LINDSEY’S WRITING PRACTICE: Mapping a Character’s Mind

Most fiction writers realize Character & Conflict remain essential elements in writing fiction. And those concepts can work to make a poem more engaging, too. Thus, this month’s practice offers hints for creating characters—and conflict, which remain essential in moving fiction along.

First,create a mind map for at least the main characters in your novel, short story, or poem. How?

Using the point-of-view for each character, fill in the “answers” to these questions:

1. I hate . . .

2. I love . . .

3. I need . . .

4. I fear . . .

5. I am drawn to . . .

6, I get shivers from . . .

Once you’ve set up this “map,” for you main character(s), think about each character’s flaws. For example, what might urge a character to make a choice opposite from what he or she would normally do? (Remember, each character is a hero or heroine in his or her own mind.)

Consider, too, how seasons and landscapes may serve as characters that motivate the human characters. Remember: TENSION (or CONFLICT) is ESSENTIAL to move fiction along. Thus, a character must WANT something at a story’s onset—and some person, place, or situation, must block him or her from getting it. Thus, the character must try a different ploy.

Dialogue, too, can create conflict as strong as action can. (In fact, many successful stories create as much—or even more—conflict with words as with action.

Again, much of this can work in poems, especially when the poet uses an archetype for either the persona—or a character the persona loves, hates, fears, is drawn to, or all of the preceding situations.

Have fun with this—and see if it helps move a story, chapter, or poem along. Remember: writing must HOOK the reader with a character in conflict with others, a situation, or him or herself.

About Lindsey Martin-Bowen

On Halloween 2023, redbat books released Lindsey Martin-Bowen’s 7th poetry collection, CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison. Her 4 th collection, Where Water Meets the Rock, was nominated for a Pulitzer; her 3rd, CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison was a finalist in the QuillsEdge Press 2015-2016 Contest. In 2017, it won the Kansas Writers Assn award, “Looks Like a Million.” Writer’s Digest gave her “Vegetable Linguistics” an Honorable Mention in its 85th Annual (2017) Contest. Her Inside Virgil’s Garage (Chatter House Press 2013) was a runner-up in the 2015 Nelson Poetry Book Award. McClatchy Newspapers named her Standing on the Edge of the World (Woodley Press/Washburn University) was one of the Ten Top Poetry Books of 2008. It was nominated for a Pen Award.

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