August Writing Challenges: Day 13 - Drama

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the thirteenth challenge we're going to see how well you can describe drama:

Here is your challenge:

Drama: Write about a time when you got stuck in between two parties fighting with each other. You can use your own experiences if you'd like to help give more personality to each character.

Next, write a letter, addressed to yourself, from the other person's perspective. In this letter, take on the voice of your adversary, as your adversary explains his/her perspective on why he/she was right and you were certainly in the wrong.

NOTE: This exercise is designed to give the writer practice at creating two characters that are coming to the battle with equal ammunition. It draws from the writer's personal history with conflict and tries to place the writer in the mind of the opponent.

This exercise is a great way to practice writing from perspectives other than your own. It's also a good way to humanize antagonists.

Enjoy!

August Writing Challenges: Day 12 - Senses and Color

AugustThe summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the twelfth challenge we're going to discover how our senses and color affect our writing.

Here is your challenge:

On your paper, draw a circle with five lines coming from it. Label each line with one of the five senses:

   Sight

   Hearing

   Touch

   Taste

   Smell

Close your eyes and imagine what color is prominent in your mind. Let the color wash over you as you think about it in terms of each sense. 

Fill the next ten minutes by writing down what comes to mind by this color, sense by sense. Some of the senses are more difficult than others, but making the extra effort will help you with being more specific in your future writing. 

Once you've written for ten minutes, adding to each sense, pick a number between one and ten. Write it on your paper. 

Check below and find your number. 

1. Yellow

2. Black

3. White

4. Gold

5. Blue

6. Green

7. Brown

8. Pink

9. Purple

10. Orange

Now, go back and use the color that matched your number and write for another ten minutes how that color affects your senses. 

THINK ABOUT THIS:  Imagine the colorful people you have met in your life. Jot down notes about the way these people look, dress, act, talk, walk, and smell. This is a great way to work on character development and perhaps flesh out a character in need of a little more personality. It's fun to pick and choose from all the choices offered by people you know as you invent characters of your own. 

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Character Sketch - Of Yourself!

We all can mostly figure out out to create a character for our stories. We come up a physical description, add in some character traits and then give him/her a personality. Viola! You have a brand new character to give you all kinds of grief in your next book.

However, did you ever wonder what it would be like to do a character sketch of yourself? I thought this exercise might give you more insight in helping you further develop your story characters.

Let's give this a try, shall we?

A character sketch is a written description of another person, in this case you. It's going to help you really get to know yourself and in turn, help you learn how to really develop story characters.

If you think it might help, try writing your character sketch from another's point of view. It can be extremely revealing to see yourself through the eyes of another.

Barbara Sher's Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want, suggests investigating your home as if you were a private detective trying to figure out the sort of person living there.

Think about it: You're going to be going through clothes closets, kitchen cabinets, bookshelves, entertainment videos and such. You'll review the furniture, rugs, curtains, pictures, food in the refrigerator, and right down to the colors on the wall. Don't forget to notice clutter if it's there or if the "person" you are investigating is a "neat freak."

Ask yourself these questions: Would you say that the person who lived there is organized or scatterbrained? Sociable or solitary? Sensual or intellectual?

Now, write a sketch of the person living in your house, or write the sketch from a different point of view. But, get the point across about the type of person living there and personality.

You might be surprised about how well you knew or didn't know about yourself. You might find that missing object you've been looking for all these months. And, you might find the perfect character for your next novel.

You can do this exercise with others as well. Sit with a group of writers, with whom you've worked well, and write sketches of each other. It would be interesting to see how others see you, wouldn't it?

Enjoy!

Copyright: sergwsq / 123RF Stock Photo

Creating a Child Character and Generating a Starting Phrase

When writing a novel, you include many different characters. You probably have a routine you use to what's come up with the various character traits for each character.

You may not be used to creating a child character. I have a few tips on putting together a profile for a child character to include in your story. 

The resource I used is Take Ten for Writers by Bobbie Neubauer. It's a writing exercise that will take approximately ten minutes to complete. 

1.  Give yourself a name with the initials G.L.S.

2. Give yourself an age between three and nine. 

Now, answer the following questions:

1. Are you male or female?

2. What's your ethnic background?

3. Are you short or tall for your age?

4. Is your build skinny, average, chunky or something else?

5. Where's your favorite place to play?

6. What's your favorite toy/game?

7. What's something you've hidden?

8. What's your brief opinion about adults?

9. What does your bedroom look like?

10. How do (or don't) your parents punish you?

You are now this child. Pull on his/her personality. You don't have to incorporate the information you generated above into your story if you don't want to; simply use it as background information to help you get into character. Write from the point of view of this child, trying to soynd like you really are his/her age. 

Now pick a number between 1 and 10. 

Find the chosen number below. This becomes the starting phrase of writing your story. 

1. My head stuck up above the bubbles in the tub like ...

2. We splashed all afternoon in the baby poll ...

3. The sandbox was overflowing with ...

4. The sun was just setting when I got lost at the carnival ...

5. The cotton candy melted on my tongue like ...

6. Even though my dad yelled at me not to do it again, I couldn't help jumping ...

7. I kept jiggling and wiggling my front tooth ...

8. At the petting zoo, the goat ...

9. The first time I slept over my best friend's house ...

10. I hate getting dressed up, but my mother insisted I ...

Now take ten minutes and write. 

Kids are naturally creative. To reacquaint yourself with this part of your being, engage in kid's activities: climb a tree; buy finger paints and make a messy masterpiece; get crayons and a coloring book and scribble outside the lines; chase lightening bugs in the summer; have a snowball fight in the winter. When you're done playing, but still have the youthful lightness in your heart, grab a pen and paper (or paints, crayons, or markers) and write starting with the words: I played...

Enjoy!

Photo Reference: ME! The child in the picture is my oldest granddaughter. Isn't she cute?

Writing Tips - Character Development

If you've been living anywhere but under a rock, you know about the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I've read then all and eagerly await the next in the series. Janet Evanovich creates richly developed characters in this great series and I'm going to share with you how she does that. These excerpts come from How I Write - Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof.

Memorable characters. It's what makes a good story a great story. In order to create memorable characters you must breathe life into them. Make them living beings with a personality.

"It's important to tell a good story, but it's critical to have memorable characters. It's not enough to describe a character's physical attributes and to tell us what he does and where he goes. You must bring your characters to life, make them believable and with caring about. Do this by motivating them and giving them personalities that set them apart from any other character you've read or written about. The deeper and richer your characters are, and the more emotion you put into them, the more your story will come to life. .... It doesn't matter if your reader loves or hates your characters. What matters is that the reader feels something. He must never be ambivalent toward these people, which means that as the writer, you can never be ambivalent, either." -- Ina Yalof

Tips from Janet Evanovich:

1. A well-developed character is multidimensional, with quirks and flaws, dreams, motivations, and values.
2. Your character must always want something. When something or someone stands in the way of your character getting what he wants, you get the beginning of conflict. It's the conflict that sets up the story. How that character meets the challenge and overcomes the obstacles of the conflict defines that character.
3. All writers are people watchers. If you want characters that ring true, take a really close look at the people around you. Begin with them, and then let your imagination run wild. Also, keep your ear to the ground and develop and ability to listen.
4. Everything you see and hear and experience can find its way into a story. Just store all this stuff up in your brain and retrieve it as you need it.
5. Television and movies are another source of inspiration for characters.
6. Everyday life is a limitless resource.
7. One element that makes up a well drawn character is honesty.
8. If you make a character real and vulnerable and kind, as soon as you put that character in jeopardy or any type of distress, the reader will always root for that person to win, or succeed, or make it out safely. To make a character vulnerable, just keep him a little bit unsure of himself and his choices. That's one way of connecting the reader with the character, which is what you want. It also keeps him wondering what's next.
9. Humor is the icing, but character is the cake.
10. When it comes to research you really need to know what you are doing.


There you have it. How to develop a memorable character. Now get out there and start creating!