sleep. Yes, I know I sound crazy. Having a network of fellow authors keeps me from worrying about it. Most of us establish these connections with our characters. Thankfully, I know I’m not alone.

I have one reader whose critiques often find fault with my “all-too-perfect” MFCs. She rarely finds the MMCs to be. Interesting. She goes on to say she can’t identify with them, because of it. She’s not alone, I’ve heard that about the main character in the first series I wrote.

There is a fine line between making a main character likeable, or loveable, and making them boring as all get out. When I hear comments like the above, I usually argue about the bad decisions the character makes, or point out what I see as flaws. I don’t even find my arguments convincing. 

It makes me exceedingly happy when a reader tells me, at some point in the book, that they hate one of the characters. If I’ve inspired that level of negative emotion, I must’ve succeeded in making them less than perfect.

The book I’m working on now has two MMCs. I haven’t decided yet which one will win out and be the official MMC of this book, and which will headline the fourth book. Every time I think I’ve decided, I change my mind. They’re brothers, twins in fact, and I’m having a good time making both of them less likeable, as I battle over who we will love enough to want to win out. 

In a way, I suppose I’m demonizing them both a little bit. We already know that the MFC isn’t perfect, since neither Catie or I like her, even before the book gets started. In the first few pages I have made her sympathetic though, because I’m going to have to spend the next three or four weeks with her. ;-)

I spent the last two weeks back in book one of this series, which was very difficult. The editor I used on the first go around, didn’t do a very good job. The second editor I used, was better, although took too much of the personality of the book out of it, and I had to add it back in. It was a tedious task and I hated almost every minute of it. 

What was worse, was being back with those characters again. They’re in books two and three, and probably four, but they aren’t the MMC or MFC. I had fallen out of love with them, stopped caring about them, stopped dreaming about them . . . and then there they were, back again. I haven’t enjoyed it. I like them, very much, but once you’ve moved on from a character, spending that much time with them again is like having a visitor who stays too long. You enjoy it at first, and then you wish they would just leave already. 

Today I’m happily back in book three, while the editor works her magic on book two, falling in love with two characters that a month from now I’ll have to fall out of love with, well, one of them, I’ll only have to fall out of love with one of them. Who will it be? Jace or Tucker? I’ll have to get busy writing so I can find out.