Hidden Depths...Who Knew?

So I guess for this month this is turning into a NaNoWriMo blog of sorts. Today I'll talk about my characters and how they're a lot deeper than I originally suspected.

So here's the basic plot of my novel. Paige answers a want ad for an assistant, but it turns out she's been recruited to be a sidekick to high-end thief, Claire Queen. They're constantly at odds with resident superhero, Hurricane, and his sidekick Obsidian. A powerful supervillain comes to town and kidnaps Hurricane and Claire, and the two sidekicks have to race against time (and a bloodthirsty mercenary) to get their bosses back.

Paige is the kind of lead character I usually write. She's a smartass who doesn't care about anything. As such, she hasn't really mutinied against me. I can write her without problems. It's the secondary characters that are kicking my ass.

Obsidian (AKA Owen) has two personalities: Owen as Owen, and Owen as Obsidian. Obsidian is a suave ladykiller player type. Owen was supposed to be Obsidian, but less aggressive and more nice. He is...not turning out that way. He apparently wants to be a nice, loquacious, socially awkward kinda guy. Think Piz from Veronica Mars. In the course of writing him, I stopped and thought, "I don't really like this..." but he is UTTERLY not the type of lead male I usually write, and I think the change will be good. So he's staying. Apparently, he enjoys being a sidekick for the anonymity it affords him, and he puts on the aggressive charmer front because he can't pull that personality off in real life, since he's so shy and awkward. Honestly, I don't write these characters. They take on a life of their own.

Wellesley is the butler to Claire. He was just supposed to be a background character and a play on Alfred from Batman, but despite what I want, he's developed a personality. He's acting very jealous of Paige because she gets Claire's attention. I guess he has a crush on Claire or something. I don't really know. We'll see how that plays out.

Paige's family, no matter how hard I try, is exactly like the family in Wonderfalls, or at least the siblings are. Paige is kind of like Jay, her sister is ambitious and uptight like Jay's sister, and her brother is cool and laidback, like Jay's brother. As I was writing them, I recall thinking, "wtf? I don't want them to be the Wonderfalls family!" But sadly, they are.

I guess hidden depths are a good thing - they make characters three dimensional. But I wish I could be let in on these personality changes beforehand.