Character Hijacking: 5 Reasons to Love it

What exactly is character hijacking you might ask?

Let’s start with the actual definition of hijacking:

An act of unlawfully seizing something such as an aircraft, vehicle or ship while in transit. Think of the 90s movie Speed staring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. A thriller that’s not in the traditional sense of hijacking unless you count the bomb on the bus as being the hijacker. Yet there was a man behind the bomb…

Anyone else remember that movie? Or is it just me? This similar scenario often happens to writers, and not just the Pantser. Plotters also fall victim to this, such as myself. (If you do not understand what a Pantser vs a plotter is, check out my post here.)

So let’s discuss what the definition of character hijacking is in the literary world and why it has nothing to do with bombs on busses that will detonate once the speed goes below 50 mph.

The point of this post is to help new writers understand the following:

Why you’ll often feel the urge to pound your head against your desk. Or the wall. Or anything that looks enticing at that precise moment while beating out your annoyance… and giving yourself nice, pretty bruise for your efforts.

Why the story ends up being entirely different than the one you began writing.

Why you’ll feel a sudden, strong urge to empathize with every other Author in the entire universe and shake your head at the unfortunate souls (aka: readers) who have no idea just how greatly you suffered for their entertainment.

We’ll begin with the definition of character hijacking as it relates to you and your story. Please note: there’ll be spoilers for my Reaping Fate series if you are, or planning, to read them.

Character hijacking: when the character that you, the author, has written takes on a life of its own without your consent.

If you do not think this will happen to you, think again. I myself once laughed at the numerous sorrowful posts made in various writers forums, and I thought to myself: This is silly. Characters aren’t real people. How can a character do something that the author doesn’t dictate?

Then it happened to me.

In the third book of my series, Destined to Reap, my MC’s (main character) BFF, Hadley, was supposed to have a much larger role in the plot of that book. Instead, Hadley decided that she no longer even remembered who her best friend was and decided instead to take a vacay—figuratively as I was forced to write her out of the book while my main character had to solve her own problems.

But if you think that character hijacking is a bad thing, think again. Here are five reasons why, when your characters decide to have a life of their own, you should let them be:

Your story will thank you for it: You think you know what your story should be about when you sit down to start writing it, but there’s always room for improvement. Those characters who choose to lead a life of their own oftentimes wind up creating a much more vivid plot than what you could have ever envisioned. In the third book, my MC wound-up developing in a way in that forced me to slightly adjust the overall plot for the series arc. This series will end (Book 5, Reaping Fate due to be published in 2019) on a much stronger note than what I’d envisioned when writing Reaping Havoc, the first book of the series. When characters begin hijacking your plot, that means the story is taking off. Go with it.
You’ll grow as a writer: Hijacking teaches you how to make relatable characters, which also delves into point three that I’ll get to in a second. When your characters take on a life of their own it means that you’re so into the story, your characters have become real. They’re alive, which is why they act alive. The story’s not formulaic—checking off this box on a list and that box. The words on the page are not empty. Have you ever read a book and felt so disengaged from it? Did you make it through the entire novel? If you did, is it a book you’d pick up for a second read through? While some readers don’t have a problem with this, the vast majority read to relate and escape. By letting your characters go and learning how make it all work out in the end regardless of whichever direction they flew, you will both grow as a writer and learn how to create stronger plots.
It helps create imperfect characters: Let’s face it. No one wants to write the Mary Sue character. You know? Miss Perfect who has amazing abilities, knows everything, and can solve anything? Readers would be bored with your story within three chapters. Why? Because your character will not be realistic. No one is perfect in real life, therefore no character in the book should be perfect either. And when you don’t know what the heck your character is trying to do since they’ve got a mind of their own, they show you those very imperfections of their character that you seek. And while you’re left with writing them out of the corner they’ve just put themselves into, they become much more complex. There’s more depth to them. Back to my example of Destined to Reap. My main character used her best friend as a crutch. The MC was emotionally dependent on Hadley to get her out whatever crisis she had just gotten herself into. And my MC gets herself into a lot of messes. (Any resemblance between me and my MC is purely coincidental. *ahem*) My MC is very impulsive—which is one of her main flaws. For the first time my main character had no one to turn to except for herself. With Hadley choosing to play hooky, despite me not having outlined her to do so, it created growth for my MC that otherwise would not have happened in that story.
The writing becomes more fun: Butt in chair is something the majority of us writers suffer from. If you’re like me, you’ve got the premise of the story playing on repeat inside your head but you find it difficult to sit down and actually write it into a cohesive book. Details matter, and to create a book you need lots of details. Otherwise you’re left with only a synopsis of a story. But when you no longer know exactly what you’ll be writing because one of your characters decided to hijack the story? Well, then. Writing just became a lot more interesting and you’ll discover that your butt stays planted a lot longer while attempting to figure out where everything is going. When Hadley decided she’d rather be off-screen for the majority of to Destined to Reap (probably to spend more time in the law library than I often allowed) I really didn’t know where that book was going. Hadley had been an interregnal part of the original plot, and with her not in the picture, I had no idea what would really happen. This situation caused me to Pants more than Plot since my original outline was shot to heck. But it also made things more fascinating. Leftover pieces of the plot had to somehow work. Including how Hadley was written back in—I let her off for a single book, not the series. The exact direction that book would be taking was a mystery even to me.
There’s no choice:. What character hijacking really boils down to is your unleashed creativity. This is a level you actually want to achieve. At this level of writing not only are you creating a story, but it’s one with depth and complexity that your readers will devour. And not only will they be a reader of you book, but they’ll become a fan. You’ve given them an emotion, a relatable incident… something that keeps them coming back for more. And as writers who do we write for? Our fans. We want them presented with the best story possible. Not only for them to enjoy reading, but for us to enjoying writing.

So to recap:

Character hijacking allows a more complex and possibly a better story.
Creating relatable characters will help you to grow as a writer.
Imperfection is what you want.
Each chapter becomes a mystery.
Your creativity becomes unleashed.

And yet despite the character taking over your story, you must develop a character first in order to do so. Character worksheets are a great resource to use because honestly? The more rounded your character become the more likely they’re to take off. You can mold a shell of a character into any plot that you want, but well-developed characters will never allow you to put them where they shouldn’t be, regardless of how many hours you spent working on your plot outline. A great character work sheet can be found here Character Writing Worksheet and here Character Interview.