A writer’s dilemma: Being in love with our characters

An author in a writer’s forum posed this dilemma.

“I’m too in love with my characters and it’s causing me to overwrite. This is my first romance novel. I can’t stop writing the cute things they do together. They both have too many habits, quirks, back story moments, and so on. And I want to share them all with the reader . . . “

I understand this dilemma completely. This is what I faced when writing A Misalliance of Love. The main character, Rosie, has a backstory and family history that is just as interesting as the direction her life takes after graduating from Swarthmore Academy for Young Ladies. I wrote a lot about it, and after editing much of it out of the book, I still gave more than the usual amount of time to her history.

Her parents married under pressure: her mother to save her reputation after being compromised and her father to be prevented from marrying an opera singer. Misery ensued, and after the death of her mother, Rosie was shipped off to Hong Kong to live with an uncle in the Admiralty. I rarely read about characters that were raised in expatriate communities and would have loved to write more about her childhood overseas. So many words, so little time. I think a prequel might be necessary to bring Rosie’s story to readers.

It is a dilemma when you build your character so thoroughly that they almost seem real. You want to talk about them and share the quirks and nuances of their personalities. This is something I enjoy in the books I read. I want to know about the childhood that made the character into the adult they are, and I am happy to have quite a bit of time spent on their history.

But how much is too much information? Many readers want to move to the action immediately, and there are writers who are formulaic about when that should happen.

I confess I ignored all of that advice when writing my own book. I talk about my characters and their history quite a bit before moving on to the action. I’m doing the same in my next book and the characters of Ginny and Hugh.

Too much? Too little? What do you think? I hope my readers let me know.

Image: generated by Canva and digitally manipulated.