character

Character Balloons

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment
purple latex balloon 24" in diameter with...
Image via Wikipedia

How to organize your cast of characters quickly. #writetip I don’t draw, but this is an easy cartoon anyone can create. If you’re like me, you’ve kept a list of characters, however small the role, somewhere on your computer. Mine are in a spreadsheet.

I start with the protagonist,  putting her/his name in the center of a blank page and drawing a balloon around her/him.

Now the fun begins.

Add the antagonist. Don’t worry if you have more than one. Pick the character who has the largest interaction with your protagonist.

Draw a line between the protagonist and the antagonist. Then write their relationship on the line. Father/daughter. Boss/Employee. You can put any other relevant information in a balloon. Words like killer, victim etc.

Continue until you have all your characters on the page. Draw a line between balloons that hold characters who have some type of relationship. This can get messy. I use dotted lines if I have to cross through one balloon to get to the next.

Add then end, you’ll have a spiderweb of  balloons.

Now you can analyze it and “see” if all the connections make sense.

The drawing will show me if there are two characters I could fold into one or if I’ve confused any relationships. Best of all, it often gives me scene ideas. Here is where I can “see” if there are questions I need to answer or  story lines I’ve left unfinished. This is why I leave this exercise until I’m close to a first draft.

Have fun with this one. It’s an entertaining way to look at your novel.

Dialogue

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

How to write good dialogue is a popular topic for blogs this week. #writetip There is great advice out there.

Jody Hedlund describes Seven Ways to Develop Dazzling Dialogue.

Girls with Pens writes about 5 Basics About Dialogue You Need to Know.

But how do you know it’s good? You need to hear it. Grab a digital recorder and read the dialogue to yourself. This works for me. If I stumble over words I’m reading, I know it’s not right.

You get two shots at it. Once when reading, and once when playing the dialogue back to yourself on the recorder.

Repeat until you’re happy with how it sounds.

New Characters

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Characters can create themselves. #writetip It’s a great experience when an unplanned character appears in a scene. Don’t stop to think about it. You can go back later and create a bio for the character. Depending on the character, a Bio can be as short as one line (the character’s name) or it can take up a whole spreadsheet.

I’ve used a few characters across three novels and need to keep track of them. Some of the things I record are:

– appearance

– habits

– personality traits

– relationships

– likes

– dislikes

– secrets

– something unique about them

– important information about the past (before the novel’s starting point that the reader may or may not know about)

You can keep whatever you might need to look up later. To keep the bio up-to-date, when I reread or edit my novel, I add details as I go.

New Points Of View

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

When a character appears out of nowhere and wants the POV, let the writing flow. #writetip Sometimes a scene needs to be written. You many not want the extra POV in your novel and can decide later whether you use it or not.

Yesterday I wrote a scene with an existing character, but one that I have not given a point of view scene before. I didn’t end up using the scene in my novel, but I did write a follow-up scene with a different character as the POV, and it was much better (in my opinion) because I knew exactly what had happened behind closed doors.

Character A and B argued. Character B revealed a key piece of information to character A. I wrote this from Character A’s POV. Then I removed the scene.

Next Scene. An RCMP officer interviews character A right after the heated argument. I found it easier to describe Character A, his mannerisms, his answers, etc. because the fight was fresh in my mind. Character A had a hard time talking with the RCMP when he hadn’t processed the information.