Help, I don't want to talk with my characters! by Dawn Finch

"Yes, yes, I'll get back to writing you in just a minute..."

I'm at that tricky writing point (halfway through book three of a trilogy) and at that stage where my characters are starting to feel like family after Christmas. You know that feeling - you love them and can't imagine life without them, but you know you'd love them more if they'd just give you some space.

Writing a trilogy (or longer series) is in some ways a bit like binge-watching a tv series. First, you can't get enough of it, then you can't stop because you have to find out what's going to happen next, then you just want it over and done with so you can move on to something new.

I can't be alone in feeling like this because as a reader I can often feel it in books. I can feel the pace shift in the text and I find that I'm skimming passages, or even skipping pages. I fear that I'm doing that with my manuscript. There will probably be some people out there who claim they never have this problem, or that I'm the boring one, or that I should learn to write more interesting characters, but that's unfair. There will also be people who say that if I feel this way then I'm in the wrong business. I don't think so, and I suspect I'm just more honest than most. These characters are interesting (honest!), it's just that I've spent an awful lot of time with them. I've spent years with them and that new and shiny idea I've just had is incredibly alluring.

I know this is getting out of control because the twin demons of Procrastination and Distraction are tugging at my hems. So far this week I've cleaned the fridge, and dusted everything, tidied up my email inbox, weeded and dead-headed every plant and flowerbed, sorted my seed collection into alphabetical order (and then into planting order), spent a vast amount of time on social media, shredded masses of paperwork (including stuff that didn't need shredding) and researched composting methods, oh - and binge-watched two different tv series and made a serious dent in the TBR pile. Of course I've not done anything that is actually useful because my mind is still on my characters. I've abandoned them in the snow and I keep drifting off and staring into space lost in their conversations - but I still can't find the right way for them to move forward.

It's not like writer's block (in fact I've written three poems and masses of notes for a different novel), it's like I'm having a sort of seven-year itch with my characters. I have the whole novel fleshed out and know exactly how this novel is supposed to look, but it's like I'm not actively seeking their company right now. I seem to be avoiding them. For some reason being with them right now is giving me a sense of melancholy.

Maybe the problem is that if I finish this book I'll have to say goodbye to them forever. Maybe that's where my real fears lie - that ending the trilogy is so, well... final. Maybe I'm not bored with them at all and I just love them too much to let them go. How will I manage without them? What will I do when I don't hear their comments slip into my thoughts, and their laughter no longer randomly makes me smile?

How can I possibly say goodbye to them?

If anyone wants me, I'll be at the allotment thinking about a witch's cottage in the snow.


Dawn Finch is a children's author, library activist and allotmenteer who is currently unable to concentrate.