First, I want to invite you to play along with Wednesday Writers if you want. Just nab the button and post a writing tip on Wednesdays. Then leave a comment in my Wednesday posts and I’ll link to you.
Now, on to the tip:
I have started a new novel and I’m some fifty pages in. With every novel I’ve started, those first fifty pages come in a rush. I have a new character I like, I have a story world that is interesting, and I have a basic plot down. But once I get to chapter four, I’m beginning to wonder where the middle of the book is. In the middle of the book the character has to do all those things that carry her from the beginning to the end. All those steps that change her personality–that mold her and show her growth.
Invariably I have to stop and reconsider both my beginning and my end when I hit my middle.
So last night I took a page from Randy Ingermanson’s book–well, I stole a couple of his steps from his snowflake method of plotting, actually. I took my heroine and my hero and I wrote several pages for both of them in the first-person so that I could get to know who they are and what motivates them.
I start with this: My name is Evangelina Augustina Patternstein but my friends and family call me Sunny.
From there I write about Sunny’s loves, hates, and deepest secret desires. This puts me in the character’s head and I see what she knows about herself, but I also see what she doesn’t know. I see where she needs to grow. I see what her strengths and weaknesses are.
As I write about my character, I find the plot of the book. I write about what happens to her: I was hang-gliding off the cliffs and when I landed in the water, someone grabbed me and dragged me under. It was Grayson. He kidnapped me and took me to the Dome under the sea where the Dome Dwellers live.
From there I tell how she feels about being kidnapped. And what she does to try to get back home. Because I know her deepest desires, I know why she wants to get home so badly, and I also know what actions she would take to get there.
I also wrote several pages for the hero. I tell why he kidnapped Sunny and how he feels about her.
Today I will do this same thing for the antagonist.
When I have a handle on the characters, when I can see what they want and why they are doing what they do, I can also see how they interact with one another. I know why my hero does what he does and why my heroine reacts as she does.
This free writing in the first person voice of my characters has been a vital step early in the writing of each novel I’ve written. I love it because once I become Sunny, I know exactly what she is going to do next. And that is plot. What the characters do and why. That is plot.
I will stop probably three or four more times as I write this novel–every time I hit writer’s block and don’t know what’s coming next–and I will write in the first person to learn where my characters want to go.
What about you? How do you get to know your characters? How do you figure out where they are going?
I’d nab your button, but I already have What Not To Wednesdays (not that I do that every Wednesday, but see? There’s just another What Not To Do!)
I do, however, have a tip about plotting(Although I use it for whatever I’m writing, whether it’s a story, article, poem, or novel). I ask a question as I go: WHAT do you want to say? I know it sounds simple, but when you’re writing, you can start out like you said, just zipping along, thinking you know exactly what you mean to say. But you can get kinda lost in all those pretty words, and cool characters, and soon enough, what you WANT to say isn’t what you’ve said at all. I’ll even talk out loud to myself. It’s amazing how quickly one can straighten things out when talking out loud to one self. Mostly because people around you are shouting, “Shaddup, already!”
.-= Cathy C. Hall´s last blog ..Keeping A Puppet Play =-.