I do believe, that after about 18 months, I have finally got the balance of this novel. I was unhappily aware that it is one thing for a character to take over the writer, and another thing for the character to be allowed to take over the NOVEL. As a writer you can immerse yourself in a character and – hopefully – it adds to their persuasiveness, their seductiveness. But a character taking over the novel is an embarrassment to the mature writer, who should know better than to be seduced by the products of their own imagination! I was having trouble that way with Creon. Now, after having listened to Aeron talk for the better part of 5000 words, Aeron is finally emerging as the strong counterbalance that the novel needed. She is telling me (and another character, but right now, mainly me) who she is, why she does what she does, why she does not give up, does not give in, and what created her cunning desperation. She is turning into a very different, and in some ways more authoritative and more admirable person than Creon. But she does not know how to stop, any more than he does. I don’t know how much of the monologue will last, but I must remember it as a technique, because being in someone’s voice lets me work on the metre and tone of their speech, as well as their language. Aeron’s is surprisingly quirky; I must remember on my rewrite to make Creon solid … not solid like rock, but solid like soapstone, or ivory … The balance is also better because she’s speaking directly to Val, one of my other leads, so now I have four dyads working among those four principals, two manoevering/manipulating/exploring/discovering, one mortal enemies, one long close friendship and working partnership – complexities of the latter I will have to explore at another time, since I don’t strain it to breaking point this time out.
I hope I can sustain this … The whole thing is so nearly whole in my head (I have a sinking feeling I said that a year ago) and the balance is so much closer, though the feeling shape in my head has a five-point tension … ugh. Too much for one book that’s supposed to have more action and less character. But character interaction is action.