10 Questions for your Characters

Getting to know your main characters can be a tricky business. If they're proving to be somewhat enigmatic, here are some questions (in no particular order) to ask yourself that may help.

10. Is their appearance important to them?

9. Are they happiest surrounded by people or by themselves?

8. What is their idea of a perfect day?

7. What is their first priority?

6. What are their strengths?

5. Who is the person they are closest to?

4. What is their greatest fault?

3. How well do they know themselves?

2. Do they believe people are naturally good?

1. What is their greatest fear?

There are, of course, many other questions you can ask. What questions do you use to help get under your characters' skins?

Love Letters

Day 1

My most beloved Manuscript;

Where have you been all my life? I love you. I love your characters, your plot, your humour. I love me for having the imagination to create you! Working on you will be a joy. I look forward to every minute we're going to spend together.

Welcome to my life.

Day 15

Dear Manuscript;

Thanks so much for showing me the way out that corner I wrote myself into, although if you hadn't insisted on that monkey showing up I wouldn't have been in the corner to begin with.

Let's just let bygones be bygones.

Day 30

To Whom it May Concern;

I thought we had a deal; I was the boss. What on earth are you doing? The plot is going in an entirely new direction and I don't even recognize some of these characters. And where on earth are you going with this whole 'monkey gets a pet fish' subplot? I feel as if I'm writing in circles. I'll keep going simply because of the memories of the good old days. Golden times. You might want to try throwing me a little gold right now.

It couldn't hurt.

Day 45

Dear Mr. M;

It's over. I know I said I loved you and I know we've spent a lot of time together; but I'm done. The things about you that used to enchant me now make me nauseous. Your dialogue is forced and your characters are flat. And don't get me started about that stupid monkey and his dancing fish.

It's a sign of inner growth to know when you're trapped in a bad relationship and to be able to extricate yourself from it.

Good bye.

Some time later....

Dearest Manuscript;

How could I ever have doubted we were meant to be together? I know we've had our rough patches, but no relationship enjoys constant smooth seas. It's been a great ride; a wonderful adventure.

I mean it.

Really.

Oh look at the date; Deadline Day!

Bye bye.

Don't forget to write.

Crap. Wait! It was a joke...

P.S. You were right about the monkey.

Fun Friday

I'm BAAAAACK! However, to honour my close relationship with kleenex, I'm sharing with you these images of tissue box holders.

Please note, I make no judgements on these covers, I simply offer them to you for your enjoyment.

See you Monday.

Apologies

This is me. Sad me. Stuffy me.

No post from me.

Sorry from me.

Tick Tock

Every story has one; a timeline. That ticking clock might be at the front of your plot, akin to a ticking bomb. Or it might be a passive passenger on the journey; slow, steady, but relatively quiet.

Every writer has the nightmare of discovering that they've written a passage where Monday happens twice or people are getting ready for bed on one page and eating dinner two pages later. But the passage of time can add a new level to your storytelling as your characters become more and more aware of the sand slipping through the hourglass and their goals are still tantalizingly out of reach.

Fiction, of course, allows us to play with time - to make our characters lives far more event-filled than our own. I doubt that the majority of real-life detectives solve their cases within a few days of getting the call to the crime scene. Most singletons don't spend their daytime at fascinating jobs surrounded by quirky co-workers and their evenings either on dates or with their closest friends in wine bars or quaint apartments with hard wood floors and high ceilings. Let's face it; most coupled-up people don't spend their lives life that either.

Stories are an escape - a world where bigger things happen faster than in real life. Give your readers a ride.

Just remember, a ticking clock always comes in handy; even if it's only a reminder that your MC forgot to take dinner out of the oven.

Fun Friday

Welcome one and all to another edition of Fun Friday. Today I'm sharing some images I've found hither and yon on the internet of dyed animals.

There's just no dignity here.

Enjoy. Scratch your head with wonder. And remember the immortal words of Dr. Seuss...

"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere."

And I had to finish off with this...

(If you've been a follower of my blog for a while you'll know why...)

Thirties Thursday

Here are just a few items which were invented during the 1930s. Where would we be without them?

1930 - Scotch tape

1932 Polaroid camera

1933 - Stereo records

1934 - Cat's eyes

1934 - Monopoly board game

1935 - Nylon

1935 - Radar

1937 - First Jet engine built

1938 - Ballpoint pen

1938 - Instant 'freeze-dried' coffee

1939 - First successful Helicopter

The Shadow Knows

As we do this...

There are days when we feel as if we're traveling by this...

or by this...

and then there are the days when we know we're traveling by this...

But don't be this...

Because there are those days we feel like this...

As we remember every character has this...

or dreams like this...

or even this...

On the day when we're hearing about this...

I wish you many days of feeling like this.

10 Things I Know

There are lessons aplenty to help with grammar and character arcs and plot development. These aren't those.

10. If you've blocked out a time for writing and you're writing well, the time will fly by in an instant. If you're not writing well, the time will drag on for eons.

9. Writing poorly is far easier than writing well.

8. Characters tend to speak loudest just as you're about to fall asleep.

7. If you're a morning person, you will write best in the evening and vise versa.

6. The realization of "This Is Crap" can come at any point. If you're lucky, it happens in the first 10,000 words. Let's just say I'm not all that lucky.

5. Even if you don't base your characters on anyone you know and the people in your life know this, it will not stop them asking "Am I in it?"

4. You will never read a book the same way again.

3. 85,000 words is a lot of words. A lot. You can't write it in a week. If you can, please go soak your head.

2. You will have all the patience in the world with your characters and very little with yourself.

1. People who ask "But what do you really do?" need to be abandoned on ice floes.

First Impressions

Most of us try to make a good first impression - we check our clothes for stains, ensure we're wearing matching shoes, maybe even practice a few phrases. Good first impressions pave the way to second impressions; and after that, the sky's the limit!

Take a look at your current manuscript and see what first impression your main characters make. I always try to ensure:

• The reader may not necessarily be meeting him/her at their finest moment (or maybe they are) but it is a moment that will demonstrate one of the character's priorities.

• There something intrinsically likable (in my opinion) about my main characters. People want to learn more about people they like or can identify with in some way. It might the situation the character finds themselves in, it might be their background, it might be their love of shoes - but there's something that makes the reader want to read on.

• No character makes the same first impression as another. My logic is the reader is just getting to know these people - I try to keep it as easy as possible!

• I will not introduce a continuing character in a way that harks back to a previous event in an earlier story. The reader may not know the event and will start off feeling that they're missing something. That's just mean.

• I'll always choose dialogue over description.

First impressions - you can only make them once.

Make them count.