I love all my characters, even the bad ones! That’s not to say I necessarily support or agree with everything that they all do. Actually when I think of the events in Balance I most certainly do not. I enjoy writing them all as they bring life to a story and without life a book is dead, ahh yeah that makes sense I guess.
Recently I was aggressively asked why I killed off a specific character (no spoiler specifics!). The proof reader was quite passionate about this event as if I had actually done something wrong. The venom surprised me and I was taken aback:
It’s a character in a book, chill and umm put down those scissors (joke).
If I can evoke that level of reaction then cool I must be doing something right.
Likewise I received other feedback that certain character actions don’t ring true. This is great feedback, very useful indeed. When I delve deeper into the specific characters I found a few small things here or there which I might have got wrong. For example, I had the 11 year old boy Simon in Impatience making tea and coffee for adults.
My 11 year old daughter possibly could do this however it is a bit of a stretch and most parents probably don’t want children handling boiling water. To be honest I doubt all 11 years olds could safely do this and to presume so might raise some doubts.
Who makes the hot drinks is completely irrelevant to the specific scene. Every character action or explained thought shapes the mental image the reader formulates. To that end in my editing I have changed this minor detail. An easy fix!
The important thing here is plausibility. If a character reacts to a situation in a way that contradicts the understanding I have spent many pages formulating then well, my bad!
Characters must remain consistently plausible for the reader to keep faith in them. I think this is an important part of the author and reader contract when the reader purchases my product, well one day!
I agree that most 11 year olds dont make tea and coffee. But this is a boy who lives on a farm and has lost his mother at an early age which would make him more resourceful that most other 11 year olds. Thats how I read into this and it made the character more endearing. What you write is open to interpretation by your readers and I think they will often make up their own explanations that are meaningful to them.