Character Spelunking

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It’s now been about a month since I started outlining my second novel. I have documented premise statements, log lines, story summaries, big moments and complications, character sketches, and scene lists.

This is long and hard work—and not something that I did at all as I wrote my very first novel. It is slow-going, and I sometimes chafe at not being able to open up my Scrivener file and just start typing away. I am even writing everything out in longhand using a pretty green gel pen to slow myself even further and ensure that I’m in the moment when I’m thinking about my story.

Despite the slowness, it feels wonderful. I am totally immersing myself in the world of my characters and fully fleshing them out before I even start writing. It has made me think of Virginia Woolf’s quote in Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Diary about creating the characters in Mrs. Dalloway:

 “I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect, & each comes to daylight at the present moment.”

The work of digging these caves and exploring them is not easy, but it has allowed me to discover poignant traumas and motivations for my characters. They aren’t flat paper-doll cutouts that I’m puppeteering this way and that. They are three-dimensional, and I have often found myself holding my head, feeling a painful headache behind tears as I unearth a particularly painful moment in my protagonist’s past.

I suppose the hope is that all of this laborious work upfront will make for a smoother first draft writing process. I certainly remember the pain of trying to fill ridiculous plot holes in my very first novel on subsequent drafts.

This process has also allowed me to hone my thoughts on the art of writing. I’m not just racing to put down plot markers and pivot points. I’m savoring the telling of the journey. I’m reaching for just the perfect metaphor to describe a moment of enlightenment or horror. It’s made me truly understand the beauty of writing and not just the mechanics of it.

The proof will be in the final draft of this next novel, of course, but I am so enjoying the process of outlining right now that I’m sure that I will put on my head lamp, equip sturdy ropes and a helmet, and jump into character spelunking the next time I sit down to write a novel.