“One Of The Biggest, And Possibly The Biggest, Obstacle To Becoming A Writer… Is Learning To Live

WHY DO CHARACTERS MATTER? 

I’m a big fan of characters, obviously. (That’s not even all of my characters. I have two BINDERS worth of character sheets.) But why? Surely other elements of story are just as important, like the plot, setting, tone, etc. And they are! But I think characters are the most important aspect of the story, for a few reasons: 

They are the lens through which we view everything else. Characters color the world we create. Sure, you might write a world guide, but largely, we see the world through the eyes of the characters, so they have to be good eyes to see through. (Even if they’re blind.)

They can save a bad story. Not to say any of you have bad stories, but they can add something to a lackluster story that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Think about Bioshock Infinite. It’s one of my favorite games, even though the gameplay is okay and the story is convoluted at best. I praise it almost entirely for the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth. They make that game, and if the characters (especially Elizabeth) weren’t as memorable as they are, I doubt anyone would really care much about Bioshock’s failed prequel. 

The more complicated and intricate a character, the more you can do with your plot. If you have a flat character, you can’t make them act. They can’t do much except react to the plot happening around them. But a complex character with a good backstory and interesting motivation will interact with the world and change things in it, which is the basis of plot. 

HOW I MAKE MY CHARACTERS

I’m going to walk you through my process, and hopefully do my best to make it easy for you to understand.

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Obligatory Scenes and Conventions

Today I want to talk about Obligatory Scenes and Conventions™️ 😱 These are things that often writers, particularly new writers, don’t like … all that much.

Why?

Because they are …

Obligatory Scenes and Conventions™️ 😱

Okay, they aren’t all that bad for all of us … but some of us go out of our way to avoid them because they feel so contrived, and it ends up just hurting our book 🙄 (#guilty).

So what are obligatory scenes and conventions?

They are the stuff, the elements, that are “obligatory” for your genre.

Meaning, if I’m writing a romance, I need to write a first kiss scene. If I’m writing a murder mystery, I need to write about the discovered body at the beginning. If I’m writing a superhero origin story, I need to show how the superhero got his or her powers. And if I’m retelling Sherlock Holmes, I better have his deductive reasoning in it.

In some genres, the conventions are really obvious:

Others are a lot less noticeable.

But every genre has them.

Shawn Coyne, an editor with over 25 years of experience, has noted that many writers he works with try to avoid writing obligatory scenes. They feel they are stupid or even “cheesy.” Writers may try to leave them out in order to write something “fresh” and “original.”

But this is sort of like saying you are going to be “fresh” and “original” by ignoring the “Show, don’t Tell” rule, and instead “tell” your whole novel. In fact, it’s like saying you will be “fresh” and “original” by disregarding any writing rule.

In reality, it isn’t ignoring the rules that makes you great, it’s understanding and respecting them, and then knowing when to break them. Ignorance rarely, rarely, rarely (I used it three times, so I hope I get the point across) leads to “fresh” and “original” content. In fact, ignorance most often leads to poor content.

And yet writers often want to try to leave out the “rules” of their genre. Sometimes it’s not because they want to be original, but because they want to be surprising. But this doesn’t work.

Why? Because the most surprising things are surprising because of conventions.

What’s more “surprising,” a story where you don’t have any grasp or idea of where it is going, or a story where you think you know where it is going before it twists a different way?

The most satisfying surprises come not from disregarding conventions, but from flipping, twisting, or inverting them. From breaking them.

In order to create true surprises, the audience must have some kind of expectation. We need to understand and respect the conventions, first.

It’s like that with every rule in the arts.

You have to know the rule inside and out before you can break it.

One of the most important aspects of writing surprises is that the surprise isn’t a disappointment. If you ignore the obligatory conventions instead of respect them, you are more likely to disappoint. After all, the reason your audience is drawn to your genre in the first place is because of the conventions. Surprises usually work better when they are more than what the audience expects, and they almost never work if they are less than what the audience expects. But I don’t want to spend too much time on surprises–if you want to know more about them, check out my post “5 Types of Surprises.”

For some of us writers, obligatory scenes and conventions can be a little annoying. A few months ago, I saw a romance writer lament on social media something along the lines of, “Just HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?!” After writing several romance books, it can be hard to think of new ways to portray it.

But while originality doesn’t usually come from ignoring the conventions, it can come from respecting them.

HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?

As you struggle to write it a brand new way, you may well breathe some originality into the story. Because again, what makes something feel satisfyingly original often isn’t something that has no relation to any conventions, but rather something that bends, twists, and properly breaks conventions.

In order for something to feel “fresh” and “original,” the audience has to have some kind of expectation–formed from what they’ve seen before.

As you respect and bend obligatory scenes and conventions in satisfying ways, your target audience, immersed in their chosen genre and surprised over a sense of originality, may not even notice them for what they are.

For example, in a typical fantasy story, at some point, the protagonist must face some sort of hellish creature or entity. In old stories, this is your traditional dragon. Usually this creature is in the earth or underground, or at least comes from somewhere deep and remote or secluded. In old stories, this is related to tunnels or caves, a sort of symbol of hell, which is “beneath” or “downward”–the underworld.

If you look at some of the most famous fantasy stories, you’ll see this convention respected in some way.

Keep reading

7 Ways End Your Novel

Figuring out the right way to end your novel can be difficult and it can make or break your story. If you’re stuck, try to understand that your ending should match the tone of your story. Here are a few common ways to end a novel to keep in mind:

Happy

There’s nothing wrong with a happy ending. If you want your novel to end on a joyful note with everyone getting what they want, that’s perfectly fine. Just make sure it’s in line with how your characters have behaved throughout your novel.

Sad

Writing a sad ending depends on how you built up your novel. A sudden, sad ending shouldn’t come out of nowhere. It should tie in with the tone of your story. If you want to write a sad ending, make sure it makes sense in the world you’ve created.

Open

Sometimes due to the nature of your story, your ending will remain open. Maybe your audience will have to come to conclusions themselves or maybe you’re leading into your next novel. If you’re writing a sequel, writers will often end with it open or a cliffhanger.

Complete

Happy or sad, some writers tend to complete their novel. These means they’ve tied up all loose ends, plots, and subplots, and created a solid ending. Usually this leaves no room for a follow-up and the novel can stand complete on its own. 

Twist

The twist ending can be hard to pull off, but if done correctly it can really blow your readers’ minds. This is when you lead up to one conclusion and then reveal that an assumed truth was false the whole time. Study up on twist endings if that’s something you want to do in your story.

Tie-back

This is when the ending ties back around to the clues in the beginning. Stories with a tie back ending sometimes have a full loop and give the story a feeling of completeness. They make readers feel as if everything is connected in some way.

Epilogue

An epilogue often gives readers details beyond the perceived ending. Writers will sometimes use epilogues if there’s a lot to sum up. Just make sure the epilogue fits your novel and it’s not something you can explain in the main sections of your story.

-Kris Noel

I love that excerpt!

cocaine, a car wreck, and an apple pie recipe. 

a modern retelling of sophocles’ ajax, wintersong is 18-year-old and terribly wayward hollis knox’s aching love letter to all the good in the world: grocery store aisles’ uneven green-and-white flecked tiles, shared secrets behind calloused hands, and little brothers’ sunday morning swim meets. all the good that atrophies too fast. 

goal words: 50,000

current words: 21,000

weheartit board

here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:

let me know what you think!

p.s. i follow from studylikeathena. 

Take the pyramids in Egypt. Those are works of art, but they are based on stones. Those stones are the autobiography of a mountain thirty kilometers away. Those stones are cut from that mountain. They were then put together artificially. That is a work of art. Art without autobiography does not exist, whatever you describe, it is autobiographical, but you put it together in such a way that you turn it into art. It transcends reality. And then you give your own reality. Those stones have been given a new identity, by the makers, by the kings buried underneath, the slaves who gave their lives for it.

Kader Abdolah

hi I'm 22 but I want to write a story about people in their forties. Essentially the point is that people are still figuring themselves out at any age. Do you have any advice for writing about an age group so different from yours? Especially for me, who has not experienced their forties yet, whereas older adults writing YA have experienced that time in their lives. thanks

Writing an Age Group You Have No First-Hand Experience Of

Hi! First, I would do some research. Movies, books, TV shows, articles, and interviews that center around the age group. While the emotions and trials they are going through is a universal thing, their actual issues are usually specific to that age group. 

For forties, I would watch The Meyerowitz Stories (Netflix) and read the play or watch the movie August: Osage County. These focus on the common trials of forty-year-olds such as aging/dying parents, divorce, teenage kids, reconciling with estranged family, success past 30, and the likes. 

Second, remember that everyone is at a different place than others their age. The forties, especially, have a lot of diversity in living situations. Some are getting a divorce or remarrying and some are just getting married or will never marry. Some are sending kids off to college and some are just starting a family. Some are going back to school or working an entry-level job and some are working their dream job. Some are well-off and some are in massive debt. Some feel old and some are in their prime. 

Third, find a common struggle or fear within the age group. For people in their twenties, it’s usually choosing the right path. By forty, it’s usually worrying if they chose the right path and if it’s too late to change. 

And fourth, get in the headspace through backstory. How many experiences they’ve had is just as important as the kind of experiences and vice versa. Figure out the life they have fit into all those years. 

Hope this helps!

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, we don’t need to know that someone crossed the room, reached for the coffee cup, turned sideways, took a step forward, or glanced to the left.

Visual writers have an especially hard time with this (fiction writers who “see” their story in their head, and write down the images blow-for-blow, as though narrating a movie).

There’s nothing wrong with this writing process, of course. Just know that you’ll be more prone to adding excessive, pointless movements to your novel or short story.

Then, when revising, ask yourself if they are important to the story (sometimes, it is important that someone took a step forward!) and take out the ones that aren’t. Or, better yet, delete them all, then put back only the ones that have left holes in their absence.

Remember, stage direction is different from meaningful gesture or action.

Meaningful gestures and actions can orient the reader or give information about character or plot.

Stage direction, by my definition, is pointless movement.

Here is an original excerpt from Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World to illustrate my point.

“See anyone milling around in the hall?” I asked. “Not a soul,” she said. I undid the chain, let her in, and quickly relocked the door. “Something sure smells good,” she said. “Mind if I peek in the kitchen?” “Go right ahead. But are you sure there aren’t any strange characters hanging around the entrance? No one doing street repairs, or just sitting in a parked car?” “Nothing of the kind,” she said, plunking the books down on the kitchen table. Then she lifted the lid of each pot on the range. “You make all this yourself?”

Here, we get just enough to orient us–we know the woman was outside the apartment, she walked into the house, went into the kitchen, and the narrator followed her there. But Murakami doesn’t actually say that. He allows us to infer those movements from the dialogue and the light peppering of action and description.

Now, here is the same excerpt re-written with way too much stage direction:

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Hey I love your blog, it helps me a lot and now I've a question myself. How can you write about older people while you're still young yourself? The main character of my story is 43 years old but I'm 17... I try to pay attention to how her life experience has shaped her personality but sometimes I feel like she seems too much like a teenager. Have you ever written about characters older than you? And what helped you the best to make them realistic? Do you have any general tips on writing adults?

Thanks for asking, this is a good question, and I like that your MC is much older than you. You'll learn a lot by writing them.

I've written for a number of ages, and aside from some extremely minimal research online, I just started paying attention to other people. I watched films about X age group, read books by/about X age group, listened to interviews of adults with certain fields and backstories, listened to people older than me at work, listened to customers, neighbors, relatives, my own parents. Kids are tougher since I don't know many little kids, but just asking questions of teachers and family friends gave me insight into the lives of people older than me.

Once you know what a person is like on the inside and why, writing their dialogue and behavior is a piece of cake. Surely you know some adults or can look up some public figures and study their lives, dialogue, and behavior. Base your character off several real people and they will come across as more authentic.

a writeblr introduction

hello writeblr! i’m zie, a long-time writer and perhaps poet but that’s sort of stretch who just decided to publish my stories and other collection of words here. i had a tumblr account way back in 2013 but i wanted to start anew, so here i am.

about me:

she/her, aro-ace, infj(p), type 4, libra but pisces at heart, ravenclaw

overly enthusiastic for art, literature, books, music that punctures your inner psyche, psychology, philosophy, and you guessed it, theatre!

the superior time are afternoons and midnights, it’s when my imagination goes crazy and my aesthetics shift and morph

guilty pleasure is watching barbie movies and writing long-ass essays that i’m sure my professors are tired of reading, but oh well

i don’t know how to make cool edits like all the other splendid authors here on tumblr so heavens PLEASE, i hope my words will suffice

about my writing:

i love writing themes about mental health, fantasy, magical beings, and anything that borders on idealism, much like one of my favorite authors

pantsing or outlining a storyline really just depends on my mood. characters always go first before the plot, because i usually deem them as real people and the book revolves around them. they deserve just as much.

i am a sucker for symbolisms, metaphors, and paradoxes, it’s not that i overuse them, it just gives you a feel of what my oc’s are feeling.

i love creating dialogues, you’ll see a lot of ‘em. don’t get sick of ‘em, i beg of you.

current wips (all of which are subject to change):

sleeping at last is a mental-health centralized and mystery fiction set in the modern times of a fictional country/city. it explores the death of a recurring female character and how her friends try to search for the events leading up to it, making themselves subjects to ill-starred events all the while being under the same roof of adwell house, a mental wellness sanatorium for orphans such as them.

of curse and glory is a fantasy and dark academia story set in an alternate universe unbeknownst to humankind. it narrates the story of four kingdoms which do not know their history. but when the heirs of each kingdom receive an ancient message from those who claim are the oldens, they begin to uniyeld truth from a provocation—saving everyone else’s lives in the process.

in our orbit is a fictional romance story set in new york city, manhattan where two men meet each other in chaotic circumstances inside an art museum. when push comes to shove, they must decide whether or not love is worth keeping in the sacrifice of their dreams.

poems and essays is pretty much self-explanatory. this will be a series of thoughts constellated into words that i’ll share with the world. from my heart to yours.

please reblog if you’re also a writeblr because i would love to interact, be mutuals, and follow all of you! writeblrs supporting writeblrs, everyone!

contents coming very very soon in a poeticparchment near you!

Wow, interesting idea!

💡

Hey yourwriters, thanks for the light bulb 😁

One of the ideas I still have to write is about a group of children that are taken away from their parents under the pretense they are in need of special teachers who end up on a different planet because the government knows the world is dying and theses kids DNA tells they will develop powers outside earth and the politicians thought the best way to guarantee survival of mankind is to send these kids away so they will start a new society with the help of adults who were picked for this.

Bad thing is the kids and their caretakers strand on the other planet and are forced to survive there and deal with the native inhabitants.