Get off the sidelines.

I've been thinking about how poor my story-writing skills, with my 2-D characters and predictable plot-lines. It's interesting how my unrealistic characters and stories from my 9-year-old writing days has still carried on with me to my 20-year-old writing days.

I think I don't have a good grasp on how complex people are. I guess I take what I see, hear, and feel and don't really process how things change with every situation over time. People don't necessarily react to different things the same way all the time. We put people into categories to try and tangibly hold something, anything, in understanding their humanness and the unique being that God created them to be.

No matter how long you've known someone, you constantly need to keep learning about them. I think that's why I've always liked reading/following any kind of series with books or television shows. Because I like to see if the characters will react the way I predict, or surprise me completely. I like seeing how they grow from one situation to another. It's what makes a character complex and realistic.

But I think for me I've been self-absorbent, waiting for those learnt experiences to be offered to me on a platter all nice and prettied up. That's the thing about book series or tv series - I wait in anticipation for the next one, the next lessoned to be learned. But in life it doesn't work that way - time keeps going whether you're caught up or not. Sometimes those complexities will happen on their own. The rest of the time you have to be the one to look for it, to cut beneath the skin and straight to the heart.

For too long in terms of characters and writing, I have sat down on the sidelines and people-watched, thinking that was the answer. I gave up and thought the only way to really learn about people was by observing - observing their actions, who they interact with and how they react. Even just observing how the "pros" do it - reading more books, reading more about how authors write and get into writing mode, etc.

But writing is just like a sport - you need to learn by watching, but you really build up muscles and skill by practicing, which entails falling down and getting back up, not getting it the first time.

I can tell you that I think in order to create great characters you need to observe, constantly ask probing questions, and really get inside their head and their heart, but I'd need to try it out myself to see if it really works or not.

In order to see their real character, I constantly need to probe and learn from first-hand experience who they are and how/why they think/do things, instead of assuming I know it all just by watching from the sidelines.