The Well-Known Stage

In an ever-so slight continuation from yesterday’s post about writing women, I’d like to announce that finally one of the three female leads in The Hushing Days has reached that wonderful Well-Known Stage.

For those of you lucky enough to exist entirely outside of the inner-workings of my really odd brain, let me explain what I mean by “Well-Known Stage.”

When I reach a point in writing a character where I know what he or she will do in any situation I might plop them into, they become “well-known” to me.

Unsurprising to all, the situations I can invent in my scurrilous little imagination are quite challenging.

Oh, these “scenes” I drop these poor, unsuspecting characters in rarely if ever have anything to do with the novel in which I am writing.

This is by design.

Knowing if these players can exist outside of my story’s parameters, knowing how they would react given any off-the-wall authorial ploy I might lob at them, is the only way a character is deemed “well-known” to me.

For instance…

If I can toss the female lead in my Revolutionary War-era romance into an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and know she’s been fleshed out enough by me to survive that post-Apocalyptical madness intact, the lady is good to go in my book. Pun intended.

This is all quite possibly nonsense, but I share it just the same. After all, one never knows when a smidgeon of true value can be found amongst the day’s rubbish.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe