Dee Garretson's Blog, page 4

18 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 11 Character Development or Average characters shouldn’t be totally average

You can find lots of character development works online. Here’s a simple one of mine. Basically a character development sheet is something to fill out to build a character that seems like a real person, with likes, dislikes, hopes, fears and a background that adds something to the story.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, some of the aspects of your character’s personality will play into the plot, especially things the character fears or struggles with. The fun thing about building a character is the possibilities are endless, so don’t limit yourself to average even when you are writing an ordinary character.

For example, think carefully about your character’s hobbies and interests. Hobbies and interests are a good way to develop an immediate hook or quirk that a reader will remember.

I’ve found that means I pick something slightly unusual. For example, I would not pick running, going to the gym, or practicing an ordinary sport as the character’s main hobby. I know if I was reading a book with those things listed, it wouldn’t help me build much of a picture of the person. Now if they liked archery, or karate, that’s a little more unusual, and I’d remember that. And if they spent their time skateboarding, and also trying to teach their cat to skateboard, I’d definitely remember that.

Let’s say you have a character who likes to read. That’s fine, but make it more distinct. Maybe they also collect every printing they can find of THE HOBBIT, or maybe they have stacked all the books in their room to build a little book fort. Those sorts of things really add to the basic hobby and again, help the reader see the character.

A long time ago when I was a ghost writer for a man writing his autobiography, he talked about his parents but I had a hard time pulling something from him that would make his mother distinctive until finally one day he just happened to mention that she was very short and wore high heels all the time, even when she was cleaning. That stuck in my head and I used it in the book.

For some more examples, in WILDFIRE RUN, Luke, the main character, is very active and has done African drumming in school, so he drums on everything, tables, walls, etc., when he is nervous. Stephan, in WOLF STORM, is very good at imitations, especially actors from old movies. Mina from ALL IS FAIR, writes silly plays for her and her schoolmates to perform. Quinn, from my Torch World sci fi series, wants to study explore new places to discover new species, so he’s always drawing pictures of specimens he finds as practice and he also builds contraptions to catch them. These are all ordinary people, but their hobbies may make you remember them more than a character doing something more mundane.

As with fears, the hobbies or interests you pick should help the main character out in some of the difficult situations they will face. That’s why outlining to decide upon the major difficulties is good to do before you make a final decision on all aspects of the character. Not everything will be used, but if something helps them out, it will make sense to the reader and make the plot more believable.

30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 11 Character Development or Average characters shouldn’t be totally average

You can find lots of character development works online. Here’s a simple one of mine. Basically a character development sheet is something to fill out to build a character that seems like a real person, with likes, dislikes, hopes, fears and a background that adds something to the story.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, some of the aspects of your character’s personality will play into the plot, especially things the character fears or struggles with. The fun thing about building a character is the possibilities are endless, so don’t limit yourself to average even when you are writing an ordinary character.

For example, think carefully about your character’s hobbies and interests. Hobbies and interests are a good way to develop an immediate hook or quirk that a reader will remember.

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I’ve found that means I pick something slightly unusual. For example, I would not pick running, going to the gym, or practicing an ordinary sport as the character’s main hobby. I know if I was reading a book with those things listed, it wouldn’t help me build much of a picture of the person. Now if they liked archery, or karate, that’s a little more unusual, and I’d remember that. And if they spent their time skateboarding, and also trying to teach their cat to skateboard, I’d definitely remember that.

Let’s say you have a character who likes to read. That’s fine, but make it more distinct. Maybe they also collect every printing they can find of THE HOBBIT, or maybe they have stacked all the books in their room to build a little book fort. Those sorts of things really add to the basic hobby and again, help the reader see the character.

A long time ago when I was a ghost writer for a man writing his autobiography, he talked about his parents but I had a hard time pulling something from him that would make his mother distinctive until finally one day he just happened to mention that she was very short and wore high heels all the time, even when she was cleaning. That stuck in my head and I used it in the book.

For some more examples, in WILDFIRE RUN, Luke, the main character, is very active and has done African drumming in school, so he drums on everything, tables, walls, etc., when he is nervous. Stephan, in WOLF STORM, is very good at imitations, especially actors from old movies. Mina from ALL IS FAIR, writes silly plays for her and her schoolmates to perform. Quinn, from my Torch World sci fi series, wants to study explore new places to discover new species, so he’s always drawing pictures of specimens he finds as practice and he also builds contraptions to catch them. These are all ordinary people, but their hobbies may make you remember them more than a character doing something more mundane.

As with fears, the hobbies or interests you pick should help the main character out in some of the difficult situations they will face. That’s why outlining to decide upon the major difficulties is good to do before you make a final decision on all aspects of the character. Not everything will be used, but if something helps them out, it will make sense to the reader and make the plot more believable.

30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 10 A Simple Character Development Worksheet

You can finds lots of character development sheets online to help you build a complete character and I wanted to post one of mine. It isn’t as elaborate as some, but if you’ve read my previous posts, it’s probably clear that I let the story (and the characters) develop somewhat as I go and I don’t use too much planning as a way to avoid writing, which can be a very easy trap to fall into. This is something I use to get started, knowing it might change along the way:

Character Name:

Age:

Gender:

Sexuality:

Introvert, Extrovert or somewhere inbetween:

Physical Characteristics:

Preferred type of Clothing:

Would never wear:

Hobbies:

Interests:

Skills:

Bad at:

Afraid of:

Pet peeves:

Thoughts on religion:

Thoughts on politics:

Family:

Thoughts on family members:

Past history of family:

Friends:

Enemies:

Past Traumas:

Past injuries or illnesses:

Favorite foods:

Disliked foods:

That’s it. Use and adapt as needed. If you’ve like to start at the beginning of my tips posts, start here.

 

30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 9 The link between theme and character development

In previous posts I’ve talked about outlining and plot and a little about character development, (post 1 is here) so I wanted to delve a little more into starting to develop the main character.  Besides the little details about the character which will be discussed in a later post, how your character changes over the course of the story is often the theme of the book, and something that is helpful to decide up front as part of the outlining. I didn’t realize when I got my first book published that I even had a theme. I just thought I was writing an adventure. It took a reviewer to point out that the main character (Luke, the president’s son in WILDFIRE RUN) went from an unsure, somewhat immature kid to someone who became more confident and resourceful to survive the disaster in the book.

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It’s true, I did write it that way, I suppose because I was somehow aware that’s what I liked to read in stories-characters overcoming difficulties and becoming stronger people because of their ordeals.

Here’s the thing with middle grade and young adult fiction though – young readers don’t like it if you are obviously trying to teach them a lesson, so you have to be careful that the theme of your story doesn’t tip into so meaningful, kids will roll their eyes at the book. Such lesson books might be pushed on kids by parents, etc., but those aren’t the books kids will read over and over again and write you fan letters about.

So have your main character grow in some sense during the story, but don’t tie it all up neatly in some Victorian-era type morality screed.

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The character growth ties back into the Hero’s Journey article I linked to in the post on outlining resources here.

Becoming more sure of oneself, more confident, less self-centered, recognizing personal weaknesses and facing fears works as a theme because it is a seen as a what is hoped will happen to people in real life as they grow older. Your character doesn’t have to turn into a perfect being, but think of how you want them to be different at the end than they are at the beginning.

30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 8 Don’t let your character run the show

Some writers start off with developing a character before they work on the plot. I don’t do this- I have a basic idea of a type of person I want to write about, but I don’t come up with a complete character until I have an almost complete plot worked out.

I do this because in my stories, plot comes first. I want page-turners, and characters have to serve the plot.

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That is not to say the characters are unimportant-they are vitally important, but they have to be adapted to make the plot work, and that means their specific strengths and weaknesses are chosen as to how well they fit in the story. I’m not one of those writers who claim their characters steer the story, as if they’ve come to life and taken over the writer’s typing fingers.

In the post where I talked about outlining, I suggested people list at least four obstacles the character will have to overcome along the way to trying to obtain the ultimate goal of the story.

If I’m outlining my own stories, I consider those obstacles and then I consider what specific personality traits my main might have that would make it difficult to overcome those obstacles.

 

It’s all too common for beginning writers to write Mary Sue characters, those characters that may be wish fulfillment in the author, someone who can do all the things they can’t or who are so perfect you want to gag. Think Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind. Those characters are boring to read, as are characters who never struggle. (Except in certain adult thrillers. There are certainly tough guy characters some people love to read about, who can be like Tom Cruise and never break out in a sweat while dangling from a skyscraper.)

Even Katniss Everdeen, tough girl of the Hunger Games series had her flaws. She couldn’t be charming and attract allies before the game started, which was a vital part of surviving the games.

So what kinds of flaws am I talking about? They could be specific fears – fear of heights and the character has to walk along a narrow path on the side of a mountain. Fear of water and what’s in it. (I have an irrational fear of giant squid so if I was a character in a story, I’d make me go down into the depths of the ocean in a tiny submarine to retrieve my true love who was trapped in another tiny submarine and I’d run into a GIANT SQUID!

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It could be your character is shy and has trouble talking to people, and the plot demands that they talk to lots of people to find out clues or find their way. This may not seem like a major obstacle until you start writing it, but then every single conversation becomes an ordeal, and the reader has to root for the character to succeed.

I’ve had characters who were unsure they could be the ones to lead, characters who judged their companions too quickly and didn’t trust them enough to band together, characters who were too impulsive, characters who were so focused on something that they didn’t realize the rest of the world was falling apart around them, and characters who were too stubborn to admit they made the wrong choice.

So the main point of this post is don’t stay welded to a character until you are sure that character fits in with the story you are trying to tell. There are always other stories where a character might fit better. It’s not like you are going to write only one story, though I know before a writer is published it often seems this way, but trust me, once you finish one story, others will call to you.

If you are interested in other writing and publishing tips, the Day 1 post is here. And I started writing these posts because book three of my YA sci fi trilogy is out now.  Here they are:

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30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 7 Resources to help you plot books that will sell

Very short post today because of some life issues, but I wanted to post about some resources writers might not know about. I often have people ask me how I manage to write and sell books written in several different genres (contemporary adventure, historical and science fiction.) The answer is that I plot them out much the same way no matter what the genre. I use a combination of something called Save the Cat, along with aspects of The Hero’s Journey. These two resources have helped me get eight books published so far, not counting the Boxcar Children series.

*of course, I, being a cat person, love the title of Save the Cat.*

The Save The Cat method, which was originally written for screenplays. It lays out a sequence of types of plot points to write an engaging screenplay. There is now a version for novel writers: SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL: The Last Book On Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody. In the novel version, the author lays out ten different types of basic plots and what you need within those plots to hook a reader. Once you read it, it may help make outlining seem less like something that is a big muddle of ideas to a clear path to a complete story idea.

I also use aspects of The Hero’s Journey. The hero’s journey is a classic structure used for thousands of years in storytelling in which a person goes on an adventure and overcomes a crisis to succeed, becoming changed in the process. It still works today because it’s very satisfying for the reader to read. We follow along with the main character, rooting for them, and celebrate when they are successful. Joseph Campbell wrote of the hero’s journey (though he wasn’t he first) in his book THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. George Lucas was influenced by Campbell’s book in developing the Star Wars series. If you don’t have access to the book or just want an overview, the Wikipedia article on this is surprisingly good.

People have been listening to stories for thousands of years and certain stories appeal to broad segments of readers more than others. I like the idea of following in the path of generations of storytellers who once sat around campfires enthralling their audiences.

And I did put a literal Save the Cat scene in one of my books, ALL IS FAIR, based on a real life cat who lived on British navy ships.

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If you’d like to read more writing and publishing tips, the post for Day 1 is here.

30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 6 Does your story need a ticking clock?

This is day six of my posts for writers having trouble writing their stories or attracting an agent or an editor. The first post is here.

I’ve read many stories by unpublished writers that were very good, but the writers were unsuccessful in attracting an agent or an editor. Sometimes it’s because the readers don’t get caught up enough in the story to make it stand out from similar stories. One way to give a story an edge is to add in a ticking clock element.

The ticking clock – if your main character doesn’t overcome the obstacle or complete the goal in a set time, all is lost. This doesn’t mean every story needs a bomb with a timer attached and the main character manages to cut the wire just in time but it does mean adding in something that forces the main character to strive for the goal.

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Does every story need one? No.

Does it help certain kinds of stories sell? Absolutely!

I love stories with ticking clock elements, both to read and to write. When writing them, it focuses my storytelling so that the time frame is set, and I don’t meander about adding in subplots that may be fun to write, but aren’t really all that important to the main story.

Think of exciting movies like Star Wars A New Hope. There is no better example of a ticking clock than the ending of that movie. Luke literally blows up the Death Star at the last second before the Resistance’s planet is obliterated.

Now of course most stories don’t have such a dramatic plot, but if you like those sorts of stories and are writing fantasy, sci fi, paranormal or thrillers, you might be able to add in a ticking clock element. It works in other types of storys too, like historicals – I’ve got them in both ALL IS FAIR, my historical out now, and my next one coming out next January, GONE BY NIGHTFALL. My other middle grade and YAs have them too.

It doesn’t have to be a ticking clock element that means the end of the world, or death, but there are ways to add in a time frame so that the main character is forced to act. It can even be in a romance-let’s say the main character is only going to be in a certain place for a specific amount of time, and after that, they won’t have a chance to connect with the love interest. I just checked in with my daughter who is reading a romance right now and asked what the ticking clock was in that book – the main character wants to find a date to a friend’s wedding.

Ticking clocks of any sort add tension, and tension keeps readers reading. Maybe this is just what your story needs.

And here’s my sci fi trilogy, ticking clocks in all three books, though it took several revisions and thought to come up with them!

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30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 5 The All-Important Stakes

If you missed Day 1, it’s here. If you missed the post on outlining, you probably want to read that before you read this one. It’s here: Beginning to Outline Your Story

This is going to be a short post, but it is about one of the most important elements when you are plotting out and outlining a story. Many years ago, I went to a writing retreat (my first and only) and at the end of it the 12 writers there had the opportunity to pitch to an experienced agent, a woman who was Tom Clancy’s first agent. We were all petrified but I also had the misfortune of going last. The poor woman’s eyes were glazing over by the time I sat down with her.

She rallied though, and asked some very tough questions. The most important thing she asked me was “Why is your character doing all this? Why are they putting themselves in this position if they don’t need to?”

The story she was referring to was a historical mystery I went on to self-publish after her feedback, THE GARGOYLE IN THE SEINE. I realized the agent was absolutely right when she said my main character didn’t have a good enough reason to put herself in danger. I am a plot-focused writer and it takes effort for me to focus on character-building, but the stakes for the character are critical. It’s easy when you have a ‘save the world’ or “save my life” plot, but when it’s less obvious, you need to make sure you give the character some very good reason why they are doing what they are doing, and you need to make that clear both early on in the story, and also in the query.

My books after that historical mystery all tend to be more obvious in terms of the stakes, either the character saving their own life or those that they love, or trying to save the world, but my latest work-in-progress is one in which it may not be any of those, so I’m still working out the stakes in my outlining attempts.

Here’s just a few possibilities for a character is throwing themselves out there:

Obligatory cat picture of cat throwing themselves out there:

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If the character doesn’t do anything:

They’ll survive but either they or someone they care about will be miserable, or face serious repercussions (legal, social, familial), or be limited in their choices for the future.

Again, as in previous posts, I’m sure there are many other possibilities but these are some of the more familiar ones to get you started on thinking about your own s

If you are doing the simple outline in post 4, add this question at the bottom and answer it:

Why is my character doing this and what happens if they fail:

The next post will be more about how you add to your outline and continue to develop your main character.

If you like high stakes stories, check out my sci fi adventure series:

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30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 4 Beginning to Outline Your Story

(If you missed Post 1 of Writing Tips, it’s here.)

If the thought of outlining makes you freeze up so you can’t even write a grocery list, (*raises hand*) you’ve come to the right place. I’ve learned to outline in small basic steps because I’ve never going to be one of those people who sees the whole story before I begin to write it. My brain just doesn’t work that way.

What I can do is break it down into something simple so I can at least start writing instead of staring at a blank computer screen forever. First, I list:

Main Character:

Character’s ordinary World:

The inciting event that changes their ordinary world:

What the main character now needs to overcome:

That’s the basics and usually the easy part. It’s filling in enough of the rest of the story to make it both long enough and interesting enough to keep the reader reading so we have to start thinking about the other barricades or setbacks that the character will encounter as the story progresses and as they are trying to solve that major problem.

Start brainstorming with a simple list. Jot down all possibilities that could make it difficult for your main character to triumph in the end.

Timeout for a cat picture first!

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Okay, back to work. For example, if the villain has stolen an important object, lots of things could make it difficult for the main character to get that object back: For example, the object could be in a building surrounded by a moat full of genetically enhanced alligators. And if your character manages to get across that, they will of course run into bad guy minions with super sensitive hearing. And if your character gets beyond that, the object is in a secure room with a security system that will vaporize anyone moving within 6 feet of it.

But if you aren’t writing an action thriller, Mission Impossible-type story, here’s a bunch of other ideas, some of which should work for most stories:

Character’s illness or injury
Character’s own doubts or fears. More about this in another post.
Ordinary physical limitations-for example an ordinary person has a hard time climbing a steep mountain.
Lack of money! A big one.
Lack of food, sleep, water.
Lack of a safe place to live.
Lack of transportation, either no transportation, not the right kind, or whatever they are using breaks down.
Other people either trying to stop the main character or competing to get to the same goal.
Weather! Blizzards, floods, avalanches, extreme heat, extreme cold.
Random creatures or bad people character may stumble upon. Let’s say your character has enough money but then gets robbed because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A lost or stolen map or directions or something else main character needs to get to a place or to find something.
Other characters not necessarily standing in their way, but not believing them or not helping them. Or a situation in which the main character must lie or not tell the whole truth either to protect someone or so they can do what they need to do. A very common barricade in middle grade fiction would be those pesky parents not wanting kids to do something dangerous.
A secondary character who needs help and because of that ties up some of the main character’s freedom of action
Wartime, or government restrictions on movement.
The need for some sort of identification which the character does not have.

I’m sure there are any more. Either from this list or your own ideas, pick four.

Now write up a few sentences with more detail about how exactly these difficulties are going to cause problems for your characters given your specific plot.

Once you finish that, write a couple of sentences about how your character might overcome each difficulty. These ideas aren’t set in stone. Often the ideas I have initially change as I start writing and other ideas pop into my head. This is just a starting point and once you develop your character more, their own skills and talents will come into play in terms of overcoming these difficulties. Doing this list may help you envision what kind of character you need to better fit the plot.

Now order these four from least dramatic to most dramatic, because you want the most exciting parts near the end of the book, as you are trying to rachet up the tension.

To recap, list:

Main character:

Their ordinary world:

The inciting event/problem that changes their ordinary world and will move them to action:

What the main character wants after they encounter the inciting event:

Barriers to the main character succeeding and how they will overcome:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Number 4 can be the last barrier or event before they succeed. Once you start writing, you may add in many more, but remember this is just to get you started.

We still need to cover the stakes, the idea of a ticking clock and the character’s own internal journey, but those are all for other posts. Like I said earlier, it’s less overwhelming if you break it down in small steps.

I’m going to take my own advice and do this for my work-in-progress, which right now is mainly only in my head.

And a reminder, here’s my YA sci fi space adventure:

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30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 3

If you haven’t read the earlier posts, here’s a link to the Day 1 tip. There is some method to the madness of the order in which I’m posting, so even if it isn’t obvious now, it wouldn’t hurt read them in order.

This particular post is to help writers who struggle with how to pull together a coherent story, or who still struggle with being able to explain their story, either to others or to themselves, even after they know their genre and the characters and what happens. This can happen before you begin to write it or even once it’s finished and you are trying to edit the beast.

Here’s the obligatory cat picture for the post, a scary beast that is a metaphor for a story needing to be edited.

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You may have heard there are only seven basic plots in stories. This came from a book by Christopher Booker (nice last name!) called, of all things, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. There have been many criticisms of the book which I won’t go into, but I thought his idea was very, very interesting. Here’s the 7 he identified:

Overcoming the Monster – Books that are Person against Nature, or Person against Evil Person fit this category. My first two books, WILDFIRE RUN and WOLF STORM are both kids against Nature with a capital N. I put some surviving war stories in this category too, so many dystopians and historicals fit this, though some are more of a Voyage and Return story.
Rags to Riches – Wikipedia describes this plot as the poor protagonist acquires power, wealth, and/or a mate, loses it all and gains it back, growing as a person as a result and uses Cinderella, Aladdin, Jane Eyre, and A Little Princess as examples
The Quest – That’s an easy one. Many fantasies fit this.
Voyage and Return – Similar to a quest, but focused on the main character taking a journey, gaining wisdom along the way and then returning home. I put my war story, ALL OR NONE, in this category, because even though the war is looming over the characters like a monster, they aren’t going to be able to overcome it.
Rebirth – Again from Wikipedia: An event forces the main character to change their ways and often become a better person. Example: A Christmas Carol
Comedy – lots of romances fit this, but any genre story could be written mainly for its comedic effect.
Tragedy – I don’t really read tragedies, but there are certainly many out there. Obviously many Shakespeare plays fit this as do tragic love stories, etc.

Not everything fits in these categories, including many great works of literature, but for a writer who is trying to plan out or finish a story, being able to put it in one of these categories may help, or to adapt a useful cliché, see the forest instead of just a bunch of trees.

Does your story fit one?

And yet again, a picture of my sci fi trilogy, which are definitely quest mixed with overcoming the monster books.

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