Characters Lead The Way

So I’m probably doing what I always do, which is obsess over the details way too much, but after not really caring about characters over the last few years–well, that’s not really true as I cared about them, but cared about the plot and the action far more. However, now that I’m looking for ideas on creating better and more fully fleshed out characters, I’m finding inspiration everywhere.

I’m very close to finishing Babylon 5’s entire run (I think I have about 2 or 3 more episodes), so imagine my surprise when I saw a slew of writing based suggestion videos on YouTube dealing featuring J. Michael Straczynski describing his process on writing, especially characters and characterization.

Writing Excuses Podcast

So there’s a podcast that I listen to called Writing Excuses and they just finished a whole “season” (most of the year) dealing with characters and characterization. I’ve not listened to the whole season yet–you’d think a hour and forty-five minute drive would allow me to stay current, especially when the episodes are only 20 minutes once a week, but when the other podcasts I follow are 45 minutes – 1 1/2 hours, then it is easy to get behind. However, one of the contributors is Brandon Sanderson, one of my current favorite authors, so I really try to listen whenever I can for advice, tips, and “tricks” to help me become a better writer.

The Character “Sketch”

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m using a “Character Sketch” worksheet from Scrivener to help me create better, more fully fleshed out characters. It has several questions that one answers including occupation, mannerisms, etc., that should help be create better characters. Here, I think actual artists would have an advantage as they can draw their characters in order to express the characteristics they want to show, but I have to use words to create an image or “picture” of who my character is in the story.

Still, even a basic character sketch seems to be helping me create better and more fully fleshed out characters.

Sidney







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Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog  (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)