Proactive Characters
Instead of constantly having things happen to your characters, look for ways to have your characters make things happen. Editors will tell you that one of the more common characterization problems seen in new writers' manuscripts is having characters do only the reacting, versus having them participate in the forward thrust of the plot.
Most novels start out with something happening to the characters:
A heroine's husband announces he wants a divorce at her fortieth birthday celebration in front of her friends, family, and work associates.
A nanny's charge is kidnapped while she buys the toddler an icecream treat from the street vender.
A hero steps into his shower first thing in the morning and finds a dead woman.
Yes … things
To make your characters proactive, show them, mentally or physically, coming to forks in the road during their story journeys. Have them consider their options, and show them making choices. Some of those choices will be the right ones. To make it interesting, though, some should be the wrong ones that lead to yet another place where they have to make more decisions.
The key to creating proactive characters is to have them become involved in solving their own problems, rather than depend on others to solve them.
