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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38486
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **Perhaps this character "wants" to be someone quite different than you are trying to make her be.** It sounds like she's making a mystery of herself. Perhaps this means she isn't who she claims to be. Perhaps she's in disguise, or an amnesiac, or enchanted, or an imposter, or hiding a big secret. Or maybe she just doesn't want to be as tightly controlled as are your other characters. She wants to retain the ability to surprise.

In the larger picture, you should ask yourself why this character is so important to you, and if her importance serves the book. Maybe she belongs in a different book, or in a different role in this book. If not, then maybe the fact you are getting hung up on her means that there's something fundamental about this book that you need to change --or about your approach to writing. Writers are often divided into "planners" and "discovery" writers, but it's perfectly okay --and arguably better --to be a bit of both. In my current book project, most of the characters were carefully planned, but some of my favorites weren't planned at all --I learned their backstories only after I had written their parts. **Maybe this character is bringing you a bit of much needed anarchy or chaos.**

Finally, it's entirely possible that it might be best for your book to eliminate this character, and I do think you need to embrace that possibility. In art, as we are so often reminded, **we need to sometimes make tough choices to serve the larger story** , not our personal attachments.

Original score: 3