onlyleigh:

Actually

The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people. 

Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:

1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it. 2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4. 3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.

4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?  5. How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?

6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for.  What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of. 

7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot. 

That’s it.

But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?

If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?

How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?

Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.

They start to breathe.

Some advice for when you’re writing and find yourself stuck in the middle of a scene:

Never delete. Never read what you’ve already written. Pass Go, collect your $200, and keep going.

This is the literal best writing advice I have ever read. Period.

Special note: “Kill someone” means kill someone in the story. Please do not kill random real life passers by every time you hit a block. My lawyer says misunderstanding writing advice is not an acceptable defense. See you all in 25 to 50 years.

A few notes from personal experience.

1. Killing someone might not work for all stories, but there’s a kernel of broader metaphorical use here: think about what a character is afraid of losing or the loss of which will create a new challenge or complication for them, and maybe they can lose that. e.g. a character in a foreign country losing their wallet or passport. Or think about something--potentially more abstract--they may have lost but possibly haven’t come to understand fully and then explore that. This doesn’t need to be a tragedy sort of loss, but think about how any recent changes your character has gone through--or even gains they’ve made--might’ve entailed a loss, even a small one. A loss of innocence or ignorance--or a loss of a fear. A loss of trust in someone or in themselves. A loss of a formerly reliable perspective on the world. A loss of an assumption. A loss of a particular status in the world (even something like fame bringing a loss of privacy), or how growing intimacy between two characters requires a loss of a sometimes idealized image of someone. Every change or gain involves something lost. That can provide a new way forward that also is good for character growth and development.

2. Something going wrong is a pretty reliable way to build tension and interest, but it can also, IME, lead to an exhausting pattern in a story if it’s overused. So I’d suggest in addition to this, think about what the character or reader might be most expecting to happen--and then do something different or outright subvert it. It doesn’t have to be something bad! Even having something good happen when the reader is expecting and primed for something bad can work wonderfully. Subversion & violation of expectations is a quieter way of complicating and driving the story that can be effective at shaking loose the sticky scene.

3. Even if you’re writing from just one character’s POV, it can be valuable to do this: write a scene from another character’s POV for your own purposes. Explore your MC’s scene partner’s perspective. That can help you gain insight into whatever isn’t working in your sticky scene. Remember that in every interaction each character has their own POV even if you’re not writing from it. It’s those different POV’s--characters may have different goals and motivations--that add tension and interest to, for example, dialogue scenes. It doesn’t need to be combative or confrontational, just a bit of a mismatch. How are your characters challenging each other’s expectations or not quite connecting or communicating successfully? What are they learning that matters?

4. If you’re really stuck, it might be helpful to step back and evaluate the purpose of the scene you’re writing. If you can’t find a reason for the scene to be there, you may struggle with finding traction, so clarify your purpose for the scene. It can be something as simple as showing an aspect of a character. But make a note of WHY this scene matters to your story and HOW it needs to accomplish that goal, and that might help you refocus on it. If you can’t justify the full scene, you might want to scale it back to a few lines of narration or cut it altogether--or find a way to justify it by adding something to it.

HTH!

You’re Writing for Friends

You’re going to get criticism as a writer. I guarantee it. A few people will hate what you’re doing (or if you’re lucky, a lot of a few people will hate it). Some people will think you’re not good enough to be published. Some people will send you long lists of all the mistakes you made in your last book. Some of those mistakes may be real. People will tell you they don’t know why your book is a big deal (or a little deal). People will also tell you they couldn’t read past the first paragraph or the first page because it was boring, or stupid or about a girl or about a dog or about something they don’t care about.

Here’s what I want you to remember: You’re not writing for everyone. You’re not writing for the people who don’t get what you’re writing. You’re not writing to get that kid who hated you in seventh grade to like you. You’re not writing for critics. You’re not writing for the future you can’t see into. You’re not writing to some writer in the past who’s dead now and will never know if you used a cool reference to his book. You’re not writing to get someone who hates this genre to change their mind.

You’re writing for friends. And by that I don’t necessarily mean the people who are your friends right now. I mean the people who get what you’re doing and care about it. If you’re writing fantasy, you’re writing for people who like fantasy and the particular kind you’re writing. If you’re writing humor, you’re writing for people who want to laugh. If you’re writing mystery, you’re writing for people who want to be scared.

For every person who thinks what you tried to do doesn’t matter, there are ten who think it does. Those are the ones you’re writing for. They laugh in the right places. They feel sick in the wrong places. They didn’t guess all the twists and turns before you wanted them to. They didn’t know that character was going to turn villainous. They believed in the rules you set forth. They let you weave your magic over them and they didn’t see any of the holes they might have seen.

So when you’re dealing with criticism, remember that you’ve got friends who are rooting for you to succeed in the next book. You’ve got people who know you can do this. You have friends who pick up the last book and think that all they want is another one just like this, that does all those same things, that surprises again and delights in the same way, and hits all the right notes. They don’t want you to wonder about if what you’ve spent your whole life perfecting matters. Of course it does! They’re your friends.

c

This is true. Please reblog.

Daniel José Older (via whatsinsideawritersmind)

Ursula K. Le Guin (via jayemichaela)

How Nobel laureate John Steinbeck, born on this day in 1902, used the diary as a tool of discipline and a hedge against self-doubt. 

Pixars 22 Rules of Story Telling

9 is worth the price of admission, holy crap.

This is genius. So many great writing tips!

And this is why Pixar is a master in their field.

Why do I feel so weird reblogging this… this is the weekend dammit!  Anyway, great advice.

Pixar you have no idea how much this actually helps me.

These are all fantastic pieces of advice.

For reference

For great reference

@letsbloom

look…………….. write as much shitty fic as you want. nobody can stop you. you’re learning constantly and it’s better to write hackneyed implausible ridiculousness than it is to not write at all out of fear of fucking up. you’re good

There was an experiment a professor did. I think it was pottery students. He did an experiment of “quality” vs “quantity”. One half of the class he told; you have to make as many pots as possible. Good pots, bad pots, shitty pots, whatever. The more pots you make, the higher your grade.

The other half of the class were told, “you can make only one pot”. But that pot had to be perfect. The quality had to be high; the highest quality pot would get the best mark.

But when it came to the grading, they noticed something weird.

All the best quality pots were in the ‘quantity’ group.

The guys who were literally churning out pots, trying to make as many as possible, not concentrating on the quality. But every pot they made, made them better at making pots. By the end of the month (I think it was a month) - they had some pretty awesome pots coming out, because they enjoying finding all the ways and all the things they could do to make all their pots. Where as the ‘quality’ guys had spent their time reading up on pots, and technique, and researching and planning; which was all great but they’d had no further practice at actually making pots.

The best way to get really good at something, the only way to be really good at something, is to make lots of shitty attempts at that thing several of which will fail. If all you create are perfect things then you won’t improve, because how can you improve on perfect?

tl:dr MAKE YOUR SHITTY POTS.

How To Get Over A Slump

Joy Ho (@feeverdreem) is currently interning at NPR on the science desk. If you missed it, check out part one of this story here. And let us know – how do you deal with creative slumps?

Great trips on how to get over a creative slump. -Emily

My screenwriting prof.

I felt like a lot of people needed to hear this. Including myself.

(via shaelinwrites)

Delia Sherman, American fantasy writer (via ellenkushner)

William Faulkner (via aliceswritingtips)

Lorin Stein, “Words Unwired” (via isagrimorie)