Do your characters hijack your book? Is there anything you would change about the book?

 

When I write a novel the only constant throughout the process is characterization. The entire plot may shift, settings change, timelines fluctuate, but the thread of character remains the lodestar of the story. 

 

Kieran was always callow and passionate.

 

Savannah was always withdrawn but compassionate, more cynical than Kieran but still hopeful for a gentler world.

 

Kyle was always a selfish prick with daddy issues and far too much entitlement. How these characters bounced off each other and their secondaries was always what shaped the book. 

 

So yes, they hijacked the story, but I couldn’t have written it any other way. But there is a weakness in this, and that’s one thing I would have changed if I had to do it over. 

 

When I was finished the book I wasn’t entirely satisfied with Sophie’s characterization. There’s an interesting character there but the characters who served as my POV couldn’t see her. 

 

Kyle was too fixed on the image of Sophie he had in his head and never bothered to really learn who she was within herself. Savannah only saw a monster to fight, and never tried to get to know her and Kieran had very little to do with her. I felt the absence of her internality was ultimately a flaw in the story, and I think, if I could ever do it over again, I’d make her a POV character in her own right.