Consider, for a moment, your characters. Now maybe you have entire notebooks dedicated to that one perfect protagonist... or maybe you have absolutely nothing on any of your main characters but are hoping to develop them further at some point... or maybe you've given them a distinct appearance but a prosaic manner of speech, or vice versa. Maybe your characters just aren't cooperating, ergo the sudden and extremely powerful urge to just annihilate them and start back from square one. It may be helpful, at this point - when the ink on the page is more in the form of scribbles and x's than in the form of lovely prose - to consider those characters as actors. Let's go back a pace, and see this through from the beginning.
The Cast
cast [kast, kahst] noun, theater. the group of performers to whom parts are assigned; players.
Your cast is the sum total of all of your actors/characters. You think "Okay, so what? Pick a few random people, throw them together on a stage, put some makeup on them and give them each a backstory and I've got a cast". Yes, you may have a cast in the dictionary definition of a 'cast', but do you have a cast that will actually work towards where you want them to end up? Do you have a cast that's flexible enough to allow change in the plot and believable enough to be halfway convincing for the reader? Your cast needs to have some chemistry, and that can't be forced by frustration and the pen. If your characters don't work well together, your action and dialogue will suffer for it. So bribe them, cajole them, send them chocolate or beg them, but bear in mind that the outcome you're looking for is that they are able to interact together and still maintain the flow of the narrative. If bribery, cajoling, chocolate and pleading don't work, it might be time to fire one of them and find yourself a new Character B.
Casting Sessions
"[A casting session] typically involves a series of auditions before a casting panel... In the early stages of the process, candidate performers often may present prepared audition pieces such as monologues... Later stages may involve groups of candidates attempting material from the work under consideration in various combinations; the casting panel considers both the talent of the individual actors and the chemistry of their combination." - Excerpted from Wikipedia
And while we're on the subject of characters as actors, you've just fired that annoying Character B - who, truth be told, didn't fit in with the protagonist at all, though she was supposed to be his adorable and adored live-in girlfriend. Let us say that she came across more as the aging, world-weary waitress with the platinum highlights and too much makeup. Not that your characterization was faulty, here, but perhaps you're looking in the wrong direction? So we're back to the drawing board again.
Again, we're going to look at our characters as actors. Maybe The Actress Formerly Known as Character B just wasn't a good Character B. But this certainly doesn't mean that all hope is lost. All we're going to have to do is recast for the part. Set the scene for yourself and write it down (that way you can refer back to your notes). Let's say there are, oh, say, seven different hopefuls for that time-honored and glorious part of 'Character B'. Write out the scene with you as the director: be rude to them, be kind to them, coach them on what to improve upon and send them towards the door or retain one or two for a second audition. Throw them into a random scene with one of your already firmly established characters and see if the two of them 'click'. Take notes on each performance. Have them read off the script. Have them improvise. Have them tell you about themselves a bit. Give them annoying habits that keep showing up during their readings and be sure to keep them all very distinct and unique. Remember that they're human - if they're missing a page of the script or if they humorously mangle a line, write it down.
This is wonderful character development practice not only because it lets you crystallize what you want to find in that elusive Character B, but because it gives you substantial practice and room to move with all of your candidates. Make them ridiculous. Make them memorable. Make them witty, sarcastic or as dry as the Gobi Desert, but I guarantee this - you're going to end up with one killer Character B. ^_~
Best of luck with it.
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