Angela Ackerman's Blog: Writers Helping Writers, page 120

Why Characters Need Choices in Fiction

Help me welcome one of our favorite people, Janice Hardy (@Janice_Hardy). She has a great post on the importance of providing characters with stake-heavy choices, so please read on.

Want to Find the REAL Story? Ignore Your Instincts

Guys. I’ve fallen in love with this essay by Emily Ruskovich. It so beautifully captures the author’s process of how stories evolve, how they morph from a single image, feeling, or idea into a full-fledged story—if we just let it lead us to where it wants to go. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me.

For me, so much of writing is chasing feelings I don’t understand. Sometimes the feelings mingle with memory, and sometimes they don’t. Paying attention to these feelings, which can arise at any time, is crucial.

Sometimes, at first, I chase the feeling too fast. I make an easy story out of it, using instincts I have developed as a fiction writer. The story is neat. Its climax is exciting. A great deal is at stake. But usually, this first story is not the real story. It’s just a structure I build quickly in my mind to house the original feeling. And the real story is the one I find only by actively not forming a story out of it, only by actively ignoring my instincts. Instead, I allow images to gather in my imagination in this strange way that is very dif- ficult for me to describe. These images might gather over the course of a day, or over several years. The images feed the feeling until, finally, the feeling is whole enough for me to capture it inside of a scene. And then it happens fast.

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It’s as if fiction is this parallel world that is real and living all the time, and these feelings that authors get are simply tiny collisions of our world and the other. It always feels like an accident to me, when I dip into that other world, because I don’t know the rules of how these worlds overlap, and I can’t sense their orbits.

This is not a metaphor; this is actually what it feels like when I write. A few days ago, my cat licked a mosquito off a cold window, and immediately I felt the first flicker of a story. Why? I don’t know. A few days before that, my brother and I scooped with an old coffee can a gelatinous sac of bullfrog eggs out of a grassy ditch, and I felt it then, too, as if I’d accidentally scooped into that can a portal to that other world.

Again, this isn’t a metaphor. It’s actually how it feels. Some images catch hold and linger. They are imbued with irrational meaning. They are the souls of stories I haven’t yet found.

A few summers ago, walking through a very small town, my mother pointed to an old farmhouse and told me about a relative of hers who once lived there. When he was a baby, his father put him out on the porch in the winter, hoping the baby would freeze to death. The story made me very sad for my relative, and angry at the cruelty of his father. I began to imagine that someone walking by the house looked in and saw the baby on the frozen porch, and I imagined the stranger breaking the window with a rock, climbing in, and rescuing the child.

This was the first story, the easy one, partly because it was so close to the real story, and  partly because the emotions were exact – sadness for the baby boy, fury and disgust for

the father, love for the stranger. It was compelling, and it made me feel.

But it was not the real story. The real story began to rise in me the farther we walked away from that house, talking about other things. If the light that afternoon had been a little different, if the dust hadn’t tasted in the air the way it did, if we had stopped for a cup of coffee or even just to tie a shoe – it’s likely the story would have stopped at its own trueness. But as it was, it grew. Suddenly, I saw the porch in my mind, and it was completely different from the real porch, the one I’d seen just minutes ago. And locked inside of it was not my relative, but a little girl I’d never known, ten years old with dirty-blonde hair and a bright and cruel face, a tight, twitching mouth.

She was standing in the middle of that porch that was built out of windows. This was her punishment for something (what?) terrible that she had done, to stand out here in the cold, locked out of the house and also out of the out-of-doors, in the frozen in-

between space that was the covered porch. The windows were framed with frost. The locked door behind her was blue. I saw the stale, wicker chair beside her. I could smell its frozen cushion. On the ground, a cup of water, as if her father could assuage his guilt by reminding himself he had given her that. The girl wore a dress. She could have put on her coat, which was wadded up beneath that wicker chair, but she did not, though her bare arms were covered in goosebumps. She stood perfectly straight in the middle of the porch. And what she was wasn’t sad – she was wildly glad. She relished her own hunger; she devoured that cold. Her breath was bright and beautiful and scary.

And, suddenly, it wasn’t her father who had put her there but her older brother, a teenager, fed up and hardworking and in charge, much older than his sister but not half as

smart. Inside, he is secretly pained by having locked his little sister on the winter porch to punish her. He feels tired and guilty and half-panicked at what he’s done and what he can’t quite decide to undo, though it would be the simplest thing in the world, to just unlock that door and let her win. He’s looking through the curtain of a different window, seeing the passersby, his neighbors, glance at his poor sister, locked out

in the cold, and he is punished by their glances, by their shame of him.

And suddenly, it’s not the girl who is being punished by her brother, and it’s not her brother who is being punished by the glances of the passersby; it is the passersby themselves who are being punished by the girl. They glance up at those windows and see her staring out at them, see her gathering the pity from their eyes until what’s left in them is only their own shame, as if they, somehow, are to blame for the abuse she is enduring so bravely, in total silence, in total stillness, hands clasped elegantly in front of her. And they know that she is making a display of herself, but they are wrong about why: They think she stands that way, in pained grace, because she is trying to preserve her dignity. They think she wants to appear to the world as strong and brave for their sakes. And such striving makes her even more pitiable in their eyes, her stern innocence a terrible shock in the winter light. Should they go knock on the door? Chastise whomever has done this to her? Should they call the police? Should they spare the girl by pretending they haven’t seen and just hope, pray, that it will end soon for her? It is terrible, the indecision and the shame.

The girl knows all this, of course, and doesn’t mind the cold because of what she knows. She is glad for this singular chance to stand in this perfect glass case, like a museum display, and exhibit to the world the stupidity of her brother and the culmination of all the injustices inflicted upon her beautiful self.

And she triumphs; to the passersby, the girl becomes more than herself, a feeling they carry into their own warm houses. For some of them, she is a memory of having long ago endured pain inflicted by adults; for others, she is the memory of having just yesterday inflicted that pain upon a child. She is guilt; she is blame. She is a trapped and frozen breath that chills her brother to his core and lasts in him forever.

All of this is only an instant, something I felt over the course of a single summer walk beside my mom. And yet this instant has stayed inside of me for two years now, and nothing has ever come of it except this essay, an answer to a question: What is writing like?

Maybe there is nothing more to this story. Maybe this is it.

Or maybe one day she’ll wake up inside of me, suddenly furious to discover that she has been used as an example. I will be there on the sidewalk, and she will look out, and I will see her blame me for what I’ve done to her story, for my cold exploitation of her pain. Suddenly, she will look down at the floor, where the cup of water has frozen solid after all this time. And she will bend down, bang that cup against the floorboards until that cylinder of ice slides out. Then she will pick the ice up, wrap it in the coat she removes from beneath that wicker chair, and bang it against every window, breaking them all.

Then, like fiction itself, she’ll climb out, down into her yard, face me for an instant, and turn away.

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Emily Ruskovich’s piece is part of The Compact Guide To Short Story Writing, which features 14 essays on the craft of short story writing. The guide explores crafting killer beginnings and endings, idea formation, character development and more all via the relatively small number of pages a short story is limited to—indeed, a unique challenge but also an opportunity to take some interesting storytelling risks. Whether you write short stories, novels, screenplays, picture books, or any other form of narrative writing, this guide is a goldmine of helpful gems. 

How to Keep a Short Story Short

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Part of constraining a short story to its simplest form is to observe the convention of its length. Edgar Allen Poe said it should aim for a single effect on the reader and should be of a length that could be read in a single sitting. Some readers, however, are willing to sit longer than others.

In general, the contemporary short story has a word count up to 10,000 words, although I’ve seen mention of much higher, and I’ve read ones with greater heft and complex effect. In terms of my own writing, I write very short, anywhere from 250 to 2,000 words per story, although some reach between 3,000 and 5,000. For me the answer to the question How do you keep a short story short? is simple: that’s how they turn out. How to make it a good story is more difficult. In this, we learn together.

[image error]“Being short does not mean slight. A short story should be long in depth and should give us an experience of meaning,” Flannery O’Conner wrote in Mystery and Manners. “Nothing essential to the main experience can be left out of a short story. All the action has to be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of motivation, and there has to be a beginning, middle, and an end, though not necessarily in that order.”

O’Conner’s stories are character-driven: “[a] story always involves, in a dramatic way, the mystery of personality.” When you write stories, O’Conner says, “…you have to be content to start exactly there—showing how some specific folks…will do in spite of everything.” She reminds us that “fiction operates through the senses” and that the writer “has to create a world with weight and extension.” She did concede that the process of writing became increasingly mysterious to her the more she wrote. “The more stories I write, the more mysterious I find the process and the less I find myself capable of analyzing it…nothing produces silence like experience…”

Not all short stories answer to the beginning-middle-end aesthetic or contain a definitive personality or even strive to attain meaning, but there’s something about the good ones that resonates with us, drawing us into their worlds and remaining with us, and when they do, they typically contain some aspect of what Poe and O’Conner mention, especially a sense of compressed depth, weight, and extension. There’s also the claim that stories require these moments of beginning, middle, and ending, as well as something troublesome, a turning point for a character, if not outright conflict.

Unlike novels, short stories are not as forgiving for the meandering writer or the novelist. Every word does count, typically carrying extra freight. The short story thrives on subtext and nuance, but too much cleverness can lose your reader by throwing them out of the story because it doesn’t make sense. Nothing is lost by generosity, neither to your readers or your characters. We want our stories, I think, to gain radiance and vibrancy, even beauty. (For an example of an exquisite short story, read “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel.)

Pointers for Keeping Your Short Story Short:

Work with the constraints of limited word and space, use them to play to strengths of the form
Use varying sentence length
Use consistent POV and tense or use sections to help guide the reader to different ones or jumps in POV and tense
Use fewer or shorter transition sentences between scenes
Exploit titles for greater impact
Longer scenes, shorter sequels
Use vibrant images
Strive for emotional resonance
Engage the senses
Use active language
Avoid sentiment but reach for human experience
Replace abstract concepts with scenes; instead of telling “love,” demonstrate it
Essential dialogue only and use as few tags as possible
Use subplots as an enhancement
Cut only those elements that drag down the story; keep the essential

Short stories tend to maintain one narrative perspective, but short story writers like to experiment with fluid perspectives—they play with form, structure, the elements of fiction, and the space of the page. And this takes me to how many short story writers approach the writing of their stories. George Saunders shares something about his creative process in his affecting short film, George Saunders: On Story.

In it, he says, “the process of crafting a good story means not condescending to your reader. It means creating sentences that clue them into something unnoticed about the character, and allowing them to figure it out. A bad story is one where you know what the story is and you’re sure of it.” For Saunders, storytelling is a stand-in for day-to-day life—and the same considerations you take when approaching how to tell a story mirror the freedom to self-determined identity that you give your loved ones.

“For me,” Saunders continues, “the process of sitting down to write a story is to keep your eyes open all of the time. Keep yourself mystified and to say, this thing defies systemization, it really does. Every story is different. You arrive at it with your tools from the last story and it says, ‘No no no no no. We are all seeing through that. Don’t pull out those old trick on me. You go out in the world, see what it is. It’s just as fresh now as it was when you were 18. Go out there and experience it, come back in befuddled and then try it.’ I don’t care how old you are. Do something beautiful.”

I hope you enjoy writing and revising your next short story! Thank you so much for the question that prompted this post.

Other Resources for Short Story Writing:

Charles Baxter: Burning Down The House: Essays On Fiction and The Art of Subtext

Flannery O’Conner: Mystery and Manners

The Rose Metal Press Guides to Flash Fiction and Prose Poetry

Tin House Writers Notebooks I & II

 

 

 

[image error]April has a Master’s in Ethics from Yale University and studied Philosophy and Theology as a post-graduate scholar at Cambridge University. Her fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and has been nominated for the 2015 Best of the Net Anthology as well as the 2017 Pushcart Prize. She is the Associate Editor for Bartleby Snopes Literary Magazine and Press and the Founder and Editor of Women Who Flash Their Lit. Find out more about April here, visit her website, and catch up with her online.

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Character Motivation Entry: Entering a Competition and Winning It

What does your character want? This is an important question to answer because it determines what your protagonist hopes to achieve by the story’s end. If the goal, or outer motivation, is written well, readers will identify fairly quickly what the overall story goal’s going to be and they’ll know what to root for. But how do you know what outer motivation to choose?

[image error]If you read enough books, you’ll see the same goals being used for different characters in new scenarios. Through this thesaurus, we’d like to explore these common outer motivations so you can see your options and what those goals might look like on a deeper level.

Character’s Goal (Outer Motivation): 

Forms This Might Take:

A difficult business goal within a competitive firm (who has the most sales, the most clients, makes the most profit, etc.)
A sporting event (diving, a triathlon, a soccer championship, etc.)
A bid to beat a bizarre world record (in hot-dog eating, longest hair, glass-eating, etc.)
A bid to beat a sporting record (in shot-put, most championship wins, longest drive in golf, etc.)
A school science fair, robotics competition, spelling championship, etc.
A chess tournament
Winning a special scholarship
Being chosen for an elite program or school
Winning a position of office (mayor, councilor, senator, etc.)
A championship event (Indy 500, etc.)
A neighborhood bake off, smoked meat competition, best chili, etc.
A “Best in Show” designation on the dog (or cat) circuit
Being chosen for a highly competitive intern position
The top prize in an art show
A talent competition
An award for acting, singing, musical score, etc. in Hollywood
Meeting a fundraising goal before someone else

Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): esteem and recognition

How the Character May Prepare for This Goal: 

Making a detailed plan of what must be done to win
Monitoring one’s health and eating habits
Studying a particular discipline with rigor
Working out (strength training, endurance, cardio) if it applies
Buying optimal equipment
Raising money (kickstarter, fundraising, etc,) to purchase what one needs
Seeking out a mentor or trainer
Observing one’s competition and studying their processes and strengths
Researching one’s discipline and competitions from years’ past
Adhering to a specific routine
Challenging oneself to always do better
Meditate
Pull all-nighters to study or make sleep a priority
Examine one’s life for time wasters and cut these out
Hire coaches or experts to help round out one’s knowledge or to enhance a skill set
Take classes and attend talks
Practice obsessively
Adopt a positive mindset and use visualization techniques that incorporate positive results
Pit oneself against competitors to warm up and test ones skills

Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal: 

Losing out on family time, which could cause relationships to suffer
Having no time for interests and hobbies
Broken relationships with people who do not understand or support one’s goal
Friction as family members sacrifice for one’s passion (having to move frequently, having to give up a school or job, needing to work everything around a set routine, etc.
Children feeling unimportant or sidelined because of one’s focus on the goal
Financial strain caused by extra expenses tied to whatever is need to win the competition

Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved: 

A health crisis
New technology or resources that one cannot afford but one’s competition can
An accident that causes hardship (a car fender bender that takes away one’s transport, one’s facility moving far away, causing lost time in commutes)
A rocky marriage that requires tending to survive
Running out of money reserves
A new competitor entering the field who is very good at what they do
Having a sponsor back out at a critical time
Discovering someone on one’s team is unstable (has been using drugs, is being indited for fraud, etc.)
Discovering someone has been sharing secrets or strategies with the competition
Having an enemy who is purposefully impeding one’s progress
An embarrassing public mistake that damages one’s reputation with clients

Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal:

A Knack for Languages
Good Listening Skills
Gaining the Trust of Others
ESP (Clairvoyance)
Enhanced Hearing
Enhanced Sense of Smell
Enhanced Taste Buds
Gaming
Charm
High Pain Tolerance
Lip-Reading
Mechanically Inclined
Mentalism
A Knack for Making Money
Multitasking
Organization
Photographic Memory
Promotion
Reading People
Strategic Thinking
Super Strength
Swift-footedness

Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:

Shame and guilt for letting one’s supporters down
Struggling with self-esteem issues
Anger and disappointment leading to rash behavior that may have far-reaching consequences (getting revenge by doing something illegal and getting caught, for example)
Feeling lesser in some way
Refusing to go after a satisfying goal again if it is a challenge
Underachieving to avoid being hurt again
Giving up on one’s dream or a career due to the loss


Click here for a list of our current entries for this thesaurus, along with a master post containing information on the individual fields.

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Finding Your Voice Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

[image error]A short while ago, I was contacted by someone working with Jerry B. Jenkins about him posting at our site. !! When a prolific and successful author reaches out to YOU, it’s kind of surreal, and you jump at the chance to learn whatever he can teach.

I wasn’t disappointed. This 40-year writer of over 190 books (including the crazy-popular Left Behind series) has put together a solid blueprint for how to write a book in twenty steps. One of the points was particularly intriguing, so he agreed to let me share it with you.

Step #13: Find Your Writing Voice

Discovering your voice is nowhere near as complicated as some make it out to be.

You can find yours by answering these quick questions:

What’s the coolest thing that ever happened to you?
Who’s the most important person you told about it?
What did you sound like when you did?

That’s your writing voice. It should read the way you sound at your most engaged.

That’s all there is to it.

If you write fiction and the narrator of your book isn’t you, go through the three-question exercise on the narrator’s behalf—and you’ll quickly master the voice.

“Voice” is one of those things that’s somewhat nebulous and ethereal; we all know it when we read it, but few people do it well and it’s hard to say exactly how to accomplish it. Jerry’s approach makes a ton of sense to me. He goes into more detail about it in a separate post, where he describes the time he met his future wife, then drove to the gas station where his best friend worked so he could spend half the night telling him about her. He segues that narrative into how you can apply your own memory to your voice when writing a story:

Imagine yourself sitting your best friend down and demanding their full attention, insisting, “Listen, have I got something to tell you…”

THIS. So much, people. It’s about intensity. It’s about passion. The story itself is so important that IT MUST BE TOLD. Like an electrical current traveling through a wire, when the story is that important to you, the intensity and passion will pass from you through the viewpoint character(s) to the reader. (On the importance of The Reader to your story, see Step #12: Think Reader First. But that’s a post for another time.)

[image error]Mastering voice isn’t easy. It takes a lot of research to know the characters well enough that you understand why the story is important to them personally. It takes a lot of practice to maintain that engaged tone without letting it dwindle away into blah-ness. But knowing where to start is often the hardest part. And I think this approach to finding your voice may be just the ticket.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this method. And because voice is something we all struggle with, please share any other techniques you’ve found for doing this successfully.

And while you’re pondering, you should know that Jerry’s How To Write A Book blueprint is available for free. Depending on where you are in the journey, some of it may be elementary, but you’re sure to find a few worthy nuggets to apply to your own process. Oh, and by the way, IT’S FREE. You can read it here in full or scroll to the bottom of that page to download your own copy for keeps.

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Struggling with (and Regaining) Confidence in Your Writing

[image error]Every writer’s toolbox is unique, containing the techniques, reference books, personal library, and lessons or “best practices” we’ve acquired over time. But there’s one tool that all writers need despite their target audience, genre, or years of experience. It’s just as important as talent, industry knowledge, and a strong work ethic – and for many of us, it’s the most difficult tool to master.

Yes, I’m talking about confidence.

Writing requires us to have a degree of belief in our abilities. It asks us to be vulnerable on the page and in sharing our work. It encourages us to invent believable settings and create characters that live and breathe like real people do. It beckons us to tune out our inner editor when necessary and trust our intuition so we can work with a clear head and an impassioned heart.

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Yet sometimes, despite all our efforts, our confidence in our craft implodes – and our writing world seems to explode along with it. And when it does, we question ourselves. We might even think we’re incompetent at what we love doing most, or feel alone in our struggles. (Or, in many cases, we’ll experience both.)

Here’s the reality, though: You are never alone in your battle with writer’s doubt. Ask any writer, published or not, and chances are they’ll each have a tale or two (or more) to tell on this subject.

My Ongoing Struggle with Confidence in My Craft

Earlier this year, I received beta-reader feedback on a manuscript I’d been working on for 4 years. Most of the readers generally liked the story, but they also noted several plot and worldbuilding issues that needed to be addressed. Immediately I realized how their feedback would strengthen the story. But when I tried to envision how the scenes would play out with those changes… Well, my mind went blank. I couldn’t figure out how to revise the story further, even though I understood what needed to be done.

That, along with other sources of stress in my life at the time, sent me into an emotional tailspin. And it wasn’t the first time that my confidence in my writing had plummeted, either.

I’d like to say I’ve rebuilt my confidence in the months since then. And in some ways, I have. I’m working on a new WIP (which I’ve grown to love) with the intention of applying what I learned from this experience so I won’t make the same mistakes, and with the hope that eventually a lightbulb will turn on with the old manuscript so I can revise it with clarity and purpose. Yet some days, I find myself thinking, “I should have been able to figure out those revisions,” or “What if I’m still making those mistakes and I don’t realize it?” And then the carousel of doubts starts turning again.

 

If you’ve been struggling with confidence in your writing lately, please know that I hear you. Doubt can be a discouraging – even debilitating – mindset. And if you linger in it too long, it can become powerful enough to convince you to stop writing altogether.

I don’t want you to give up, and I’m sure you don’t want to, either. So, together, let’s pick ourselves up, dust each other off, and lean on one another as we find our way back to believing in ourselves.

Tailoring Your Approach to Managing Doubts and Rebuilding Confidence

Of course, there’s a catch when it comes to rebuilding confidence in our writing: No “one-size-fits-all” solution exists. Just as one writer’s process will differ from another’s, so will their methods in how they regain their poise and manage their doubts. If you haven’t figured out how to approach the problem or are looking for new techniques, here are some suggestions (from my own experience and from other writers’) that might help:

Sharpen your writing skills. If a particular aspect of writing (dialogue, description, foreshadowing, etc.) is troubling you, try studying that skill through workshops or blog posts and then practicing it on your own. Seeing an improvement in those areas can give you the boost you need.
Plan your writing session(s) in advance. Before your next sit-down, take a few minutes to jot down notes, organize your thoughts, and develop a “plan of attack” so you know exactly what you’ll work on. That way, you’ll stay in the flow during your writing session and be proud that you prepared for it.
Share your concerns with writing pals. No writer wants their peers to be discouraged about their craft. So if you have writer friends either online or in real life, talk to them about your situation. Their perspectives on your abilities as a writer, as well as any advice they offer, can help you see your story or circumstances more clearly.
Allow other writers to inspire you. Just as discussing your confidence issues with trusted colleagues can be encouraging, so can absorbing words of wisdom from writers who influenced you to become one yourself. Reading inspirational quotes or listening to motivational speeches can remind you of why you’re pursuing this craft and renew your enthusiasm for your current project.
Adopt a more positive self-perception. This might be the most challenging tip on the list, but it’s also the most essential. Self-criticism, doubt, and comparing yourself unfavorably to other writers can crush your motivation – or, worse, convince you to quit writing altogether. Hyper-focusing on the negative only fosters more negativity. Instead, take pride in your accomplishments and strengths, and look forward to improving on your weaknesses and reaching your goals.
Take a day off from writing. Sometimes all you need is a break. Give yourself a day or two off to exercise, socialize, read, or engage in other hobbies you enjoy. (My go-to activities on an “off-night”? Yoga, journaling, and mandala-coloring.) Doing so will allow your mind to “reset” so you can feel refreshed when you return to writing.
Switch to a different writing project. If you’re stuck on your WIP, taking a break to work on something else (a blog post, essay, short story, etc.) can do the trick. Whether it’s for a few days or several weeks is up to you. But by continuing to write, you’ll also continue to mature as a writer while your subconscious ruminates on the old project. And who knows? Maybe the breakthrough you need will come when you least expect it.

Regardless of what caused your confidence to waver and how you bounce back, just remember that the surest way of recovering from writer’s doubt is to keep writing. Perseverance is just as important as confidence and everything else in your toolbox. And if you have the courage to believe in yourself and persist, even when things aren’t going well, you might be surprised with how far that attitude can take you.

When was the last time you struggled with confidence in your writing? How did you overcome it? What other tips would you add to our list?

[image error]Sara is a fantasy writer living in Massachusetts who devours good books, geeks out about character arcs, and drinks too much tea. In addition to WHW’s Resident Writing Coach Program, she writes the Theme: A Story’s Soul column at DIY MFA and is hard at work on a YA fantasy novel. Find out more about Sara here, visit her personal blog, Goodreads profile, and find her online.

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Character Motivation Thesaurus Entry: Carrying on a Legacy

What does your character want? This is an important question to answer because it determines what your protagonist hopes to achieve by the story’s end. If the goal, or outer motivation, is written well, readers will identify fairly quickly what the overall story goal’s going to be and they’ll know what to root for. But how do you know what outer motivation to choose?

If you read enough books, you’ll see the same goals being used for different characters in new scenarios. Through this thesaurus, we’d like to explore these common outer motivations so you can see your options and what those goals might look like on a deeper level.

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Character’s Goal (Outer Motivation): Carrying on a Legacy

Forms This Might Take: Keeping alive a legacy begun by a respected person, organization, or culture. This could be personal (running the family business, fostering children because one’s parents did so), moral (supporting a charity organization, rallying around a topic of social awareness to right a wrong), or surrounding a passion or interest (gathering informing about a person who broke ground in an important area and sharing it with others, building upon an area of study).

Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): self-actualization

How the Character May Prepare for This Goal: 

Reorganizing one’s priorities to make time for this new endeavor
Making necessary changes so one can pursue the goal (relocating, changing careers, quitting one’s job, etc.)
Allocating resources and making purchases toward the pursuit of this goal
Sacrificing time, money, or resources so they can be put toward the new goal
Increasing one’s knowledge in the area of the legacy (studying, collecting information, interviewing people)
Spending time with others who are involved in or passionate about the legacy
Gathering support from others (if this applies to the specific goal)
Mentally focusing on what it would take to continue this legacy

Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal: 

Risk of failure (if this is something one hasn’t tried previously)
Giving up passions or hobbies due to a lack of time or decreased interest
A temporary or permanent decrease in income
Having to move away from one’s home
Growing apart from friends due to the amount of time one is dedicating to the new goal
Losing the respect of others who don’t understand why one is making the change
Stressed relations with family members who are affected by the changes
Heightened worry and fear about one’s capability or venturing into a new area

Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved: 

The people in one’s life who are averse to the changes that would come with one pursuing the legacy
A lack of necessary knowledge (having the passion but not the smarts to succeed)
External forces that don’t want the legacy to continue
Character traits or attitudes that will inhibit the hero’s success (impatience, closed-mindedness, recklessness, selfishness, etc.)
Those who began the legacy who disagree with one’s methods or the changes one would implement
Illness, emergencies, problems at home, and other difficulties that would distract one from focusing wholeheartedly on building the legacy

Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal: 

A Knack for Languages
Skills specific to the legacy (Baking, Basic First Aid, Carpentry, Farming, Mechanically Inclined, Promotion)
Good Listening Skills
Gaining the Trust of Others
Empathy
Haggling
Charm
A Knack for Making Money
Multitasking
Organization
Reading People

Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:

The object of one’s legacy fading away and being forgotten
Self-blame for allowing something important to fail
Social wrongs going unchanged
People associated with the legacy being negatively impacted when it fails to continue (those serviced by a charity, employees of a family-run business, etc.)
Personal discontentment and dissatisfaction due to one’s failure
The feeling that one has failed not only himself but the important people who began the legacy

Clichés to Avoid: 

The passionate believer who sacrifices everything only to fail, ending up ruined in every possible way
The “save the farm” storyline in which greedy corporations or neighbors sabotage one’s attempts to continue the family legacy

Click here for a list of our current entries for this thesaurus, along with a master post containing information on the individual fields.

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Making Characters Stuck in the Background Pop Out

[image error]Maybe you have had some of the experiences I’ve had when writing a manuscript, one of which is finding yourself with a character–could be a side character, a secondary character, or even a viewpoint character–who seems to be sort of stuck in the background of the story when he’s not really supposed to be. In your head, he’s a great character, and maybe you even want to showcase him, but for some reason, on the page, he just doesn’t shine. Sometimes this sort of thing even happens with the protagonist. Here are four tips to help make characters stuck in the background pop out.

Give Your Character Defined Attributes

[image error]You may be familiar with the idea of “tagging” your character–giving your character attributes or key words that are regularly referenced. For example, Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is regularly described with the color pink, wearing a bow, “like a toad,” and very short and stumpy. The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, always has a bowler hat, and he usually takes it off and runs the brim of it through his hands.

If your character is stuck in the background, she may need some tags to help her pop out. Make sure you don’t pick tags or details that are so generic, they are forgettable. Instead, be specific and telling.

Round out Your Character

Some characters get stuck in the background because they aren’t rounded out as real individuals. I’ve seen this happen when editing manuscripts that have a heroine who is a borderline Mary Sue. Because she isn’t rounded out as a real person, she sort of blends into the background. If this is the case, you’ll need to flesh her out and give her some legitimate flaws that pertain to the story, instead of just flaws that are endearing side notes. Remember that point: give you character strengths and weaknesses that relate to the story. You can find plenty more tips online about rounding out your character.

Put Your Character in Situations that Show off His Traits and Abilities

There may be a good chance that the set-ups and situations you are putting your character in don’t show off the defining traits you’ve given her. This can relate back to my last post here in Writers Helping Writers, about giving your character some kind of contradiction. In the television show Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes is a self-proclaimed high-functioning sociopath, which means he doesn’t relate well to people. That’s a character trait that makes him interesting. But if we never put him in significant social situations and only put him in scenes where he solves cases, we never get to the depth or complexity of that character trait. It’s never illustrated in a way that fully realizes it.

Other times, it’s not so much a trait that isn’t illustrated as it is a talent or ability. In Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, one of the main characters, Violet, is an inventor. But if the plot never needed an invention to solve a problem, we’d never see how good Violet is at inventing something.

If you don’t put your character in situations that showcase her defining traits or talents and abilities, she can fade into the background.

Separate Her from “Loud” Characters

[image error]Some of your other characters may not necessarily be loud mouths (though they can be), but they are “loud” in that they beg for attention. Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of the Caribbean is a good example of this. He’s perhaps the most entertaining and likeable character in the franchise, and when he’s on the screen, people watch him. It’s like you can’t look away. You have to see what he will do or say or even what his mannerisms are. Sometimes we cannot fully appreciate Will or Elizabeth or Barbossa because we are so focused on Jack. If Jack were in every scene, we may not appreciate many of the other characters at all.

Luckily, the writers made sure to separate Jack regularly from many of the others. If you watch the franchise, you’ll see that it’s true. To make your background character pop out, you may need to do the same thing. And it doesn’t need to be elaborate. Separate your “quieter” character from the “loud” ones, so that they can get some of the spotlight, even if it’s just temporary. (This is also one of the reasons the “mentor” character often dies–so that the protagonist can step up and shine.)

If none of these methods seem to work or relate to your story, you may want to consider revamping your character so that she is more relevant, or, if you need to, cut him altogether.

[image error]Sometimes September scares people with her enthusiasm for writing and reading. She works as an assistant to a New York Times bestselling author while penning her own stories, holds an English degree, and had the pleasure of writing her thesis on Harry Potter.

Find out more about September here, hang with her on social media, or visit her website to follow her writing journey and get more writing tips.

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Character Motivation Entry: Helping A Loved One See They Are Hurting Themselves (and Others)

What does your character want? This is an important question to answer because it determines what your protagonist hopes to achieve by the story’s end. If the goal, or outer motivation, is written well, readers will identify fairly quickly what the overall story goal’s going to be and they’ll know what to root for. But how do you know what outer motivation to choose?

[image error]If you read enough books, you’ll see the same goals being used for different characters in new scenarios. Through this thesaurus, we’d like to explore these common outer motivations so you can see your options and what those goals might look like on a deeper level.

Character’s Goal (Outer Motivation): Helping A Loved One See They Are Hurting Themselves (and Possibly Others)

Forms This Might Take:

Helping an addict sister see she’s an addict
Encouraging a parent to get involved in a 12-step program
Talking a friend out of suicide and working to get them into therapy
Being honest with a brother regarding bad influences in his life and pointing out the legal repercussions if he continues down the road with them
Reaching out to a ex-spouse about behavior (gambling, anger issues, etc.) that is dangerous for a shared child to witness
Being determined to not lose one’s son to a gang
Encouraging a child to apply themselves at school, risking ridicule from peers, as it is an escape route from a high crime neighborhood
Supporting and empowering a friend who is living a domestic violence situation because she believes its the best she can do
Being honest with a toxic friend that their behavior is hurting others and themselves and trying to encourage them to get help to process pain differently

Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): safety and security, love and belonging

How the Character May Prepare for This Goal: 

Observe and gather evidence to support one’s argument
Make notes about instances that happen so one can bring them up if needed
Research options for therapy and aid
Create a plan before one brings it up
Anticipate possible push back and have answers ready
Make a mental list of the person’s good qualities so they can be brought up to show the person they have value
Deal with any anger or hurt before one spends time with the loved one so one can focus on trying to encourage healing
Reach out to other loved ones to help support the one in distress
Stage an intervention or host a group meeting that is free from judgement and focused on strategy for a way out
Save up money or resources so one may help the loved one (with treatment, with bills, help with child care, etc.)
Offer the loved one a place to stay, or transport to and from therapy
Be a non-judgemental ear when they need someone
Work on one’s patience, especially if the loved one is difficult or tends to lash out

Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal: 

Broken relationships that may not be able to be saved
Sacrificing time and energy to be with this person in their time of need
Taking flak at work if one must leave often to deal with situations as they crop up
Financial difficulties if one must helps support the loved one to ensure they are taken care of
Not being there as much as one should for functional loved one (like one’s children, or a spouse) because one’s time is always spent with the loved one in distress

Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved: 

Resistance to being helped
Unsupportive family members
An environment that is toxic and rife with abuse
A loved one who has lost all hope
A loved one who is refusing treatment or not taking medication
Toxic friends who encourage further devolving
Bullies (online or off) which suggest suicide as a way out
A broken system which ignore the needs of those in distress (because it is overtaxed, because the person can’t pay, etc.)
Parents or spouses to the person who refuse to see/ admit that anything is wrong
Not having a safe place to take a loved one, meaning they must continue to remain in the damaging one for the time being
Sustaining an injury or sickness that limits one’s ability to check on the loved one
A crisis with someone else that must be attended to, meaning the loved one’s needs will be temporarily not met

Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal:

A Way with Animals
Basic First Aid
Good Listening Skills
Gaining the Trust of Others
ESP (Clairvoyance)
Empathy
Charm
Hospitality
Making People Laugh
Mentalism
A Knack for Making Money
Organization
Reading People
Strategic Thinking

Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:

Developing an addiction to cope with the pain one is unable to alleviate for another
Strained relationships with other family who are not understanding about one’s desire to help this individual
The loved one attempts suicide (and possibly succeeds), leading to extreme guilt
Being destroyed by self-blame if the situation escalates and other people are hurt (or killed) as a result
Health problems due to excessive worrying and stress
Lowered self-esteem

Clichés to Avoid: 

Click here for a list of our current entries for this thesaurus, along with a master post containing information on the individual fields.

Six Smart Ways Indie Authors Can Collaborate When Marketing

The control and freedom indie authors have can be a big asset when it comes to marketing. The problem is time. Shouldering the weight of writing, editing, researching, publishing, marketing, and promoting alone can be exhausting, especially knowing our industry is growing more crowded and competitive by the day.

[image error]There’s a silver lining here, though: Indies are business people (let’s face it, you have to be to make it in our world) who know the value of collaboration. After all, working together means spreading out the marketing load, sharing audiences, and leveraging everyone’s platform and connections.

Finding other authors to collaborate with might take some time, but it’s worth it. Look for authors who 1) write books very similar to your own 2) have a good work ethic 3) believe in give and take, and 4) have a platform and the trust of their readers (influence).

Built your crew? Awesome! Here’s six ways to collaborate.
Swap Valuable Links

Once you have gathered six or so writers who write high quality books similar to what you produce, create a What to Read Next page at the end of your ebook and then list & link each member’s book. This way you suggest a book of theirs to your audience, and they do the same for you. It’s instant exposure with new audiences who may not yet be aware you and your books. Everybody wins. 

Brainstorm & Be A Champion

[image error]Once a month, meet online (a Google hangout, a skype, etc.) and take turns running a brainstorming session that focuses on one of the team members and their book(s). Discuss how collectively you can use the next month to help raise awareness for that book, increase the author’s platform, plan marketing strategies, etc. It’s often easier to come up with ideas and a plan when it isn’t your book. Take turns sharing content and running visibility events to spread the word (without spamming of course) as part of a marketing surge. Repeat with the next member, and then the next, continuing throughout the year.

Create Team Book Pages

Have each crew member create a page on their website called “Books To Read Next.” Similar to the ebook links, you can use this to profile each team member’s books, showing off the cover, a short blurb and a link to Amazon (and make sure it’s an affiliate link, so you earn something from each sale).  If you each have this page on your blog or website, you will expose each other’s book to different audiences. You can also tweet these pages, share them on social media as “reading suggestions” with genre appropriate hashtags if needed, and even add the pages to appropriate Pinterest boards. Together, you will find new readers.

Spread Library Love For Print Books

Write down the ISBN of each member’s book and go to your local library (or visit their website) and ask them to order the books. They may or may not, but either way you gave it a shot. Again, it’s uncomfortable sometimes for an author to ask for their own book to be brought in, and so much easier to ask for someone else’s book.  If the members of your team have more than one book, you can do this a few times throughout the year to spread requests out. However (and this is important), if the library does bring the book in, make sure to check it out to read and encourage others to as well. Libraries need to see there’s an audience waiting for that book!

Share Research

Time is always in short supply when you’re an indie, so each month during your meeting, pick an area of marketing to look into. It could be advertising, books awards, Bookbub promotions, finding review sites, or understanding price pulsing. Discuss what you know and ask questions to see what others have experienced. If there’s a subject you all want to delve deeper into, divide and conquer. For example, maybe you want to focus on “audience discovery.” One of you can poke around Wattpad and bring back your findings, another can investigate the Figment community (if you are all YA authors) to see how engaged members are to see if it’s a reading community worth joining. Another can check into the conversations and groups at Goodreads. Assign each member a site to look into and share the load of research. Communicate by email to report what you find.

Host a Group Event

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