Fiction Notes

Category: Characters

  • The Power of BECAUSE: How I Created a Dastardly Villain

    I am hard at work on an outline/synopsis sort of thingy for a new trilogy. I wish I could say it’s a true outline or synopsis, but I’m not an outliner. However, I’m not a panster either, to just start writing and write by the seat of my pants. I am a plan-ster, a person […]

  • Complicated Dialogue: Keeping 5 Characters in Line

    Today, I’d like to answer a question from a reader. Shena asks, “I’m writing a story and I have five people who are carrying on a conversation with each other. How do I go about stating each person’s line without constantly using, he said, he replied or using the person’s name to say this person […]

  • False Teeth and Blue Eyes: Keeping Track of Characters

    Traditionally, novelists have been told to keep track of their characters with a Character Bible. Especially for a series that features the same characters, it’s important that a blue-eye beauty in Book 1 is still a blue-eyed beauty in Book 3. To maintain consistency, authors often need to keep detailed lists of characters and his/her […]

  • 3 Simple Ways to Use Photos to Establish Characters

    3 Simple Ways to Use Photos to Establish Characters

    I need my characters to come to life quickly for me and this time, I’m trying a shortcut. Photos. It’s easy to go to google.com/images or flickr.com and search for images that might fit your characters. Start with a gender (male/female) and age (child, teen, adult, senior, 30s, 40s, etc). Ethnic background. For my story, […]

  • Point of View: Inside a Character’s Head

    Point of View: Inside a Character’s Head

    How does an author take a reader deeply into a character’s POV? By using direct interior monologue and a stream of consciousness techniques. This is part 3 of a 3-part series on Point of View: Techniques for Getting Inside a Character’s Head. Read the whole series. Outside Outside/Inside Inside Going Inside a Character’s Head, Heart […]

  • Point of View: Outside/Inside a Character’s Head

    Partially Inside a Character’s Head: OUTSIDE AND INSIDE POV How deeply does a story take the reader into the head of a character. Many discussions of point of view skim over the idea that POV can related to how close a reader is to a reader. But David Jauss says there are two points of […]