One of the most productive methods of getting my characters to talk to me has always been letting them talk to each other. It always surprises me what they'll confide to others that they won't tell me directly.
As an example, my heroine Cleo was having a conversation recently with Willa, a woman who had once been a good friend of her mother's. I needed a reason for Willa to have blocked the name of another character (Steve) from her memory, and this is what came out of her mouth:
“I was engaged once to a guy named Steve. A real rat
bastard. Jealous and controlling when he was sober, abusive when he was drunk,
which was most of the time.” She looked down, picked up a piece of fish and
absently dredged it through the tartar sauce. “Just like my dad, really. I was only
nineteen, you know. Too dumb to realize I was on the road to being one of those
abused women.”
Cleo hadn’t known that about Willa. “But you wised up
apparently and didn’t marry him.”
“No, I didn’t marry him, but not because I got smart. He was
coming back from a ski trip with his brother. It was late, you know, and the
mountain road was slick. His car went over the edge.” She gave them a sardonic
smile. “I thought I loved him, but when he died, all I felt was relief. Him
dying was the nicest thing he ever did for me.”
Her attitude struck Cleo as a little hard hearted, but then she’d never
been abused. Maybe she didn’t get to judge. “I’m sorry you had to go through
that.”
“It’s okay. It taught me to really look at people, you know. Before
I let them too close. Now I look for kindness and a good heart.”
So what tricks do you use to get your characters talking?
That is a good twist- death instead of breakup. Very, very effective.
ReplyDelete