Okay, so I’m rereading chapter two, and I like parts of what are showing up. Intro to Mayden’s friends, good start on Anna… but what about MAYDEN? That is what is screaming at me.

Who is she? Who, Who, Who? I’m going to create some videos from her point of view, which will help me know her, and I’m going to need a few other tricks, too. For now, this very cool excercise got me going!

Now, normally, I wouldn’t care if I know Mayden at this point. I’d be happy to have her show me who she is over 8-10 chapters… but I have readers right now! Yikes! I’m assuming you don’t want to wait that long to have me go back and make sure she is now who she is going to be. So, I’m cranking up the creativity to find her now.

Let me remind you that Mayden tells me who SHE is, I don’t decide. So listening to her, letting her have some expression, is important. My cool video guru Angel McClinton gave me the exercise below to help create a video, and while it is not created YET (coming soon!), I was able to go into Mayden’s mind, and ask her what she would answer for a long list of questions (see this video for the seed idea). The exercise helped hugely, so here are the questions (in bold), and how Mayden answered them off the top of my/her head. Do it for your own characters!

Here is what Mayden had to say: 

I Am a figment of your imagination
I Want you to make me real
I Have more money than any teen should have
I Wish I had a family that was normal
I Hate anything fake
I Fear I will be fake someday
I Hear voices
I Search for my real home
I Wonder if the things I see at night are real
I Regret having no way to reach you
I Love my tabby cat Scottie, and she loves me
I Ache to find magic in this world… or any other
I Always find a way to keep on going
I Usually keep my best thoughts to myself
I Am Not going to give up on you
I Dance alone, to music I can’t forget
I Sing (wait, no, never)
I Never sing–you would not want me to
I Rarely find normal people interesting
I Cry (wait, no, never…ever)
I Am Not always what I seem
I Lose Patience With my Dad, a great guy I don’t really know
I’m Confused About why people do what they do
I Need to know I’m real
I Should be moving on now…

Wow,  who knew about her hearing voices, never singing? I didn’t. Yet with these answers, I can totally see how to better edit chapter one and two, and be prepared for chapter three.  Yippee!