Typical Characters

The other night, I watched the tail end of the new Star Trek movie. I realized with a start that Captain Kirk is a very different character than the main characters in most of the books I read. I’m used to reading books written for young adults and preteens. The protagonists I are usually unsure of themselves, a bit timid, slightly depressed.

Captain Kirk is self-confident, arrogant, and so sure of himself that he’ll talk back to commanding officers to make sure they do what needs to be done. Watching that reminded me of the dozens of different characters who could make excellent protagonists for books.

I think we often enjoy reading about characters who have weaknesses because deep inside, we know our own weaknesses. However, we are all in different developmental phases. Some of us have learned to trust ourselves if not others. Wouldn’t those people enjoy reading about a character with whom they can relate?

A few people have told me that when I draw, all my people look the same. There may not be much help for my sketches, but I hope that when people read my books, they won’t think all of my characters are the same.

Writing Psychology

Sometimes, for fun, I take personality tests, specifically tests on the Myers-Briggs types. The fun part is when I take the tests from the POV of my characters! This accomplishes several things:

It helps me to think like my characters.

It helps me to understand my characters.

The description at the end of the test helps me to figure out if I have a correct and clear picture of my character’s personality.

It provides insight in how a character of that personality might think or process things, which helps me to write a more believable character.

It’s just plain fun.

As with real people, personality tests are good only to a certain point. However, they can provide insight and inspiration. Especially for those of us who have a hard time imagining life from a different perspective. I’m a logical, introverted, semi-nerd who enjoys science and music. What if my character is a creative extrovert athlete type? Something like a personality test could help me to understand how a character like that might think.

Close Reading

Recently, I read a book for fun. A very long book. I had a hard time getting into it because nothing happened for the first 15 chapters/144 pages. When something finally did happen, it happened to a secondary POV character, not the protagonist. The protagonist was still just wandering around eating leisurely lunches and being bored.

Side note: Your MC may be bored; your readers should not.

For awhile, all I saw were the mistakes in this book. I thought, “Why didn’t someone take the time to polish this a little, to clean it up enough for it to be a good book?” I was tempted to look down on the author as inexperienced (in spite of the fact that he is published and I am not--have I ever mentioned that I can be prideful? ;-) ).

But then, I began to notice little things that the author did well. And then more things and more. The author crafted a complete world; he moved his characters through developmental phases; he used description that paints vivid pictures. He let the reader glimpse the inner workings of a character through a few short phrases.

Yes, I have been to creative writing school; I have a degree. But as yet, I am unpublished. I need to remind myself that training is not everything. Experience counts. Also, when reading a book, I need to look at the things done well in addition to the things which could have been done better. Both will teach me how to improve my own writing.

First Writer’s Group

You will be shocked and appalled, I know, but yesterday, I went to my first ever writer’s group. (Shocked because I’ve never been to one before, not because I went.) It’s a small local group and seems to be mainly just for fun. We spent the entire hour and a half responding to free-writing prompts. It was quite refreshing.

One of the prompts was to give chapter titles to the different parts of your life. I found this helpful as I have often thought about recording my life, but I get too bogged down. So much has happened! Naming chapter titles helped me to organize everything in my mind.

I think I will continue to attend this writer’s group. I would still like to find a good critique partner, but a relaxing afternoon of free writing can’t hurt. :-)

Character Arc

I have finally discovered what is the main difficulty with Epic Novel Part One. Did I mention this is the messiest draft I have ever written? I was reading back through it this morning, trying to get the draft to a point where I can have someone critique it. I was tempted to start rearranging scenes again. Why can’t I get this right?

Suddenly, it hit me: I’m having problems because my character is underdeveloped. He is the one who is messy. I have a basic idea of how his growth manifests, but the details are fuzzy. Before I can get this draft to the point it needs to be, I have to get my MC to where he needs to be. I have a tendency to get my characters’ points of growth confused or mixed up.

If I had my lecture notes and writing books with me (I’m out of town), I would spend some time flipping through to refresh my memory on character arc. That will have to wait until I get home, so I don’t have much insight in how to fix this problem. One thing I do know: before I can write this draft the way it needs to be written, I must answer a few questions.

• What is my character’s desire line for this particular section of the story?
• What is point ‘A’, what is point ‘B’, and what does the journey between them look like?
• What are the details of this journey--does MC have different friends than I thought he did?
• How do I flesh out that journey in scenes?

I’ll let you know once I’ve made some progress.

Quickie

Still no Internet. I'm at a local cafe. I will have Internet access for about a week or so, so maybe I can get some posts scheduled. No promises as I'll be quite busy! I am making excellent progress on the NIP and have many things to say. But later. Right now, I have to go home and make supper.

Happy writing!

Outlines

This time I have a very good reason for being MIA: The week before Christmas, I moved into more permanent housing and have yet to set up any Internet. In addition, I have no way of getting around town, so my trips to cafes are few. I will attempt to get some blog posts written and scheduled, though, to slake your constant thirst for my witty words on writing. :-)

Today’s theme? Outlines.

I have never been much of an outliner, but I’m finding it somewhat necessary with this draft. This is positively the downright messiest draft I have ever written. I keep grabbing scenes and moving them. And then moving them again. I can’t decide in what sequence the scenes should take place.

The day before yesterday, I was really getting confused, so I copied all of my scenes to a new document and saved as “Outline.” I then proceeded to delete each scene, replacing it with a two to three sentence summary. I’m a visual person and need to be able to see everything. With the scenes shortened thus, I can view more of them at once and get a better idea of how to arrange them. If I have my printer set-up (still unpacking), I would print this list of scenes out, cut each scene onto its own strip of paper, and feel free to rearrange to my heart’s desire.

My second-semester English professor my freshman year of college had me do that with a research paper: cut out each paragraph and rearrange logically. I was amazed at the new clarity of my paper.

Hopefully, this little tidbit will help you in your writing, too!