So frustrated.

[Rayshian]

So I started out with an epic idea. I sketched maps and even came up with silly little legends and histories. I know exactly what my story is about. I know how it starts and continues and ends. I know the bones. Why, oh why am I having so much trouble with the meaty bits?
I know, I know. The filler's the killer...blah.
I am doing a multiple POV and after an entire chapter just poured forth yesterday from my first character's POV, I am now stuck. No, I am now blocked.
I kind of know who my next character is...kinda...but I'm stuck on where he's at right now and what interesting everyday (what a contradiction but you understand) stuff can he get up to on the back burner?
You know these ordinary types that develop into amazing and essential characters? Yeah...the problem is, right now he's kind of boring haha.
I'm hesitant to continue half-heartedly.
Advice is very welcome at this point...but have patience with me; I'm using a smart phone in my desperation.
If it helps at all, he's a retired (disgraced) general, who's taken to selling his sword to pay for his drinking habit.
TIA.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hello and welcome to the Chrons...

Um, how long have you been writing? When I started my amazing epic that had been in my head for years, I was a little shocked about how hard it was to write the darn thing. And learn how to make ordinary characters interesting. Etc. etc. (I still do struggle, btw, but I think I've maybe learned a few things which make it a tiny bit easier. Having said that, I've spent all morning on about 800 words, so maybe not...)

I would go about your dilemma one of two ways:

go off and write down a few thoughts on some blank paper and hope my mind unravels whatever it is that's sticking
or
blast a very sketchy next scene out and then move on. Come back to it when you're further on and know the character better. Only sometimes the person we've known in our heads for years turns out not to be the person they are on paper.
Good luck with it.
(He sounds like fab fun, btw. )

 

[AnyaKimlin]

When I am stuck I continue half heartedly until I connect with the story again or delete a few pages to start again.

 

[Rayshian]

I love the idea of sketching it out vaguely and I'm pretty sure you've just saved what little sanity I've got ha. So thank you!
As for me, I've been writing about as long as I've been able to read. I've started other works over the years but haven't really been very invested in them, which amounted to losing interest in plenty of good stories. This one is different; it's a compulsion. The story is all there, I just have to write it. Easy, huh? Not!
I do have big plans for the general, I just have to keep him on a simmer for a while...he's gonna be so much fun to bring to rip-roaring, humiliating life

 

[Venusian Broon]

I kind of know who my next character is...kinda...but I'm stuck on where he's at right now and what interesting everyday (what a contradiction but you understand) stuff can he get up to on the back burner?
You know these ordinary types that develop into amazing and essential characters? Yeah...the problem is, right now he's kind of boring haha.

Hi Rayshian,

My first thought is that if it's going to be boring don't put it in a chapter. However I think I get where your coming from, in that you want some sort of development of a character. So I'd be looking to cut the boring bits down as much as possible, and restructure. If he is going to be an important character then to introduce him with an boring list of actions is probably not best

So perhaps I'd tackle it this way*: start the chapter with a flashback, to a moment in the past where this general actually used this sword in anger, when he was someone, explain a bit of his colourful history and backstory - maybe even start or explain totally the situation of his disgrace...then slip into the present where we now find out he's really reminiscing about his past life (which the flashback is now revealed to be one. Also dwelling on the situation of his disgrace would be believable for someone in his state) and now he's sozzled and bemoaning his lot in life; let him give an angry rant about his paupers conditions and then end with him getting his sword (which you have tied to the flashback as being really important to him) for the journey to the pawn shop.

So then we get to hear about his past, know that he's fallen from grace and his current condition.

Anyway that's my first stab at it.


===============


* I'm only going on what you've put down, so I'm using my imagination

 

[Dream Walker]

Whom I am picturing right now is Sean Connery in a combination of his roles from 'The Rock' where he is a disgraced British agent, and "Medicine Man" where he is a washed up anthropologist working for a drug company in the Amazon rain forest.

He had hobbies he would do and undertake besides the drinking. Or especially when he had been drinking. He kept journals and sketched. He sketched everyone he had killed because that was how he got the faces out of his head. He put them down on the page. Your general could attempt something of the same. The general would keep more of a log style with descriptions of battles and so on, be living in the past. Playing up to his past glory.

In "The Rock", he was very neat and exact in his dress and his habits. Even though he was shabby, he tried to keep himself up. Sewed together his raggy clothes as he sat up at night. [Very 'Eleanor Rigby'] Kept everything as shined up as was possible. He had schedules of activities. Morning exercises he would do. Counting them. Adding them to the grand total of everything he has done in his life.

Playing math games to keep his mind up, or perhaps playing games of strategy in his mind.
Think of Robert Downey Junior's Sherlock Holmes. Running through all possibilities then selecting one that achieves the most effective result.

The only thing he wanted was to reconnect with his grown family, most notably a daughter that had been taken away from him.

And in the television show MASH, Colonel Potter would go and talk to his horse when he had been drinking and was morose.

And there is always wenching. You could have it as he has a long time relationship with a faded flower of the evening. She knows him and when they meet they are like an old married couple. though they get to the bed eventually.

 

[Rayshian]

Great ideas. Love them. The general *would*have habits ingrained from his years in the service. I think what I might do is introduce him and make a holy-show of him at the same time. Perhaps he even attempts to sober up following this, which leads to angry outbursts. Sometimes you can create a character that people hate before they love...or just love to hate ;-)

 

[Ursa major]

Write whatever you need to write to get your writing in gear. (It doesn't have to be something from the next chapter; it can be any scene in the book.) And if it doesn't end up fitting in the final book, that doesn't matter, because it will have already served its purpose by then.

 

[Dream Walker]

Be careful of the blowup thing to get him cashiered. It would play better if he was quietly eliminated then if he goes out with a roar. Remember at first he, being washed up, wrung out and put out to pasture would not have the fight left in him. That's what he would get back when he has to use all his old skills and develop new ones to survive. Think of Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" or "Fifth Element".

 

[Chel]

It can also be helpful and inspiring to "interview" your character(s) to get to know them better. I found quite a few lists of questions by a simple google-search, and then I sat my characters down one at a time and started asking.

A lot of it was stuff I already knew about them, but some of the answers they gave me were a bit surprising. And I definitely have a clearer picture of their personalities now, which will, I hope, show in the text.

 

[jastius]

interesting amazing and essential character of a cashiered general? we actually have one of those here in Canada.. the ex general Romeo Dallaire. He was disgraced but it really wasn't anything he did. The armed forces took apart the entire division. dismantled it. And it had a hundred year history. he went down with the ship.
huge scandal. and it wasn't just a good regiment. it was the best Canadian regiment for decades. taken apart under him. for obeying orders.
They got involved in one of those situations that someone else had started and it was their job to clean up. given a mission to expect failure from the beginning.

Roméo Dallaire



Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, (born June 25, 1946) is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author and retired general.More at Wikipedia



"Go now to make a difference in this perilous and broken world. May you all hold each human life in the same regard as your own."

Interviews - General Romeo Dallaire | Ghosts Of Rwanda | FRONTLINE | PBS

 

[K.B. Nelson]

I worked for a while with Mickey Zucker Reichert, meeting in her home with a science fiction and fantasy writer's group. She loves to outline, outline, outline before she writes. But not me. While some folks can outline, plan, etc, I find other folks are much more able to write by letting the characters breathe.

When I get stuck, I will take my character that is driving me nuts, and drop him or her into a totally unrelated short story and just let them play. Often, this triggers the ole imagination, and off the novel goes again.

It's also helpful, at least to me, to take a walk and talk out-loud, playing with whatever dialogue comes up. As long as nobody tries to lock you up for being crazy, it often teases out some great material...

 

[Wino]

I find that it's helpful to go back to the plot. What's your goal for the book? And then map out a "general" direction of where each chapter should go.

How does each character's story line tie into the plot? Even if he's a boring character, try to find out where he fits in in the big picture.