Quit Messing With My Plot!: The Problem of Character Creep

Alma T. C. Boykin

No, not creepy characters, but characters who 1) won’t stay the way you originally planned, 2) won’t stay in the proper role, or 3) insist on expanding the story. Also known as “this was supposed to be a short story, not a 40K word novella!” Or worse.

I sort of envy writers who can outline a book, write the outline, and not have characters say, “Um, yeah, I’m not that stupid.” Or “I’m not what you think I am and I’m going to become a major character who requires completely changing the protagonist’s back-story. Thpppppth.” And a few were supposed to be the protagonist, and bowed out for reasons unspecified (although those are less common.)

So, what are your options when a character threatens to derail a story? Roughly: roll with it, bump the character to a different story [also known as appeasement], drop the character, or see what can be shifted to reach a compromise.

Roll with it seems to be what ends up happening with me. I’ve had two male characters promote themselves, one to a love interest, one to a step-father. In the first case, the character shifted roles very, very early in the series, almost before it was a series, so I could ret-con him into the story and foreshadow developments much better. In the long run, that worked very well and deepend the story in ways that made the series much stronger. In the second case, it allowed me to create the Hunters and add a lot of depth to the story world. I trusted my hind-brain (aka Muse) and things worked. It would have been nice if Muse had warned me earlier about Arthur and the Hunters, so I could have ret-conned them into the earlier books, but it might be just as well in this case that they gradually appear over time. For Lelia to latch onto Arthur earlier, before she and he were both emotionally ready to accept the relationship, might well have caused more pain for both of them. That’s something apparent now, but not at the time Arthur became more than just a recurring major-minor character.

Which leads us to option two: promise the character his/her/its own story and ease them back into their proper role in the original work. Jens Saxklar in the second Merchant story fits that. There’s a lot about him, even in that short story, that’s different from the Merchant-world standard. He wanted more space. I gave him that in the book about the stone cutters. He’s still a minor character, but readers learn why he’s considered a bit “off” by the others. It also introduced more about the goddess Valdher, who is a major driving force in a later book. Jens is who he is, and the character works best as an intriguing and important minor figure. Pam Uphoff introduced me to the technique of “appease/bribe the character” and it sometimes works. But not always. See the paragraph above.

I’ve dropped characters, but that’s rare. In those cases, it turned out that a different kind of person was needed in the role. I saved the notes I’d made already, and once found a place for someone like that in a different story. Other times, I realized that either I wasn’t ready to write that kind of story, or that I didn’t need to let my mind “go there.” This is very, very rare, at least for me.

Compromise works on occasion. I’d planned to bump off a character who was a reporter, and a very good one. He was sneaky, smart, could keep his muzzle shut, and had a very, very strong survival instinct. I’d planned to use him as a PoV character only to a certain point, then bump him off in a disaster. He did the Azdhagi version of giving me a disgusted look and saying, “Are you kidding me? I’m getting the heck out of town before trouble hits, since I can see it coming. You idiot. I didn’t last this long by ignoring warnings.” And so he bailed out, and lasted for the entire book.

This might not be a problem for you. Or you may have different coping strategies for character creep. If so, what are they?

Image: Author photo of statue of Jan Zizka, leader of the second phase of the Hussite Rebellion. He went from minor noble to feared war leader. Tabor, Czechia, June 2019.