🥑 you're on your way

Let’s go on a journey.

Once you’ve identified the moments your character feels inconsistent and mapped out their weaknesses, needs, and self-revelations, you’re ready to make changes.

First, I’ll bring back Emma Hill (author of All for Mage and Melody) on character consistency:

A story takes your character(s) from a place of weakness and need to a place of fulfillment. (Or unfulfillment, which is a discussion for another time!)

Let’s go back to the moments of inconsistency. Remember, they can be:

• Pieces of dialogue

• Actions

• Thoughts

• Responses

• Decisions

• Emotionality

How we fix them depends on where we are in the journey.

Early on, we’ll fix inconsistencies by focusing on how the character acts out of their weaknesses.

Example: if a character’s weakness is a fondness for luxury, a spontaneous act of generosity may feel out of place. Consider how these edits can affect the story:

• Remove the act of generosity from the story.

  • You’ve pared down the word count and eliminated a potential distraction/contradiction.

• Change the character’s choice from generosity to stinginess.

  • You’ve highlighted the character’s weakness and created an opportunity to explore their motivations.

• Change the character’s motivation for this act of generosity, e.g., to impress a wealthy friend who owns a really nice vacation villa in Greece.

  • You’ve added nuance and movement to this part of the story, along with something to look forward to (will this manipulative act pay off for the character?).

And so on.

At some point in the story, your character will likely change from acting out of their weaknesses to acting out of their need. They may not even know they’re doing it.

Example: maybe you’re 80% through the story, and your character is now destitute in an alley, and a child is sitting nearby à la Oliver Twist. Consider how different actions and consequences can lead us to the self-revelation.

• The character gives the child a piece of bread.

  • They learn the power of generosity. In other words, they realize a truth that affects their life.

• The character gives the child a piece of bread.

  • They don’t get any benefit from it and ultimately reject generosity, which leads to their own peril. In other words, the self-revelation doesn’t lead to change. (We’d call this a negative character arc.)

• The character keeps the bread for themselves.

  • They regret their choice, which leads them to change when presented the opportunity at the story’s climax. This would be a successful self-revelation.

And so on.

This isn’t A vs. B, right vs. wrong. It’s a world of possibilities and resonance.

What choices resonate with your character’s journey?

If you’re looking for more character guidance, a developmental edit may be right for you. Spots can fill quickly, so reserve yours today!

Have a question about your characters? Send me a message and I may feature your dilemma in a future newsletter.

Thanks for reading Avocado Bites!

^{Avocado Bites is a publication of Avocado Tree Press, LLC, that helps you revise your stories one bite at a time. We love working with indie and traditionally published authors on fiction manuscripts—and if that’s you, welcome to our target audience.}

^{Ready for a sample edit? Here’s our site.}

^{Addison Horner is the chief editor of Avocado Tree Press. Here’s his newsletter. It’s different but still pretty good.}