Writing Tips: I’ve got answers: Round 2

Today’s question is closely related to Monday’s question, so I wanted to get it out quickly so the answers can been seen together. After this I’ll answer a wider variety of questions, but I feel like these two answers should be viewed together to strength their meaning.

Madison says, I am an aspiring author, but I have recently been having trouble with my book. I can’t figure out how to better develop my characters and reach the climax. What do you suggest I do in order to prevail this situation that I have found myself in?

Hopefully my previous post will help you get ideas about getting your characters to the climax (Recap hint: make a list of all the terrible calamities you can force them through) but you’ve touched on a VERY important concept with character development, so I want to give you an in depth answer.

You are right on in feeling that you need to have well developed characters for your story to move on. They need a set of behavior patterns by which they function. For example, Gemma from Rumpelstiltskin avoids talking and is self-sacrificing. Devin from the MBRC is incredibly flirtatious with Morgan, and a little jaded towards everyone else. Britt Arthurs from King Arthurs and her Knights is obsessed with making and avoiding King Arthur legends, and she hates Lancelot. Those characters won’t deviate from those behavior patterns. However, you want your characters to grow as part of the plot.

Let’s take another look at Gemma. She doesn’t deviate from her regular behavior patterns (Quiet and self sacrificing) but by the end of the book, her attitude has changed. She went from always giving for another’s sake and not relying on anyone, to believing and accepting that Stil loves her and wants to make sacrifices of his own for her. It is important to note that this change is a result of the climax, it is not the climax scene itself. (In a romance novel, however, the emotional development may very well be your climax.)

If your character doesn’t change from start to finish, it means they are either dense because they didn’t learn their lesson, or perfect, which is also bad because people generally don’t want to read about perfect characters. During the middle part of the story, you need to present the idea that your character wars with. For Tari from Red Rope it is the fact that she is an elf in love with a human. For Cinderella from Cinderella and the Colonel it is that she is in love with a man from the country that is supposed to be her enemy. As you can see, love is usually the concept I have my character wrestle with, but there’s lots of other options. Take Legolas and Gimli from Lord of the Rings. They dislike each other because of their races, but by the end of the books they’re best friends.

Pure character development shown in two sentences.

A tool to help you develop your characters is to ask yourself, “What do I want them to learn?” Mind you, each character might need to learn something different. (Like Arion. He didn’t care Tari was an elf, but he had to learn to open his mouth.) Once you have identified what you want them to learn, try to imagine scenarios that would highlight this difficulty. Readers will like your characters more if they make a few embarrassing blunders or face tough situations caused by their emotional issues. (Cinderella rocks back and forth between her love for Friedrich and her desire to preserve Aveyron. Raven from Life Reader  is forced to reveal her powers or face the destruction of her coworkers.) The basic idea is to stick them between a rock and a hard place, and use the trial to help smooth out your character’s flaws.

Character development adds interest, but it is also crucial because it reflects real life. When people face adversity it is painful and difficult, but they come through the trial in three ways: Stronger, twisted, or weakened. Try to incorporate all three reactions in your characters. While a particular trial might make your hero stronger, it might turn their best friend into a villain, and so weaken their love interest that the love interest becomes a shell of who they used to be.

Writing is a lot like driving multiple pairs of horses. You have a set of reins for each pair, and you have to keep them all straight as you direct the horses and drive the cart along. With stories you have to keep tabs on the plot of the book (the events) the subplots (spikes of action that prop up the plot) character development (the emotional drive behind characters) relationships, tone, and more. All of these ‘reins’ are deep and seem awkward, but the faster you learn to balance and control them, the more quickly you will improve.

My final pro-tip: try to think of what you want your character to learn BEFORE you start the book–that opens up avenues to bring in characters  and situations early on to help highlight your character’s development process. For instance, if Legolas wasn’t brought in at the same time as Gimli, their friendship wouldn’t be what it was. Also, be aware that your characters won’t be perfect by the end of the book, they should merely be more mature, or wiser–not flawless.

I hope that answers your question, Madison!

Writing Tips: I’ve got Answers! Round 1

The response to “You’ve got questions” was incredible! I was surprised to receive so many inquires, and on a huge variety of topics! Some questions–particularly those that involve writing–will take longer to answer than others, so I’m going to tackle one today. I’m still accepting questions, so if you have another go ahead and leave a comment, or submit one to me via email.

Today’s question is from Maya. She says: I love writing, but I always find it hard to finish my stories! Not because I don’t know the ending, but more because I just loose motivation in the middle of my books… Do you ever get writer’s block and, if so, how do you manage to override it and finish your stories?

Ahhh yes. The middle of the story is tough. It’s where action usually lags and interest wanes if you’re not careful. Never fear, there are a few techniques to help you pull through!

The main way I drag myself through the middle portion of a book, is that I make sure I’m enjoying what I write. If you lose motivation, it might be because you don’t find the scenes captivating. The trick is to insert sub-plots, action, and character interactions that keep everything moving forward.

I need an example for this one, so I’m going to use Cinderella & the Colonel. Everyone knows how Cinderella starts—a poor girl being bossed around by her step-family—and ends—the ball, the prince, midnight, etc. When I wrote Cinderella and the Colonel I knew I wanted to include those aspects. But what the heck was I supposed to do for the 100 pages between those two points!?! So I used two sub-plots—Cinderella almost losing Aveyron, and Friedrich doing his darnest to convince Cinderella not to hate Erlauf—to create tension and apprehension, even though there was very little physical action.

Whenever I face writer’s block/realize the story is getting slow, I first sit down and figure out the problem. Is the story crawling because the characters are boring and I need to rewrite them? Or is it because the plot, at the moment, lacks action, or emotional tension? I then sit down and write a list of all the horrible the things that could happen to my characters. I usually fill a page or two of a notebook before I find a few ideas that I really like, and then I incorporate them into the story.

In example, if you were writing a regency romance you could: Try bringing in a new character—maybe a girl who tries to seduce the hero, or a male who tries to sway your heroine. Pull a Jane Austen and have your hero propose, only for your heroine to refuse him. Maybe the girl narrowly avoids tarnishing her reputation, or is mocked and openly ridiculed by the ton.

Are you writing a fantasy? Kill someone off, or set bandits on your heroes to kidnap someone or steal something important. Maybe the enemy intercepts a communication, or perhaps a magical calamity is accidentally released.

You might not be terribly impressed with this idea because you already have a great plot, but really this all still applies.  Subplots will help prop the main plot up and keep the pace moving. Take, for example, Star Wars. Leia and Han’s romance is not the main plot-line, but it helps provide emotional tension at some of the more boring places in the story.

Nothing ramps up the drama factor like a flirtatious fight in the middle of a stressful get-away!

Harry Potter is another good example. People still consider Snape and Lilly to be one of the greatest love stories of the century/decade, and Snape wasn’t even a main character! If you’re sick of my romance examples, think about Sherlock Holmes. The original books have very little romance, but there’s so much suspense and people trying to kill other people and bizarre things happening that they are never NOT exciting! If you want to know how to keep tension going, I suggest you try re-reading a few of your favorite authors, and see how they “up the stakes” and push their characters forward. Shannon Hale is a master at this, considering that her stories are fairly lighthearted. Robin McKinley’s Chalice is another good example. In Chalice you don’t even know you’re reading about boring, local government meetings because of the stress McKinley puts on her poor heroine.

So why do I keep insisting you add more physical action or emotional drama? Because those kinds of scenes are fun to write—it’s why the beginning and endings of books are so addicting! If the middle of your book is filled with action and drama, you will want to write those scenes as well, which will naturally move you closer and closer to your goal.

I hope that helps, Maya.

Writing Tips: 22 Rules and Monthly Update

I have my final post for Rumpelstiltskin all set, but as it is a New Year I’m going to delay it a little bit and clue you in on the goals for the rest of my month.

I’ve done my first fly by of Embark. It needs a little more work–I see probably two draft revisions in its future. Myrrhlynn got a chance to read it, so she’s thinking about a cover. I’m hoping for a mid-January release, but it might be pushed back to the end of January if I can’t get all my ducks in a row.

When I’m not working on Embark, I’ll be pushing B&B through formatting for its paperback debut, and I have a hacked and slashed edit of Red Rope of Fate to go up when I finish switching a few details. Editor finally got a chance to correct it, and she had a few good points so I’m making some minor adjustments.

I’m working on getting a newsletter up and running. The newsletter will be a once month update that will make sure everyone is on the same page. It will have my scheduled freebies and releases for the month (yes, this means I’ll have to get over my release-date-commitment-phobia.) and it will include polls, contest information, and more. It will be like a one-stop-shop. I’m hoping my first newsletter will go out February 1st!

IMPORTANT: I have so far been using a (terribly unprofessional as my numbers guy would say) yahoo email. THIS MONTH I’m swapping to a new email: kmshea (at) kmshea.com. (For the record, I wanted to go with Philspizza (at) kmshea.com, but then numbers guy would heave a great big sigh, as if I was his red-headed step-child, so kmshea (at) kmshea.com it is.) I’ll be updating all my contact forms so they’ll automatically send to my new email, but if any of you have my email saved, please make the switch.

And finally, it’s been too long since I’ve shared some writing advice! Over my Christmas holiday, I stumbled on this fascinating article: 22 Rules of Storytelling. Emma Coats, a Pixar storyboard artist, posted 22 tweets that contain grains of wisdom she has learned while working at Pixar. I think all of her points are great, but there’s a few I want to touch on.

Pixar, a company that is highly talented at making you cry during kid movies.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite: This is so true. Often times I’ll start the story with a specific theme in mind, but when I finish it a completely different moral shines through. Sometimes the theme you want to tell is not the theme your characters tell. If that’s the case I would say ditch the first theme and run with the second. That being said, you need to make sure your theme is consistent, and its present from the first chapter until the very last.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free: This is a very painful lesson, but its extremely important. The basic idea is that you need to cut back the unnecessary, boring information to make the story set a faster pace. Cutting characters hurts. Raven from Life Reader originally had a little brother in addition to her little sister. I decided to cut him because he was entirely unnecessary and did nothing to add to the plot. I thought it would take hours to pull him out of the story, until I realized he was in THREE SCENES TOTAL. Even though I was sad, it was one of my best writing decisions ever.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up: Not only is this a fun exercise, but it works! If you try this out and you’re still having trouble, talk to your characters. If I’m in a scene and I can’t think of what to do, I’ll sit down and say “Okay, the scene ends like THIS” and then I will turn to my characters and ask “Why did it end that way?” It can be quite shocking, but so far my characters have always had something to say.

That’s all for today, Champions. I hope you had a happy new year, and welcome to 2015!