I’ve spent this week living and breathing my main character. Putting her down on paper, answering all sorts of questions about her, mapping out her life and the events that made her the complex creature she is. It was nice.

But with zero words written this week (because time does not stretch), I wonder if it was too much. Do I really need to know all of this to write her story?

The last book I read, which was, to be honest, a clusterfuck of a plot and therefore a five-star read, revealed exactly two events from the main character’s life. Nothing more. They were two major, life-changing events, but only two nonetheless. The rest, the author built as the story unfolded, taking me along for the ride.

On the other side of the coin, the book before that, another five-star read for its whimsical prose and ethereal atmosphere, told me everything about not one, but two main characters, from the moment they were born. And it was incorporated beautifully into the book. It was part of the story.

So this leaves me with mixed feelings and the usual doubts of a first-time author. Maybe I’ve just answered my own question. Sometimes you need to know everything about your main character, and sometimes you don’t.

And if that’s the case, I assume the writing itself will tell you what you need, right? You start with a basic understanding of your characters, and the plot, along with their reactions to it, will tell you whether you need to know more or less about their personalities and what made them who they are.

Yes, that makes sense to me. So, the question of whether I should do this deep dive now for all my main characters gets a big fat NO. I’ll use my time to write and dive deeper into them when I need to.

This is fun. Asking and answering my own questions in the same post. My brain indeed works in mysterious ways.