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You Can Tell a Lot About a Person by His/Her Nose Yes, noses. Writers of novels, short stories, picture books or other fiction must keep firmly in mind that the character rules. You must be able to characterize quickly, whether your characters are wooden men or birds or airmen or teenage boys. One thing I’ve [...]
I just named some characters, Jane and John Smith. What does that say about these characters? Do you think boring? No, no, think alias. Think clueless that such an alias might be too transparently an alias. What would make them so clueless? Ah, you’re getting interested in my characters just from their names? One hopes [...]
Setting: “Where am I? And why should I care?” Readers ask these two questions at the beginning of every story. We often focus on the second question, how to hook a reader. But orienting the reader is just as important. They need to know the setting: this is a wider question than just the geographic [...]
Character’s Job Affects Your Novel When you think about a character’s profession or job, what are you looking for? Stand out. Usually, you want something that will stand out. Maybe taxidermist, taxi driver, armored car driver. The ch Implications of the Job. Think carefully about the implications of the job. This might be considering the [...]
Give Readers a Larger Than Life Protagonist In my new novel, I’ve written about a dozen different openings, looking for a voice that works. I’m settling in on one, but the first chapter is still unsteady. One thing I’m looking at today is how to make the main character, the protagonist, larger-than-life.
Interior Thoughts Reveal Character I spent time yesterday adding more interior thoughts to a character. My critiquers felt they needed to know the character better at this point in the story. I’ve done the requisite “Show, Don’t Tell,” but readers still felt they needed more to really know the character. What does she FEEL here? [...]
Answering the WHY? question It’s the WHY question that is plaguing me right now. Why does my character want to participate in this project? Why does she want this so much that she will
Make supporting characters interesting Wednesday, I went to north central Arkansas to teach a professional development class and on the way up, I listened to an audio version of T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton, the 20th Kinsey Millhone mystery. At one point the detective calls a college to do a background check on [...]
Charlotte was Blood-Thirsty: Character Paradoxes Charlotte, from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, is remembered as a character of great warmth for her friendship with the unlikely pig, Wilbur. Poor Wilbur, once the runt of the litter and saved only by
Letting Characters Emerge Hurrah! My potential character took the bait! He is revealing himself slowly. As I was thinking of ideas for picture books, an idea came up: what if the family was structured in a distinctive way? At 2 a.m. this morning, the character woke me up and started dictating a scene about dealing [...]
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