Hard to Write Characters

Confession: This blog entry is pretty much all I accomplished today. And it's late, to boot.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

After staring at the screen for a while, I gave up on "Ferian" for today. Part of the reason is because I really have a hard time getting into that character's head. If he were a supporting character, no problem, but he is the central POV character, and if I can't understand his rationalizations and reasoning, then I have no chance of writing a convincing story.

His is a type of character I love to read. He's part Vlad Taltos from Steven Brust's incredible series, part Moist von Lipwig from Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and part Sawyer from Lost. Problem is, I have never really been able to relate to those characters. I enjoy reading them and I might even respect them, but I just don't understand them. The Con Artist is just so opposite my own personality that it might as well be a foreign culture.

But that's who Ferian is, at least in the way I've described him up to now. He's a showman and a rogue, and he leaves a trail of destruction behind him without really realizing it. He is self-centered and vain, and carries along everyone around him in his cult of personality. But that's okay, because he can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to get swept up with him.

See? I can describe it just fine, but I just have a hard time remembering his motivations as I write. My own personality is pulling the character away from his initial concept to something else. And the question is, should I go with that or not?