I was working on the hero of my next book and found I couldn’t get anything real out of him.

He was a bit two-dimensional.  Flat. Too single purposed. I went through my standard exercises – dark wound, lie, fear, secret desire, true destiny…

You can see that here:

Dark Moment: Being yanked from his school, his family, his home to go to another boarding school.

Lie: Don’t get close. Don’t open your heart too wide.

Fear: Love involves pain. He’s even assigned that to God. Look what He did to His own son. But Tanner knows God is real and true, and he must seek Him.  But is standoffish

Secret desire/true identity:  ??

What can he do in the end he can’t do in the beginning? Be honest about his feelings. Be okay with everything NOT being safe or neat or tied in a bow. Giving up his traditions. Taking on a NEW identity. The Duchess’s husband.

He can LOVE…

What is his story? About leaving the comfort and safety of his beliefs to explore something new and wonderful. We can stay put in God and do well, OR we can take a chance and let Him move us out of our comfort zones to deeper places in Him.

Deep calls to Deep… But what does he want???

At this point, I had no idea what he wanted. I knew who he was when the story started, but I had no idea he was really about, so I asked him a few questions. This type of exercise can help you get to know and understand your character’s motivations. This a free flow dialog that I just let happen. It’s imperfect but it really opened up the hero, Tanner, to me. To view the Interview, click Sample Character Interview.

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Best-selling, award-winning author Rachel Hauck loves a great story. She excels in seeing the deeper layers of a story. With a love for teaching and mentoring, Rachel comes alongside writers to help them craft their novel. A worship leader, board member of ACFW and popular writing teacher, Rachel is the author of over 15 novels. She lives in Florida with her husband and her dog, Lola. Contact her at: Rachel@mybooktherapy.com.