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Do things get worse in your story? Then you are using some sort of progression: good, worse, worst. That’s excellent, because you want the story characters to increasingly feel the conflict and tension of the story. But are you using the BEST progression possible? In my current revision, I am checking my progressions to make [...]
Random Prompts for Character Development Last year, I bought Natalie Goldberg’s book, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. A friend saw Goldberg present at a bookstore about this book and was impressed, so I bit. Now, I’m not much into writing a memoir. My life has been pretty average. But I’ve [...]
Sports books are action-oriented, fast-paced and full of memorable characters; but the core of a sports bookâfiction or non-fiction–is people. Characters make sports interesting. Granted, these characters are constantly on the move and not inclined to deep musings about life. Yet, it is the character interacting with the unique aspects of a sports novel that [...]
When you write a novel, or revise a novel, the default point-of-view and the most common used is third person. (Though, first person point of view is giving it a run for its money these days. ) The Versatile Point of View Think about point of view as a camera. In the 3rd person POV, [...]
Character’s strengths and weaknesses influence plot, character relationships and how well we like a character. Before you decide on these, think about how these characteristics will ripple through the story. Character Strengths and Weaknesses Inherited or Acquired?Are your character’s strengths and weaknesses inherited or acquired? If inherited, they may be accepted easily by the character, [...]
Before December 11, 2006, I wouldn’t have thought to describe a character’s voice. Then along came Vocal Impressions on National Public Radio. Wow! It’s evocative to describe a character’s voice, and if you use a metaphor that also evokes a character quality, you’re even farther along! Raw Voice + Apt Metaphor = Characterization From the [...]
Characters Who Move According to Mehrabian, 55% of communication depends on body language, 38% on tone-of-voice, and 7% on the words used. That’s bad news for novelists because we don’t have direct access to the body language as we work with our fictional characters – they are just words on a page. Adding body language [...]
This is part of a series, 15 Days to a Stronger Character Names and Nicknames: Echo Character Traits Let’s start with the basics. What do you call this character? What difference does a name make to effective characterization? I recently heard of an inner city family whose oldest child is named Chris and the second [...]
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