Those Dang Characters

Currently I am still working on Witch Tourniquet. This is due in part to my beta reader being slow with reading the last three chapters because she doesn't have the time she once did. But she still gets the job done, and I am extremely grateful for her. She'll make a fine literary agent one day--or even editor.

In any case, not only do I have to re-write the last three chapters because I haven't realistically developed Alice near the end, but I have to completely re-do her co-star, Nathaniel Gareth. Originally I was trying to portray him as bi-polar, because in the 19th century, nobody knew that it existed, so it wasn't like I could have him come out and tell Alice about his disorder. I did this so unsuccessfully, it's not even funny. Bi-polar disorder is one of those complex disease that you have to do extensive research on to fully get, not just know what it is. You can say bi-polar disorder involves rapid mood swings, but to actually write it is difficult, because sometimes a mood swing just doesn't fit for situations where death is involved. That, and it made him weak, though that isn't to say people who are bi-polar in general are weak. It's to say I don't know how to write a bi-polar character.

Now I'm making Nathaniel the strong, cheerful one, with a dark past to boot. Since Alice herself has a hard time finding strength, I figured I'd have Nathaniel be her strength, her hope. And I love him much better this way. I'm not done with him, as I still have several more scenes to re-write with him in it, but I'm hoping to start querying in no time at all. I'm going to make the goal to start querying by the time issue 5 of Sorean comes out.

Readers, what characters in your WIPs have been impossible for you to write? How have you managed to solve the problems with those dang characters?