WHO'S CHARACTER IS THIS, ANYWAY?

 

He’s fleshed out in my head. Perfect. A Gene Krupa look-a-like. Check. A big guy, a thug. Check. Dark hair. Check. Sleepy eyes. Yes. Full lips. Oh, yes. Age? Forty. Good. That’s him. That’s the hero of my story. Ready, set, go.

 Wait.

What’s that? Betty says he needs to be younger. He should be in his thirties. His thirties, she says? Okay, okay. That’s doable. Thirties it is. Once again, hands poised over the keys, I’m ready to begin.

Stop.

What now, Betty? Oh, he should be more refined, not quite so thuggish. A step up from a thug, perhaps just a gentlemanly mobster. Yes, I can see it. Of course. Drop the street talk, let him be more educated. Own a joint, not just work it. Back to work I go.

 Well, hell.

Excuse me? What difference does it make if he has a hairy chest or not? Betty, you are joking, right? What’s wrong with a smooth chest? Ah. Betty thinks hairy chests are sexy. She would never be attracted to a smooth-chested man.

Not being a selfish author, I would never dish up a character to Betty who she wouldn’t be attracted to. After all, Betty is my female eye, my pulse on the sex appeal of my book.

By now, my character has been transformed—only slightly, just minor tweaks here and there—but he’s still recognizable, still looks like Gene Krupa. Hell, though, with Betty’s alterations, he is Gene Krupa. I can pull it off, produce a gangster-type hero who still fits into my original vision. Who knows? The changes may make him even better.

 Hold your horses!

Now Betty disapproves of my character’s girlfriend, says she’s too young for my Gene Krupa look-a-like. I must take Betty’s opinion into serious consideration. Betty is a mature woman, after all, whose age group will encompass a good deal of my reading audience. So now my character’s girlfriend has been changed to be a woman closer to his age.

 But who knew?

 Now Mary, another reader, weighs in. Mary is younger than Betty, and feels passionately that the character should be with a younger woman. Not only that, but she insists that the heroine be a virgin. The hero, Mary is convinced, would never marry a woman who is not virginal. Mary feels so strongly about this that she says she will not read the book if the heroine is not a young virgin, and, furthermore, she will not speak to me anymore it this demand isn’t met.

 Literary blackmail.

Betty and Mary are now mortal enemies. Who wins? Does a coin toss now decide my hero’s fate? Eenie meenie miney mo?

You think I’m joking. I’m not. This scenario actually happened to me during my first book.

What did I decide to do? Who won…Mary or Betty? Neither. The hero won. I decided to rely on the old tried-and-true decision maker: my gut. It took some cleansing, but I managed to sterilize my brain of all suggestions and start from scratch, just let my man evolve from his origin in my imagination. I put him in the driver’s seat, told him, you steer, buster.

A writer has to be careful. Sometimes you feel the need to mold the character to someone else's vision, not your own. Sometimes others have characters in their own heads and want you to bring them to life for them. And that’s when their contributions can be deadly for your writing. You might, like I did, find yourself torn—even to the point of damaging your friendship—if you can’t accommodate their ideas.

One of my current beta readers? We agree, we disagree. Most of the time, I fight his suggestions tooth and nail, just to let him know I’m in charge. More often than not, I incorporate his suggestions into the work. I trust his judgment and, more importantly, his instinct. So far, I've been lucky, because my own instinct has coincided with his. When it doesn’t, it just doesn’t, and we agree those indecisive issues will be an editor’s call.

So far, he hasn’t threatened beta reader blackmail over any of our differences. And, remembering my ordeal with Betty and Mary, I suppose I must be really, really grateful.

Who reads your work while you’re writing? Close friends? Strictly other writers? Actual critique partners?

How far do you allow them to go with their input? How seriously do you take that input? How do they respond when you disagree? When you stand fast to your own idea and have to say no?

 Have you ever had a Betty/Mary situation? And if you did, how did you resolve it?

I’d love to know.