Lesson 4: Re-Visioning Your Story Do your characters play well with others? While writing the first draft you can allow your characters to ‘’take over’ your story, but not so in revision. By play well with others I mean, your characters must interact in an interesting way with other characters in your novel. During revision you may find that your characters react more than act, are less than focused on their goals, or simply aren’t a good fit for your story. In that case you have some characters that need re-visioning. Every character in your story must be there for a purpose. A story is not like life where you meet random people that appear and disappear without disturbing your world. Every character should serve your story by doing the work of the story. Even in a heavily plot-driven story, your characters must be in the driver’s seat. So how do you make certain your characters are taking charge? With more analysis of your story, of course. Before you read your story this time, you’re going to make a table or an excel spreadsheet. Across the top there should be columns for number, character name, role, traits, relationships, and physical […]