The Day Tommy Stopped Being an Idea

Tommy became more than a collection of traits when I stopped deciding everything he would do and began listening to the character he was becoming.

People sometimes ask where the characters in Journeys Of The Crew come from.

The honest answer is that they don't arrive all at once.

At first, they're little more than ideas.

Tommy was the thoughtful one.

Nate was energetic and always ready to jump into something.

Adam was more cautious, often seeing problems the others overlooked.

Those descriptions were enough to get me started.

But they weren't enough to tell a story.

Something interesting began to happen after I spent months writing with them.

I stopped deciding what they should do.

Instead, I found myself asking a different question.

"What would Tommy do?"

That may not sound like much of a change, but it completely transformed the way I write.

Early on, I could have given any line of dialogue to almost any character.

Now, that feels impossible.

If Tommy paused to study a map, it made sense.

If Nate paused to study the same map... something was probably wrong.

He'd likely already be halfway down the trail, calling back, "You guys coming?"

Adam might still be standing where they started, pointing out the muddy footprints everyone else had missed.

None of those reactions are better than the others.

They're simply honest to who each boy has become.

That's one of my favorite parts of writing.

The characters begin teaching me who they are.

Not because they're somehow taking over the story.

Because I've spent enough time with them that their personalities have become familiar.

It's not much different than knowing a close friend.

You don't stop to analyze how they'll react to a joke or a challenge.

You already know.

The same thing slowly happens with fictional characters.

Sometimes that even means changing scenes I thought were finished.

A conversation might feel perfectly fine until one sentence makes me stop.

"Tommy wouldn't say that."

Or...

"Nate would never wait this long."

Those moments usually lead to a better story because the characters are no longer serving the plot.

The plot begins serving the characters.

I've discovered that's often where the most believable moments come from.

Tommy still surprises me.

So does Nate.

Adam probably surprises me the most.

Not because they've become real people.

But because I've finally gotten to know them well enough to trust them.

These days, I spend less time asking what should happen next.

Instead, I ask a much better question.

"What would they honestly do?"

More often than not, the answer is better than the one I originally planned.

Continue the Journey

Tommy may have been the first member of The Crew to come into focus, but he never sees everything. Continue with No One Sees the Whole Trail.

For more about the readers who might recognize something of themselves in Tommy and his friends, read Who I Hope Finds These Books.