Monologues

Sharon Wildwind

Monologue, anyone?

I’m not talking about that tiresome situation where the heroine, after driving to the deserted warehouse at midnight—without her cell phone, which she forgot to recharge—is confronted by the murderer, who delivers an 11-page monologue to tie up every loose thread in the book, except maybe one tiny element needed for the denouement.

I’ve got this ever-evolving system for character development. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a few major points, and then dive into the writing. Sometimes I find a character so interesting that I’ll go for pages, knowing virtually none of what I discover will make it into the book. I figure it’s my time and if a long character development makes me happy, why not?

Lately my character development has sucked. What dominant impression does the character make? Write a answer. What jobs does the character have in this book? Write another answer. Boring. I’d gotten stale doing the same thing for too long time, but I didn’t know what else to do. I might have been getting boring answers, but at least I was getting answers.

Except, after a while, the answers stopped. I tried writing with no character development, which was interesting, but neither satisfying nor productive. What I was writing was as dull as dishwater.

A writing teacher, who I respect for a lot of things, suggested that I write characters monologue. Oh, please. What possible good could that do?

I got desperate. Monologging wasn’t going to work, but it was at least more active than staring at a blank screen. So I said to a character, “Talk to me. Say anything. Just keep talking.”

The first thing that happened was I began to hear their individual voices. Accent. Timber. Pitch. Word patterns. Vocabulary.

The second thing was that I stopped focusing on events and started focusing on emotional reactions. I discovered that where I’d gotten off track was that I’d become more interested in the answers to questions than what the answers meant to the characters.

I also discovered that I'd been so focused on getting the answers right that I'd put on blinders. I was missing a whole lot of peripheral material that would make a better story, if I just paid attention to it.

I’m pleased to report that I now have a new stable of strong, interesting characters, whom I like, and I’m ready for a summer of writing.

So the writing teacher was right, and I was wrong. Monologging could do a lot of good. Give it a try.

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Quote for the week

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say.

~Sharon O'Brien, life writer, biographer, and teacher