Adventures in Writing

Are you psychic? Do you see ghosts?

Me neither. But I write these characters.

One of the ways I try to get into the head of characters like this is research.

A great resource is a nonfiction TV series called PSYCHIC KIDS. Real life kids with psychic abilities are brought together with an adult psychic and a child psychologist who specializes in psychic kids, and they are helped to come to terms with their gifts.

The parents are also helped.

Most of the kids are terrified by spirits who have harassed them for years, and they are afraid to sleep. Some are physically ill from anxiety and stress. Yet they have nowhere to turn except for parents. They are afraid to talk to friends because they will be ostracized, and parents warn them not to talk to other adults. They tend to be loners.

The parents are terrified, as well. They are unable to protect their kids from the ghosts, and the normal routes to help -- doctors, teachers, and ministers -- are closed to them because they fear their children will be labeled as mentally ill and medicated into zombies. They fear that their children could be taken from them by social services who won't believe the child's true problem.

The psychic helps the kids come to terms with their gifts and teaches them to take away the fear, and the psychologist teaches the parents how to cope with their psychic children. The children also develop relationships with the other psychic kids so they no longer feel alone or like freaks.

How would I use this information? A child character is easy enough to create after watching these children. So would a parent of a psychic child.

Now let's extrapolate this information and imagine an adult who had a childhood like this. Fear of discovery would often be a major influence on an adult. She wouldn't trust easily because most people who find out about her gift consider her a freak. Authority figures would automatically be distrusted. Trust and the need to be accepted for what she is would be the central emotional issues in a romantic relationship.

But what if the child grew up being totally open about her gift or if she "came out" as a psychic as an adult?

This character would be very comfortable in her own skin. She'd know herself very well. Her sense of being apart from others would manifest itself in a certain flamboyance -- a look at me I'm different and I don't care what you think attitude.

She would probably see her abilities as a gift rather than a curse, and she would use that gift to help others.

In a romance, she would have problems thinking of changing to help the relationship work because she's worked so hard to be who she is. "Me" has always been more important than "us."

This extrapolation isn't the only way to see adult psychic characters, but it does give you a start on writing a character different from yourself.

If you have no reality source for your character's background, you will have to find a real world analogy.

For example, a child who knows he's gay at an early age would be an analogy of a psychic character. Many is society view both with alarm, and secrecy is often the choice made. A writer would research the problems and emotional toll of being a gay child then use that information to understand a psychic child.

No matter how unusual or magical a character is, the author must use her knowledge of what makes a certain kind of person tick to make that character believable to the reader.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Links of Interest

WHEN DOUBTS PLAGUE YOU AS A WRITER:

http://www.genreality.net/doubt-demons

THE TEN BEST SELF-EDITING TIPS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/02/were-ready-for-revision-pre-flight-top.html

KEEPING TRACK OF CHARACTERS’ KNOWLEDGE:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/02/what-do-they-know-keeping-track-of.html

APPLE CHANGES TERMS FOR THE BETTER FOR THE iBOOK AUTHOR SOFTWARE:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249303/apple_scraps_controversial_terms_in_ibook_author_eula_agreement.html

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUNG ADULT AND MIDDLE GRADE FICTION:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2012/02/fridays-with-agent-kristin-episode-2.html

IS IT OKAY TO CROSS GENRES:

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2012/02/02/is-it-ok-to-cross-genres/

AMAZON’S DEAL WITH HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND WHAT IT MEANS TO AUTHORS:

http://behlerblog.com/2012/02/03/consequences-of-amazon-inheriting-the-earth-how-does-this-affect-their-authors/

LIST O’ LINKS:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/02/twitterific.html

BRUSH UP YOUR GRAMMAR, HYPENS:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2012/02/grammar-abcs-h-is-for-hyphen.html

WHAT TO DO WHEN THE CREATIVITY ISN’T FLOWING:

http://www.allaboutthewriting.com/donna_j_cummings/2012/02/creativity-tune-up.html

MARKETS, MAINLY SHORT STORY:

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2012/02/sub-ops-ten.html

TIPS FOR AUTHOR PHOTOS:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/02/tips-for-author-photos.html

FREE PROMOTION IDEAS:

http://bryanthomasschmidt.net/2012/02/06/write-tip-how-not-to-use-the-9-free-ways-to-market-your-book/

TEN THINGS WRITERS HATE ABOUT WRITING:

http://chiseledinrock.blogspot.com/2012/02/ten-things-about-writing-most-writers.html

MAKING YOUR NOVEL LONGER:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/02/you-must-be-this-long-to-ride-this.html

Monday, February 6, 2012

Viewpoint as Camera or Participant

The most common mistake in writing third person viewpoint is the writer becomes a camera rather than the actor in the scene. In other words, the writer is sitting in the corner scribbling away as they describe the movie going on in front of them.

As a camera, the writer would write:

Faith struck at him with the edge of her hand, but he caught her wrist and held it.

"Don't," he said harshly.

She clawed at his eyes, but he dodged. Yanking free, she came to her knees but paused.

He took advantage of her slowness by throwing himself on top of her and pinning her to the bed.

She kicked at his groin and missed. Screaming and twisting, she tried again.

The correct place for the writer to be is in the brain and body of the viewpoint character. She should describe what the viewpoint character sees and feels to make the scene come alive. Here's the same scene through the filter of viewpoint character, Faith Cody.

Faith struck out with the edge of her hand, but the self-defense blow which should have smashed his windpipe was as clumsy and slow as the rest of her drugged body. He caught her wrist in steel fingers.

"Don't."

His hard-voiced command spurred her from her hopelessness, and she raked at his eyes with her free hand. His hand loosening her wrist, he dodged.

Yanking free, she came to her knees in bed. She wore only a large tee shirt.

Shocked by her vulnerability, she paused before attacking again or fleeing. In that moment, he threw himself at her, pinning her to the bed, his hands manacling her wrists to the sheets.

Her knee seeking his genitals, she twisted, but her knee glanced off his inner thigh. Screaming like an angry jungle cat, she writhed beneath him as she tried to hit him again with her knee.

From THE GAME WE PLAY.

The trick to being in a character's head is to create a reality for the reader. Use visual language. Make the reader SEE what the character sees. Make the reader FEEL what the character feels.

Don't say, "Pamela was afraid." Say, "Shivers ran down her back like cold fingers." In other words, show, don't tell. If a character is angry, don't have him shout dialogue or "say angrily." Use his actions instead. If he's grinding a wadded paper to pulp in his hand while he's talking, you can be darn sure he's mad.

CAMERA AS THE RIGHT VIEWPOINT

Camera or panoramic viewpoint does have a place in fiction, particularly in epic fantasy or historical novels, where the writer wants to show the large overview of a great battle or event. Tolkien in LORD OF THE RINGS often uses the camera viewpoint.

If you are considering using camera viewpoint within most genre, you need to decide if the larger viewpoint is worth the loss of immediacy. In most cases, it isn't.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Links of Interest

FIGURING OUT THE READER’S QUESTIONS FOR EACH SCENE:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/01/leave-breadcrumbs-behind-are-you-asking.html

FIREARMS MANUALS, ETC. FOR RESEARCH:

http://forensics4fiction.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/amazing-resource-for-firearm-manuals/

CRITIQUE CHECKLIST:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2012/01/personal-check-list-for-fiction-writers.html

SCENE CHECKLIST:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/01/fundamental-check-do-your-scenes-have.html

WHY SOMETIMES THE ADVANCE MONEY ISN’T THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE NEGOTIATIONS:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/01/its-not-always-about-the-money/

LIST O’ LINKS: The alway excellent weekly links collection from Elizabeth Craig.

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/01/twitterific_29.html

PROMOTING MORE THAN ONE NAME WHEN YOU WRITE UNDER MULTIPLE NAMES:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/01/promoting-pen-name.html

BOOK MARKETING, PART 4 OF 4:

http://chiseledinrock.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-marketing-inventory-part-4-of-4.html

THE AUTHOR GUILD’S OVERVIEW ON WHAT IS HAPPENING IN PUBLISHING:

http://blog.authorsguild.org/2012/01/31/publishings-ecosystem-on-the-brink-the-backstory

Monday, January 30, 2012

Making a Main Character Likable

Sometimes, you can start out your story with a main character who has unpleasant elements to their personality, but a character must be likable or, at the very least, relatable for the reader. Here are ways to show more than the prickly outer elements of her personality.

If you give the main character a worthy goal in the first pages of the novel, then you give yourself time to make a seemingly unlikable character grow on the reader.

By worthy, I mean something the reader will want that character to succeed at– rescuing children, helping a nice person find happiness, etc. Even if the character starts out doing it for a base reason like money, the reader will still want him to succeed.

Simple things can help make a character start to grow on the reader. Pets are always a good option. Either he has one, or he can't resist the heroine's kitten, or something like that. Having him interact positively with a child is also a good likability quickie.

Recently, I read a short story in which the heroine breaks into the apartment of a possible villain-- a hard-ass security agent. A teddy bear is sitting on his couch, and he later admits it belongs to his nephew. With that simple stroke, the author made a seemingly unlikable bad guy a much nicer person.

Giving a character a vulnerability that the reader can relate to is also a good likability quickie. It can be as simple as a chick lit heroine having a bad hair day and the boss from heck, or the bad ass hero getting into a small plane and freaking out because he finds a snake.

Eventually, more likable elements of that character's personality will have to be shown, though, so the bad parts of her personality don't overwhelm the reader.

In some genre fiction like thrillers, the immediate likability quotient doesn't have to be high at the beginning, particularly if the character is strong and effective in what he needs to do.

But in a romance, the hero or heroine should be likable from the very beginning. The other main character can become likable as the book progresses, but he should not start as totally horrible. Some character traits like cruelty can't be forgiven or changed because, in real life, they never are.