Learning to Go Insane

So, lately, I have not been writing much.  This is clearly a problem.  I think this is partially due to the fact that the adrenaline and feeling of “Nothing needs to be good,” from NaNoWriMo has worn off.  My perfectionism is beginning to rear its ugly, annoying, obnoxious head again, and it is telling me that my characters lack depth, my plot has a million holes in it, my writing is terrible, etc.  One of the things that does not help with battling these ideas in my head are that my characters don’t make sense.  They should have more than one mission, more than one thing they want to do.  Basically, my characters are just characters.

I believe one way to combat this lack in my story is to go through little every day things I don’t talk about in the book; write the protagonist’s back-story, maybe write a typical day in the life of both of my main characters.  What were their families like?  What foods don’t they like?  Are they particularly scared of anything?

Oh yes, I haven’t gotten to how this relates at all to the title yet.  You see, one of my characters occasionally goes…insane.  She is not the one from whom the main perspective is set, so all of the description of that is from someone else’s view.  But it occurred to me the other day-if I imagined how it felt from her perspective, how much more depth could that add to her actions and her personality?  Therefore, I am learning how to go insane.  Mind you, I am not literally trying to drive myself crazy, but I have started writing a story about the first time she does, and I come up with details as I go.  Due to how much this has helped me, I have even thought of making the entire second draft of my story following her instead of the current protagonist, and then later deciding who I wanted the perspective to be set from.

What methods do you use when trying to get into the head of your characters?  Any tips you could share?  Please give them in the comments below.  Feel free to follow, comment, or like this post if you enjoyed it.  Keep on writing!

Writing Challenge: Take one of your side characters and write a day entirely from their perspective.

DFTBA,

Rambling Writer 😉