One of my quilting groups did an alphabet challenge. We drew a letter, and made a quilt related to a word beginning with that letter. I wondered if I could use the same challenge in my writing and decided to start an alphabet hop.
The word “accountable” leaped off the page of my dictionary. How could I make my characters more accountable in the story? How would they react to being held accountable for a crime they didn’t commit? What would they do to repay a debt for which they felt accountable?
Now that I’m adding another aspect to my characters, I need to revise earlier chapters to layer in a growing sense of responsibility―or lack of responsibility, if I want to give a character a flaw that the villain can exploit. I am accountable to my readers to lay the groundwork for this new idea, otherwise my re-imagining of my characters might look more like a continuity error.
When I started the quilting challenge, I was delighted with the way it broke me out of my artist’s block. With any luck, rummaging through the dictionary will help me through my writer’s block, and give me stronger characters.