No Fun?

Writing character sketches is one of those things you learn in writing class. Something you have to do, a writing exercise, if you will. It’s not supposed to be fun.

Or is it?

I’ve been writing sketches all week and every time I do this I forget how fun it actually is. I’m writing a bunch of stuff that will never see the light of day. I’m making up last names, names of parents, names of siblings, and can be as ridiculous as I want. The other day I decided the main character’s mom, who grew up in the 1970’s, loved disco. Now, fifty years later, nobody says they like it, but somebody must have. Will anything at all about her musical tastes make it into the novel? Probably not.

But at least it fleshes out the character in my mind. And by translation, in the minds of my characters. They know some of this information, although it’s not necessarily a topic of conversation. My main character? He knows his mother had a thing for disco. Is it important to the story? No. Is it fun to invest my characters with quirks and traits? You betcha.