What to Ask Your Characters

There have been a few books I have perusing over the past week. 20 Master Plots: and How to Build Them by Roland B. Tobias, 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, and A Writer's Guide to Characterization: Archetypes, Heroic Journeys, and Other Elements of Dynamic Character Development by Victoria Lynn Schmidt.

I have basically spent the past week trying to find my characters and find what drives them in the world. Pretty sad as I've written an entire book about theses suckers and you'd think I'd know. Maybe it's just some writers block. I know it is.

It's been hard going, as inspiration has been fleeting. Also, I hate those character sheets that are all over the place. They don't do anything for me to help chisel out my characters from the stone.

What is a writer to do? Ask the questions I really need answers to:

1. What is your name?
2. What do you look like?
3. What do you think of your friends? Family? The world you live in?
4. Why will readers love you?
5. Why will readers hate you?
6. Who are you at the beginning? 
7. You are you in the middle?
8. Who are you at the end?

What questions do you ask your characters?

How to Make Time

The best way to make time for writing is... yeah I have no idea.

I don't even feel like I have time to write this, but I've pretty much watched ever other resolution I made for this year sink like the Titanic... with cement blocks pulling it down... and then a big tidal wave comes in and wrecks it... What I'm trying to say is my resolutions and sanity are hanging onto a thin thread right now. I almost cried trying to figure out how to spell 'tidal' so there you go.

I don't know how writers make the time. (Lies!) They choose to write instead of watching TV. Also, it's their job. What I mean to say is I don't know how aspiring writers make the time. I don't know how someone can work 40 plus hours a week, keep track of their family and social obligations, pay bills, and write.

I do sit down and write about every day or every other day. Most of the time I get about a sentence or two on the page before I realize how late it is and how early I have to be up tomorrow and how at this hour it's not really worth it anymore. So I close the computer and try to get my brain to shut up about how much I'm procrastinating and go to sleep.

I am absolutely counting this as a self indulgent, 'woe is me' blog entry, but I need it. You need it too. The thing is, writing is hard. It takes a lot out of us, which is something non writers and/or creative types have a hard time grasping. But, what it gives us back is a clear head. The feeling of not being so alone. The feeling of accomplishment.

So you want to know my secret of making the time to write? I want it more than anything. Not to get all motivational speaker, but the only way to get something is to want it badly enough to put the rest of your life to the side. For an hour or so a day, just write. There it is. The secret to crafting something out of nothing. Time is created in the pen in your hand. (A play on words of 'palm of your hand.' Had to clarify.)

Also word wars.

Happy writing!

A Tale in Three Acts

As I sit here, taking aspirin with my third cup of coffee, I am forced to reconcile with my novel. I have taken a good amount of time off from the lovely thing, but this time off has given me doubts. I am beginning to question the bones of my novel, and I will not have the doubts drag me under. The characters are not developing as clearly as I want them too and the antagonist's motives are clear or even reasonable to me any more.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done here.

My plan to resolve the issue is to break the novel down in some sort of outline. Rather, I will be using the three act story structure. It is a tried and true plot format, which is very visible in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and I hope to have success with it.

The simple break down, as far as my knowledge, is this:

Act I: Welcome To The World Of Something Doesn't Seem Quite Right

• Show the reader the worlds, the setting and the background of the world in which the story takes place.
• Introduce the main character(s).
• A problem occurs that changes the world or more importantly how the main character(s) views it.
• Questions must be raised that the must be answered at the conclusion of the story.

Act II: The Hair Pulling and Nail Biting

• The main character(s) must try to resolve the problem. They make the problem worse as they do not yet have the skill to resolve the problem.
• The main character(s) must try to develop the new skill as well as come to a higher sense of awareness of what they are capable of.

Act III: The Part Where the Reader Just Can't Put The Book Down

• The Climax! (In some examples I have seen the climax as the end point to Act II, others the start point to Act III. Do as you wish in your own novel break down.)
• Answer the questions you raised through the story.
• Make the main character(s) victors or failures.

Now, keeping that structure in mind, I have drawn up this map. 

THREE ACT BREAKDOWN
ACT I: BOOK I			ACT II: BOOK II			ACT III: BOOK III
THE WORLD			THE PROBLEM			THE CLIMAX
THE CAST			THE SKILLS THE MC NEEDS
THE CATILIST OUT OF THE FAMILIAR			THE INNER TURMOIL THE MC MUST OVERCOME			THE RESOLUTION
THE QUESTIONS THAT ARE RAISED						THE MAIN EVENTS
THE MAIN EVENTS			THE MAIN EVENTS
BOOK I: IN THREE ACTS			BOOK II: IN THREE ACTS			BOOK III: IN THREE ACTS
THE WORLD	THE PROBLEM	THE CLIMAX	THE WORLD	THE PROBLEM	THE CLIMAX	THE WORLD	THE PROBLEM	THE CLIMAX
THE CAST	THE SKILLS THE MC NEEDS		THE CAST	THE SKILLS THE MC NEEDS		THE CAST	THE SKILLS THE MC NEEDS
THE CATILIST OUT OF THE FAMILIAR	THE INNER TURMOIL THE MC MUST OVERCOME	THE RESOLUTION	THE CATILIST OUT OF THE FAMILIAR	THE INNER TURMOIL THE MC MUST OVERCOME	THE RESOLUTION	THE CATILIST OUT OF THE FAMILIAR	THE INNER TURMOIL THE MC MUST OVERCOME	THE RESOLUTION
THE QUESTIONS THAT ARE RAISED		THE MAIN EVENTS	THE QUESTIONS THAT ARE RAISED		THE MAIN EVENTS	THE QUESTIONS THAT ARE RAISED		THE MAIN EVENTS
THE MAIN EVENTS	THE MAIN EVENTS		THE MAIN EVENTS	THE MAIN EVENTS		THE MAIN EVENTS	THE MAIN EVENTS

It is a simple structure based on the three act outline. My plan is to break the major plot down over the three books and break the sub plots down in the individual books. Please feel free to borrow and alter this outline, but send me any helpful tips you have on making it better!

I honestly believe this structure is what my novel is lacking right now. I know where I want the story to go, but it just seems to be flat-lining a bit. I know this change will put some fire under my butt.

Happy writing!

The Incorrect Definition of Introversion

Hey, hi , hello, hey guys. My name is Rachel and I don't like this definition.

in·tro·vert

   [n., adj. in-truh-vurt; v. in-truh-vurt] Show IPA

noun

1.

a shy person.

2.

Psychology . a person characterized by concern primarilywith his or her own thoughts and feelings ( opposed toextrovert).

3.

Zoology . a part that is or can be introverted.

dictionary.com

I agree with two. Three I have issues with defining the word with the word. One. One? One! One makes me mad as hell.

Introverts, I will argue are not shy. Rather, being shy is not the same as being introverted. And just because you are introverted does not mean you are shy. It frustrates me that if I tell someone I am an introvert and they have no idea what that means, they could look it up and find this. "Shy." No, not at all.

I describe myself as an open book, I love to talk. My biggest turn off of the opposite sex is if we have nothing to say with each other. I love conversation. I like being the funny one in a group. I like going out to bars. I love big parties. I love chatting to my coworkers.

HOWEVER! In order to be a social butterfly, I need a solid chunk of my day set aside to being alone. On a good day, I have three hours of alone time. In a good week, I spend one whole day in my own company. When those things don't happen, I struggle through my social and work obligations. Without it, I run the risk of feeling overwhelmed and stressed.

Introverts are not shy. We are people who recharge our batteries, rest, and relax on our own. We are our own best friends and the concept of being alone is more of a gift then a punishment. Shy has nothing to do with it. Describing and introvert as a "shy person" is a overly simplistic, ill informed view on the word.


I would like to share with you these fantastic introverts talking about being introverts (in more well developed terms):

Writers Habits

I do not hear my characters.

They do not talk to me. They do not demand their story. I get something better. I feel, when I am writing well, that I am that character. It is as much my story as it is theirs. They aren’t even stories, but vivid memories. Memories that I need to put on the page as quickly as they flash by.

It sounds crazy to say, to one who is not a writer, that you hear your characters. It sounds absolutely mental to feel like you are a whole other person when you type.

This is why I struggle with anything but first person point of view.

Do you hear your characters? Do they speak to you? Or do you feel like it’s something you have been through?

Writers Habits

There is a men’s medium, cool, blue sweatshirt that hangs in my closet. In truth it it more often crumpled on the floor, but somewhere in my creative clutter I have it. It’s long and soft and most importantly inspiring. There is something about this oversize coat that comforts me and lulls me into another world. This is my uniform. This is my writers coat.

What is your uniform?

Why Young Adult?

I read and write and love the YA genre because the character’s feel and respond so passionately.

Everything, in your youth, effects you deeper. Your world is your high school, and it’s a small world where your pears do not often welcome uniqueness. There is something sad and beautiful about that time in your life. It must be appreciated.

A good YA author captures that in their books. The embarrassment, the sorrow, the utter joy from a first kiss. That passion. That unfaltering emotion. That’s why I love YA. I hope to bring that passion to my pages.

That, and I still feel like a kid most days.

Why do you love YA?