New Day, New way of belittling characters

I have discovered of late that I am very much a Marvel fangirl, in particular Iron Man. I only say this because he's just told Pepper he'll apologise when he's "not fending off a Hammeroid attack". I'm too immature not to laugh at that.

Also, on that note, you should probably be somewhere else than reading my immature ramblings. If you wish to do so, I suggest Chuck Wendig's blog, Terribleminds (today's post: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/18/25-questions-to-ask-as-you-write/) he says much more intelligent things than I do.

One of the questions Chuck mentions in there today is "what is the conflict?", and I feel it's a really important one to ask yourself when writing. Of course, it changes scene to scene as well as in the overall plot. There are also unlimited ways you can deal with the conflict, and I love the scope that gives the writer.

Take, for example, the scene in Mark and I's work when our 4 little travellers reach the camp of the Gods' avatars. Now, war is coming, and the avatars wish to use the travellers as a secret weapon, to get them an advantage before it starts. So, naturally, they send the big scary guy to greet them.

The three guys in the group are sensible, for the most part; Sael is petrified, so agrees to go with the scary dude, Shakti is too asleep, and Jem, well, he's seen a bit of the world, so figures somethings up. So that's them accounted for.

Now, you'll notice I said FOUR travellers. The fourth is an alcoholic, infamous pirate who is used to getting her own way, so of course, she fights. The scary dude (I should really call him Aeras, he has a name)'s solution; tie her up a tree for the night.

I do find as we are writing Mark and I spend a lot of time pouring over details, but also a great deal of time making ourselves laugh. Like when we wrote the scene I described above; I had tears in my eyes.

The only problem with this is, not that it resolves the conflict in a pretty daft way, but if it will reach readers the same way as it reaches us? Obvious we know these characters inside out, they're our creations and we've spent a lot of time with them, so we can see underlying motivations for their actions pretty easily. But outside readers?

So that's my question for today; is it possible to take characters you know inside out from having created them and make them just as accessible to the readers without outright telling them their motivations? I know I'm gonna have to think on it for a bit.