Aryn Ravenoak walked the walls of Alphaeon for the last time under a full moon.

This was the opening line for the novel I started writing on November 5, 2007 for National Novel Writing Month. I started another story on the first of the month, but 6800 words into it, I discovered that it wasn’t worth telling. So on day five, I started from scratch.

For those of you who aren’t aware, National Novel Writing Month is a yearly challenge for writers all over the globe to write 50,000 words of manuscript in 30 days. That amounts to about 1,667 words per day. Participants are encouraged to pound out a manuscript without editing, to leave their “inner editors” behind for one month while they focus on just finishing a first draft.

The good news is that I finished 50,000 words; so, technically, I won NaNoWriMo. But the bad news is that I haven’t finished the manuscript . . . nor do I intend to.

Although I ended up falling in love with my characters, I don’t feel that the story itself is worth telling without some major revisions that I don’t have the energy to make. It would be easier to start from scratch.

My current plan, now that I’ve gained a much greater appreciation for leaving my inner editor in the dust, is to finish up a manuscript that I’ve been working on for a couple of years. I’m already 54,800 words into the manuscript, and the story’s been begging to be told.

I have no choice. I have to tell it.

Hopefully, when you write, you’re trying to make your characters into real, three-dimensional people. If all of your characters talk the same and act the same, then your writing will be stale and boring. Characters are not supposed be filler for your plot. Characters, through their personalities and desires, are supposed to DETERMINE your plot. So here’s an exercise for helping to flesh out your characters a little more.If you have a character who seems to be a little bland, then I want you do to two things. First of all, I want you to sit down with your character and interview him/her. Ask your character what he/she wants most out of life, and then write down the answer. Try to get a feel for your character’s personality. And then–here’s the fun part–find the character trait(s) that you really want to emphasize with that character and then create another character who is the polar opposite of your first character as far as that trait is concerned.For example, if you have a hero who is a little shy and insecure, and if that insecurity is crucial to the development of the plot, then create another character who is confident, who can talk to anyone in any given situation, who feels comfortable around anyone. This second character doesn’t have to be an arrogant jerk (although he could be). He just needs to be confident.When you create a character like this and have him interact with your hero, then your hero’s insecurities (or whatever traits you’re trying to highlight) will naturally be highlighted. Your character will seem more real and more relatable.Give it a shot, and let me know how it turns out!