A friend from high school who I haven't caught up with since...high school asked me some very good questions on Goodreads earlier today. He wanted to know which of my characters was most difficult to write. As much as I didn't want to sound like a politician when I responded my answer went in a slightly different direction and I wanted to add it here as well--
Again, great question! I appreciate the opportunity to answer it. It's not one character, it was "which way do I write this book?"
About two and half years ago, the book was done. Finished. Ready to go. I started speaking with an agent and while it didn't work out, she gave me some incredibly valuable feedback. She essentially said that since I'm writing a YA, it should all be in the perspective of a young adult. This was hard! My antagonist and his main henchman were two of my favorites and there were significant portions of the book that were from their viewpoints(adult). I loved writing them, I loved their interplay and back and forth. When I got the feedback that I had too much of an adult perspective, it was initially difficult to hear but I went for a walk, talked to those who knew me and the characters the best and I realized that she (the agent) was right!
Remember, the book was D-O-N-E! With that said, about a week after I got the feedback, there was an event that I now call "The Culling". Over the course of about an hour, I took out 20,000 plus words...this was out of about 83,000 words!
It's taken me since then to rewrite and revise, rewrite and revise, rewrite and revise, time and again to get it ready. In the end, I think it's a better novel but there were sections with those two guys that I absolutely loved, that felt very real to me.
I hope that in future books I can get some of that material back in, but we'll see.
Off to the new season of MST3K, I'm on "Starcrash"!
Goodnight friends.