Need help developing characters?

Happy Australia Day, Aussies!

For those of you not from our sunshiny land, Australia Day is the day cars are adorned with the Australian flag, the air is filled with the aroma of BBQing meat, and other indulged-in delicacies include lamingtons, pavlova, tim tams and vegemite. And BEER. Lots and lots of beer.

Backyard or beach cricket is played and an afternoon nap is compulsory. Not a bad way to spend a day, I reckon.

But I am not here to talk about Australia Day - I am here to talk about a FREAKING BRILLIANT resource I have discovered, on the art of creating unique, whole characters.

Adventures in Childrens Publishing did a series on character development back in 2010, and part of that series included a Character Profile worksheet. This one, in fact.

Click on me go to to the Character Profile of Awesome.

As a part of my "2012: The Year Sarah produces 30 new ebooks" extravaganza (a little ambitious? At the moment, survey says yes.) I am plotting a collection of shorts in which there are bucketloads of characters. Most of whom will be a leading character at some point. I need to know them inside out. And this character profile sheet is sheer brilliance in helping me work out their quirks and habits and what they stand for.

Thought it might help you, too. And if you're not a writer, well, I guess it gives you a bit of insight into this whole book creation process, huh?

Later gators!

Sairz

Who's in what class with who and when now? OR The benefits of a book bible

I am editing a book right now.

I wrote it 2 years ago and it has potential, but needs a lot of work. Two whole plots are changing, so today I finished reading it, hacking and slashing at pages and it turns out I deleted 76 out of 202 pages. And that's just the FULL pages that I took out, not including the multitude of half pages that have big red slashes through them. Oh God...

So um, it's definitely going to be different from the first draft.

I have always been a bit of a panster, when writing. Just winging it, letting it flow, seeing where it takes me.

But with my revision, I am learning, teaching myself to be much more methodical. And I think that is what is helping to keep my head from exploding.

I never kept a Book Bible or anything like that, sure, I wrote down a list of characters and a couple of facts about them, but now, I really think I need more preparation than that.

I came across this scene, a pretty small scene, but it contained a LOT of information I was going to need further on in the book.

Basically, the scene looks like this.

Mads called her best friends MJ (Main Character) and Vanya and had something super important to tell them, and they all had to meet at the tram stop before school.

So MJ and Vanya were there, but Mads never showed.

So this is the scene that got me thinking:

I scanned the faces for Mads as the first period bell rang and everyone got up and pushed and shoved each other out of the room but she wasn’t there. And I didn’t have class with her next either so I had to be all patient and wait until recess to hear the big news.

In English I was totally checking out Dev though. Did he look extra happy about something? Not really, he was squinting at the white board and chewing the end of his pen. Did he look distracted or whatever? Well yeah – but only because he was sitting next to Lachie and they kept talking and snickering about something. I didn’t like it.

What was I saying? Oh yeah. At recess I was standing by Mads’s locker waiting for her, in the process of flattening myself against the lockers as a hoard of year seven’s bounded past, bumping into people and making passing teachers yell at them to stop bloody running and then the teachers would scurry off to the staff room hoping no one had noticed they’d just sworn at some students.

I caught my muesli bar and was contemplating eating it as Van rounded the corner.

“So?” I asked.

“She wasn’t in Math.” She said. Huh.

And then she wasn’t in Geography or Science either or at lunch which was completely frustrating.

So. judging by this scene, MJ does not have class with Mads first period. She has English second period with Mads and two other boys, Dev and Lachie. But Vanya does not have English with them. She has something else second period.

Vanya tells MJ that Mads wasn't in maths, which means that MJ does not have maths with Vanya or Mads. Similarly, MJ muses that Mads wasn't in Geography or Science either (no mention of whether Vanya was, so I can go either way on that one) which means that MJ and Mads have these classes together.

And all of these lessons took place before lunch.

In order to keep track of all this, and what classes my characters should be on their way to at different times of day, if they can walk into class together or have to split up because they each have something different on at that time, I need a Bible.

My brain just can't keep track of it all by itself. So that's what I'm working on right now. My bible. And doing a chapter summary, before I let myself get to writing the new scenes, which I'm itching to do. It's all in the desire to keep my sanity.

Did that makes sense or has my brain actually exploded and I haven't realised it yet?

Sairz

Melancholy Middles

I am a bit glum at the moment. Which is weird cos I was totally UNglum a week ago. My book was going SUPERBLY. I was on track, loving writing it. All was right in my little writing bubble.

And then this happened.

I hit the middle. And I started doubting myself, and asking questions.

Am I writing the right thing? Am I sustaining the plot and not going off on a tangent having too much fun writing cool scenes that really don't progress the plot? At least not in the right direction.

The middle is HARD. The start is great, I can picture it easily, know exactly what's going on and how to set up my story. The end is there! I know how my character grows and what she's going to do. But how she gets there?

Like I said. The middle is hard. The middle is giving me the finger. Which finger, you ask?

THE MIDDLE ONE!

Fingers clearly know how to do middles. Fingers make middles really strong. Middle fingers have something to say and say it they will.

I'm thinking a lot about book structure at this point, and I'm writing through the melancholy middles.

I'm talking out my plot problems with whoever will listen, and going for my mental health/plotting walks. Walking around in circles does wonders for my plotting skills. Just the act of forward motion seems to do the trick. Even if I do keep getting back to the start.

So anyway. Melancholy middles. Once I get over this hump it will be easier, smoother (and faster!) sailing again.

How do YOU handle bumps in your writing road?