Writer-In-Progress

I’ll never forget one of the first romance fiction pieces I wrote. For some unknown reason, my character liked to clean her house while she did her thinking. I personally liked her character, loved the hero.

I finished the story and, as luck would have it, was enrolled in a fiction writing class my freshman year of college at Mt. Union. I polished and turned in the first chapter as an assignment. Aside from the class hating romance fiction (aside from that, they were an awesome group), I’ll never forget the comments my prof made when he gave it back to me.

“Nice detail. Good motivation. Made me feel like a slob. Went home and cleaned my bathroom.”

At that point, any feedback was good. After reflecting, I stopped by his office and he explained that my character’s cleaning efforts were stronger and more vivid than the story itself. Maybe it was subconscious–my own cleaning habits at home weren’t as thorough as my character.

Which brings me (in a long, sordid, roundabout way) to today’s character question: how does your character clean–and why? What is clean to her? Can she tolerate piles of clothes, dust, dirt? Do fingerprints send her over the edge?

More importantly–of course!–is why. What in her past brought her to this point? If she’s interacting with anyone in another personal space (office, house, etc) in your story, is there a way we can get a sense of her character through the way she views “messes”?

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