Something I've often struggled with, (And I know others struggle with it too) is when your Characters don't do what you want them to do. Maybe their personality changed -cough- I mean, developed, and doesn't match with how you imagined them. Maybe it messes with the way they do stuff and so it takes your story in a direction... you didn't want to go.
Well, today I hope to give you a couple tips on what to do when that happens!
The Phase of Character Development
When we start off any book of any kind, we come up with Characters for the story in our head. Characters are what make up a story, so if your characters aren't very developed, the story itself isn't going to be very good. Readers will get bored because the character is boring and end up putting the book down, and never pick it back up again.
So, when you start off with a group of characters, you want to develop them until they are realistic and personal to the reader. Then the reader will love the character and want to know what happens to them.
But, sometimes there are those characters where you think they'll be one way, but end up being something completely different.
Whatever you do. DON'T FORCE THE CHARACTER TO BE SOMETHING THEY'RE NOT
this will make them flat and hard to work with because you're trying to make them do something when they don't even want to do it. They'll have two different personalities shine through because, on one hand, you're trying to make then do what /you/ want them to do, while on the other, the character just wants to do his or her own natural thing.
You might be thinking, what on earth am I supposed to do when that happens?!
1. Change Your Point of View
When I was writing my first WIP, I hit a rut in the road. My Hero's ally/Menor started developing and was becoming... a character I did want him to be. In my eyes, this character was going to be strong, mature, and kind of like a leader in a sense. Someone that will get my MC on the right track. But boy, after a little bit of developing, I realized he wasn't like that at. all.
He was slow, kind of blond, and definitely NOT the leader type.
I got stuck because he wasn't doing what I wanted him to do, so what did I do?
I took a step back, and thought, what can I do to keep this story going, but also have my characters feel real? And then I realized that maybe I was using the wrong characters for the wrong things. I just needed to switch my MC and my ally, and you know what? I kind of worked! the story started to flow a little bit better and now I have an idea about what I want to happen in the story.
2. Roll With It
If you find your character doing something that is out of the ordinary, don't get frustrated and stop the presses just because your character isn't sticking to the outline of your book. (That's why I don't even outline my book 😋) Raise an eyebrow, say, "What is this?" and keep going. You might find out something that could be awesome for your book, or maybe, it was just something that helped develop your character.
3. Take a Break to Work on Your Character
If your character just isn't working with you, no matter what you do just take a moment to pull away from your story and try to develop your character. write drabbles, throw them in instances where you want to see what they'll do. If you don't have any inspiration on what drabbles to write about, go on Pinterest and look up writing prompts. It's seriously that easy.
Even if you don't have Pinterest, go to a family member, ask a friend for ideas or instances your character can go through.
It'll help you take a break from your story but also help build your character up.
I hope this little bit of info can help you!
Don't stress out over your characters. Take a deep breath and just try to work it out in ways that will be fun for you!
-K8