15 Minute Challenge - Day 5: Developing Characters

I've been having an issue with my main character in Picture of the Past almost since the beginning. I didn't like her. I didn't intend for anyone to like her at first, but to gradually sympathize with her as she changed - but I didn't like her even when she changed. She seemed so - flat. So single-minded. So one-dimensional. In short, she seemed like a character, not a person. I've been reading lots of books and articles about how to improve this because, in my mind, she is multi-dimensional. She has struggles, internal and external, and she is someone who can grow into such an incredible daughter and sister - but I just can't seem to translate that to the page.

One good thing about implementing these additional scenes, is that they are forcing me to write more about her. More scenes about her, more viewpoints about her - and I think I am slowly beginning to figure her out more. I am still not pleased - but I think I'll get there. One thing I need to remember is that this is my character - not the character that all the articles tell me I have to write. All the books and articles say your heroine must be sympathetic. But that isn't true. There are plenty of heroines that are not sympathetic until the last. So if she is selfish and unlikable in the beginning part of the story, that is who she is - trying to add sympathetic elements only makes her seem more fake until she actually begins to change. Besides, she really doesn't seem to like it when I add in things about her that aren't true. Believe me, I've tried.

Day 5 of the 15 minute challenge involved writing a scene wherein she is angry about doing servants work, the boys don't pay as much attention to her as she thinks they should, and her mother was just about to give her a lecture on what it actually means to be a lady when the timer went off. I don't know if it will actually go into the story, but she is doing a good job of reminding me that she is just a spoiled little rich girl at first and I shouldn't be trying to make her into something else.