Recently, I wrote about my commitment to studying and learning about plot structure. In addition, I've been thinking a lot about character motivation. In this blog, I learned some simple ways to begin studying plot and characters. One of the suggestions is to watch movies and read books, looking for something in the story, whether it be the inciting event, the climax, or something else. You're supposed to look for one or two things. Along with using post-its for the books I read, marking the important bench marks in the story, I've been asking questions about motivation. I think it's been driving hubby crazy. For example, the other day we went to his parents house and watched It Takes Two. You know, the Mary Kay and Ashley Olsen flick, back when they were young and innocent. I hadn't seen it in years! I kept asking questions like: Why does the evil fiancé want to have the wedding in one day? She's waited this long to court the billionaire, why is a month so long for her now? Together, he and decided that the evil fiancé saw Roger with Dianne and knew that it was true love, too! She was scared that she'd get dumped for true love. Then, when she told one of the Olsen twins, "I know exactly what you're trying to do! My father remarried three times, and each time I tried to get rid of my stepmother. I wanted my Dad's attention, too..." I wondered--- then why are you so mean to her? If you were in the same situation, why are you doing this? Questions like these, I think, are good. Sometimes I can figure out answers, but sometimes I can't, and that's okay. The best thing about doing this is that I've started questioning motivation in my own characters.
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I'm no expert, but I always thought all you need in a story is a beginning, a middle and an end. My creative writing teacher, Josh, would draw a mountain on the board, like the one above, and talk about things like rising action, climax, falling action and denouement. He'd tell us to avoid exposition as much as possible. He'd talk about best practices for dialogue, character building, setting the stage, and using "specific concrete details."
After reading the blog posts above, though, I've decided that there's still a lot for me to learn. I've signed up for a couple creative writing classes. (One is actually called "Planning and Structuring the Novel.") In the meantime, though, I'm giving myself some homework. I've decided to take the challenges in the 2nd blog post, "How to Study Plot and Character," and measure out the important plot points in books and movies I enjoy. I'll write about my experiences in the blog posts to follow. I always tell my students: In order to do good writing, you need to see good writing. I help them break apart essays: find the thesis, each topic sentence.... the hook, etc. Why not do the same for my writing? I once asked a good author friend of mine about his process for writing books. He told me, "First, I make a list of ALL the characters that will play a role in my story. Then, I sketch them..."
He's a graphic novelist, so I think he literally sketches them out, but you don't have to be a good drawer, which is good news for me because I'm a terrible artist, to sketch a character. When we talk about "sketching" characters, we're talking about creating characters--- the physical traits as well as the internal traits. Oftentimes, I don't know who's in the story until I start writing. With one NanoWriMo experience (November 2016) under my belt (30,000 words!) and currently in the midst of the beginnings of my first CampNaNoWriMo, I've learned a couple tricks for building better characters. I used to think writing out what I already know about my character is a waste of time, but I've learned that it really isn't. Googling pictures help! Say I need a teacher, and I'm not sure what the teacher will be like, I'll google "teacher" images and see what pops up. Then, I'll describe the picture, and from the picture I can come up with personality traits as well. Even if I know my character, having a picture makes it more "real" for me, so I've been trying to add pictures for all my characters, even the minor ones. In a previous blog, I talked about writing pen pal letters to and from my characters. I find that's a great way to get to know a character. But for my major key players, I like to sit down and interview them. And, it's more than just asking, "what's your favorite color?" or "who's your best friend?" Really dig into their character. I picked up this template sometime last year... somewhere. I really like it! You are welcome to use it, and always feel free to ask follow up questions, etc. Enjoy, and happy character sketching! Remember--- the more you know your character, the more they can tell you their stories! Interview: In what situation is your self esteem most at risk? What are you keeping a secret? What are you lying to yourself about? To others? Is there anyone in your life that you are attracted to? How do you decide if you can trust someone? How do you know you love someone and/or when someone loves you? When you walk into a room what do you notice first? Second? How would you change the world? The things around you? The people around you? How do you learn best? What are your goals in life? What unusual hobbies or interests do you have? What are you most afraid of? If you had one wish, what would it be? What do you like best about yourself? What do you like least about yourself? What do you think other people think of you?
What’s your greatest source of frustration? What’s your greatest source of joy? What are you especially proud of in your life? If you could change anything about your life what would it be? I'm just going to throw this out there--- I have a love/hate relationship with creating characters.
The Love Of course it's fun to come up with a new story and make decisions about who will play a major role in it... Will my main character be a boy or girl? Will he/she be tall, skinny, large? What mannerisms will set him/her apart? What color hair shall he/she have? What clothes will he/she wear? Where will he/she live? Who are his/her family members? etc. The more questions I answer about my main characters, the more I feel like I get to know them! They become real to me. I love it! The Hate ...At the same time, though, it's exhausting. I have difficulties trying to decide what I want to eat for lunch, let alone what my character's fears will be or what motivates them to do what they do. It's also hard to know where to stop. Does it really matter what his/her favorite color is? Really? More recently, I've made a couple discoveries that makes me dread character sketches: 1) All my characters need to be believable, not just the one telling the story. For that, I need to do character sketches for all my characters, not just the main 3-5. 2) Books often have more than a handful of characters because in our hugely populated planet, each person interacts with at least 5-10 (or more!) people on a regular basis. So, sure I might have 3 main characters, but each of them know another 10 people (or more) each... Sketching Characters: Trick #1 There are lots of ways to get to know your characters. In the past, I've done the traditional 10 questions:
But answering these questions only skims the surface of who your character is. It's a start, but that's all it is. Sketching Characters: Trick #2 Last November, when I did my first NaNoWriMo, someone in the forums or in the webinars (I can't remember where), suggested that I interview my character. I imagined my character sitting across from me in my living room. I had a pad of paper in my hands and I interviewed her like she was Sandra Bullock or Ann Hathaway. I imagined someone counting down: 3...2...1... action! The camera light turned from red to green, and I got to business. I chatted with my character about her role in the story, her secrets, her fears and her relationships with her siblings, teachers and friends. After the interview, I read the "transcript" to Hubby, but (bless his heart) he got bored. Character sketches are only interesting to those who write them, I soon learned. As I'm preparing for CampNaNoWriMo for this April, I'm thinking about all my characters, not just the three I interviewed in November. I think for the major-minor characters (if that even makes sense) I'll do an interview, but in addition to that, I have another trick for getting to know your characters. Sketching Characters: Trick #3 I'm taking an online creative writing class right now, and I learned this trick from my teacher: Write a letter from your main character to you, as if you are pen pals. I did this for my main character. Her letter helped me think of new scenes for my book, which is always nice! Plus, it made it feel like my character and I are more than just interviewer and interviewee. It's a relationship. She's aware of me as much as I am of her. I'm planning to write a letter back, asking more questions about her situation, etc. But I'm, hopefully, going to start writing letters to and from my other characters. It's time consuming to create so many characters. I groaned the last time one popped into my book because I had to go through the 10-question list. But with the interview and pen pal letters, at least it's a fun experience. It's also effective because I have to instantly "hear" the character's voice. For me, it's been the most effective and enjoyable part of character sketching. Sketching Characters: Bonus Trick! Lastly, the thing that I felt silly doing, but my creative writing teacher strongly encouraged of us was to find pictures in magazines or on the Internet that could represent our character(s). I felt a little silly looking for someone who looks like the person I created in my head, but it took hardly any time at all on Pinterest and Google to find a picture that looked like my main character. I found her siblings, too. There's a part of me that wants to reach out to these random people on the Internet and let them know that they, basically, look like the characters I drew in my mind. I'm not sure if they'd be honored or just find it creepy, though... The point of this bonus trick, though, is that it gives me a visual of the character. Sure, I "see" her in my mind every time I sit down to write, but it's good to have a photo of her as well. It makes the experience a little more "real" for me. Current Writing Goals My goal this Spring Break (and the rest of March) is to correspond like pen pals with each of the characters that I know are in my story. I think that will help me most prepare for CampNaNoWriMo. My CampNaNoWriMo goal, by the way, is 25,000 words. I got 31, 741words last November. I only need about another 20,000 to get to 50,000, but I'd rather have more words than not enough--- so I think 25,000 will be good. I'm going to continue working on my previous project that I had in November. It's my first time at camp. I'm looking forward to it! Happy Writing! After asking directions from the librarian, I turned the corner and saw a large wooden door to the left. I opened it and walked into a conference-looking room, which surprised me because I didn't realize the library had such rooms. A woman in the far corner fussed with a standing camera, and several people sat scattered throughout the rectangular room, some on their phones, others sitting quietly with pads of paper on their desks in front of them. No one talked. I had to make a decision. Would I sit where the camera could see me or sit in the back? I decided to get the most out of the workshop and chose a seat near the front. That is, until I recognize a retired ESL teaching colleague of mine a couple rows back. I hadn't seen her for over a year! I quickly moved to sit by her and chatted quietly. I told her about my drumming, writing and everything else. In conjunction with the Writer in Residence program I told you about, my local library is offering free writing workshops to the community. The first one this month was called, "More than 5 senses: How to write Great Description," taught by Tom Leveen. Smelling Darth Vader My friend and I stopped our conversation mid-sentence because a man in a baseball cap, t-shirt and jeans in the front of the room announced loudly and rapidly that it was time to start the workshop. He paced in front of the room, holding a water bottle and introduced himself as Tom Leveen. He said he was going to go through some guidelines (not rules!) for writing captivating description and encouraged us to take notes. Tom started by asking us what Darth Vader smelled like. People shouted out things like "oil, metal, burned toast," and other things. He told us that he asked a similar question to some middle schoolers not long ago. He asked them what the joker (from Batman) smelled like. Kids said, "blood, fire," and other such things. Then, he said, he saw one girl in the middle of the room thinking very hard about the question. She said confidently, "vanilla and lavender." Tom said he was taken back and thought, she really doesn't understand what I'm asking here! Instead of calling her stupid, which is what he wanted to do, he said something like, "Oh! That's an interesting perspective. Why do you say that?" "Because," the girl said, "that's the last thing you'd expect." Tom was floored. Bam. She got it. As writers, we naturally go for sight when describing a scene. It's the simplest in a lot of ways. How often do I write about smell, touch, taste, and sound? Tom encouraged us to add at least one non-visual description per page, which I plan to take to heart. Smell, I believe, is particularly powerful. My creative writing teacher Josh says that smell links us to our memories. When I smell pine sol, for example, I remember my mom growing up. She likes having a very clean kitchen. We have more than 5 senses Tom Leveen says there's more than just 5 senses. Think about these: 1. Temperature (This is not touch!) 2. Pain (Not the feeling you get when you touch your hot car, but feeling pain in your appendix.) 3. Equolibrio (Sense of balance) 4. Pro-peroseption (relation of body to itself) He went through these super fast, as with everything else, but I managed to jot them down so I can reflect and test them out. As promised, he gave us 8 guidelines (not rules!) for writing fiction successfully. I'm not going to include them here because my notes are kind of a mess and it would take me forever to type it all out, but I will tell you that it felt like a crash-course for writing fiction, and it was awesome! Q and A After our crash-course in description writing, he opened the floor for questions. A couple people asked about publishing, finding an agent, that kind of thing. One person asked about how to write the Point of View (POV) of a teen or young adult to which he talked about syntax and paragraph sizes. One woman sitting on the back row asked about scoring interviews for research. Tom gave his go-to answer which is social media. He told her to ask on Facebook. If that doesn't work, there's always absoluewrite.com, or poisonpen.com. Out of curiosity, he asked who she was hoping to talk to. She said a coroner. A man on the far left near the camera raised his hand. He was holding a business card. "I'm retired," he said. "But I used to work as a coroner." Everyone cheered as the woman stood and took the business card. I asked Tom about the writing process. As you may already know, I'm super interested in it right now. I'm desperately searching for my style to writing longer prose. He told me that I don't have writer's block. No one gets writer's block. It's not a thing. He said, "you have project-block." I told him what Bill Konigsberg told me about writing chapter 1 the first day, revising chapter 1 and writing chapter 2 the next day... etc. "It's not working for me," I said. "It sounds awful," he said. "I don't write linear like that." Then he said, "Don't be afraid to waste words. That's what they're there for." I think Josh said something like that before. Or maybe it was Anne Lemott. I can't remember. "Jump in anywhere!" he told me. "Maybe you want to write a fight scene today, which isn't going to show up until later in the book. Go for it! Put two characters from different stories in one room and see what happens. Trust your style!" He encouraged me to make an outline. Once the book is finished, I can go through the hero's journey and add in elements that might be missing. So, that was the workshop. I encourage you to look to your community and see what's going on. Maybe our library is just awesome, but I bet there's things going on near you. Even though writing "is like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub," (to quote Stephen King) there are opportunities for writers to get together and talk about the craft. Who knows? You might meet a retired coroner. |