Writing a Psychic Character, CRAFT

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.

Right now, I'm watching a nonfiction series on A&E 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.

Research Groups for Writers

For the last few weeks, I've been visiting various writing and research groups at Yahoogroups. Most of these lists allow you to ask research questions for your works, and experts or group members will answer them.

Crimescenewriter: Crime Scene Questions for Writers http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/crimescenewriter

A large membership with lots of experts and questions. Very mystery oriented. It tends to stay on subject with little chatter.

Rains_Writers-Research
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rains_writers_research

Most questions seem to be fantasy and historical based. Some mystery questions. Fairly small membership so messages aren't as frequent. Most, if not all, members are writers, not experts. Not much chatter.

Weapons_Info : Weapons Info and Survival
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Weapons_Info

Medium-sized group with lots of experts on mayhem of all sorts. Covers contemporary and historical weapons, etc. Very little chatter off topic. My personal favorite resource group.

WickedCompany
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WickedCompany

Large group specializing in mystery questions. Includes readers as well as writers. I've seen no nonwriter expert replies. Lots of chatter, bickering, sniping, and off-subject discussions as well as discussions on publishing. A heavy traffic list.

WriterResourceCentral
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writersresourcecentral

Small group that bills itself as a bulletin board for writing-related information. Not much email generated. The same people do most of the posting.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE GROUP? Please let me know.

Character Motivation, CRAFT

In one of my first stories, I had the main character in a surly mood in the opening scene without telling the reader why he was acting the way he was. A friend who critiqued the story wrote in the margin, "Who pissed in his oatmeal this morning?" It's a comment I hear in my head every time I discover I need to rewrite an under-motivated character.

Characters should have very good reasons to act as they do. We must give them motivations that the reader can understand. The most common mistake most new writers make is having a character act in a certain way because the writer needs her to act in a certain way.

This is as true for the villain as it is for the main viewpoint character. If your bad guy doesn't act without proper motivation, the whole story falls apart.

The Emotional Element in Action Scenes

Adding emotion to action scenes isn't an either/or situation. It's just as vital to add emotional layers to the physical action as it is to have brief moments of introspection when the fight isn't going on.

Your band of adventurers may not sit around "sharing their feelings" in touchie-feelie moments like a Dr. Phil show, but they've been around each other enough to know that one hates the bad guys because they murdered his wife and children, and he's liable to attack without thought and ruin their surprise attack.

He may be clutching the sword at his side, his other hand opening and closing in nervous energy, and another adventurer may warn him to relax and may mention the wife and kids.

The image of his wife's raped and brutalized body could flash through his mind, and he fights his raw anger and lust to kill. That won't slow the action down like having a long interior flashback of him finding his family's bodies, and his vow of revenge. Instead, it adds to the excitement of the coming action because the reader now questions whether this guy will lose his cool and get everyone killed.

After some rewriting, if you still aren't happy with the emotional content of your story, you may want to look at the central story idea. Do your characters have a real emotional reason to be doing what they are doing?

Their hunt for the lost treasure should be as much about their emotional reason for needing the treasure as it is about simple greed. That emotional reason should be important enough to make the reader want them to succeed as much as they do.

Maybe the main character is after a magical sword in the treasure which is the only weapon able to kill the dragon currently ravaging his homeland, and he doesn't really care about the treasure and the life of drunken decadence and dancing girls it promises the other characters.

Maybe the other characters have laughed at him, but they've admired him and gradually they have been drawn into his quest for the sword, and in the end, they'll choose to get the sword with him and lose the other treasure.

Maybe the one that laughed the hardest and made the main character's life hell along the journey will be the one to sacrifice himself so that the hero can rescue a homeland the scoffer has never had, but now wishes to have with his whole heart.

I always use the Ben Bova character/plot questions when I'm creating a plot so that the emotional investment of my characters is always present in the action. I discuss this method in my article on using index cards to plot a novel if you'd like to learn more. You'll find it at my website,
http://marilynnbyerly.com

The Two Kinds of Romance

By current market standards, there are two different definitions of the romance. One is defined by mass-market paperback houses like Harlequin and Leisure, and this definition is what most romance readers expect when they read a book called a romance. For the sake of clarity, I will call this a "standard romance."

The standard romance should include a happily ever-after ending (HEA). At the end of the book, the one man and one woman relationship ends with the promise of monogamy if not marriage. The hero and heroine should be deserving of those titles by their actions and behavior.

The emotional plot turning point, the crucible in which their relationship is tested, is the center of the story. The reader sees that if this one problem is solved before the HEA, there will, indeed, be a happily ever after. Problems can be things such as trust or commitment, and self-worth issues. Before the hero and heroine can have a HEA, they have to face this problem, grow, and change for the better to earn that happily ever after.

These elements must be at the core of the novel to be a romance.

The second definition of romance is the mainstream romance. Another good name for these romances would be tearjerker romances. Most of these books are written by men. Think BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY and all books by Nicholas Sparks.

The unhappy ending is as expected here as the HEA is expected in the other kind of romance. The plot rarely follows linear time, and the ending is known before the beginning usually in a frame story.

Listservs for Writers

I've mentioned online listservs where writers' hang out so I thought I'd be a little more specific for those unfamiliar with this.

Many writer groups can be found at listservs like Yahoogroups. Some are genre specific.

To find good groups, ask around. You can also search places like Yahoogroups for writer and genre specific groups.

My favorites for writers are

Paranormal Mystery:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paranormal_Mystery

PNWriters (Paranormal romance and urban fantasy):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PNWriters

Worlds of Fantasy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Worlds_Of_Fantasy

In a later blog, I'll talk about groups which are excellent research resources.

If you have a favorite group for writers, let us know.

Finding the right images, DESCRIPTION

On one writer listservs I belong on, a member who had always lived in warmer areas wanted to know about the different sounds snow on the ground make as you move through it and how various animals react to snow for some scenes in his novel.

He was smart to ask because the right visual details make a scene live, the wrong details ruin a scene.

Always ask if you don't have the experience to breath life into a certain kind of scene.

I've included my answer to the writer below. I'm an animal person so I described how various animals in my life have dealt with snow.

***
Cats are fun to watch in snow. In the morning after a snow, my cat will go outside very tentatively. Cats think of snow as water so you can imagine their distaste in treading through the soft new snow. If the snow is over his paws, he will bound through the snow even when he could walk through it easily. Snow collects on his stomach hair in little balls. He normally does his business then comes right in.

After the snow has frozen on top, usually overnight, he will walk on the top crust in virgin snow, or bound in tracks made by me the day before. Normally, he'll hunt then, but if the crust starts breaking under his weight, and that nasty snow is on him, he heads back in for a snack and a snooze.

A dog will tread through soft snow that is below the halfway point in his legs, but will bound like a bunny in anything higher. Snow sticks on the legs and in the pads and that is uncomfortable if their human doesn't clean them off occasionally. Water dogs such as retrievers adore snow, and catching and eating soft snowballs is enormously entertaining.

Horses tend to stride through snow unless it is high drifts, then they plunge and bound. They aren't naturally rhythmic like dogs and cats. They look more like they are going flat foot over hurdles than jumping forward like a cat or dog.

I don't know if it's a major problems with unshod horses, but shod horses have a terrible time with snow build up in their hooves. Wet snow cakes in their hooves, and it builds up so they end up walking on snow stilts. This is extremely dangerous for the horse. I remember cleaning out up to six inches in my horse's hooves.

I've read that horsemen in England would press butter into the hollow area in the bottom of the hoof to keep snow from building up during hunts and steeplechases, but I never attempted that with my horse.

When Should I get my Website Online?

There is no hard and fast rule about when to have your own site up and running, but it will be one of your most expensive ongoing costs of being an author so keep that in mind as you decide.

Some recommend that you have a website even before you begin the submission process for your first novel. Supposedly, those editors and agents will be checking you out when they look at your submission.

This is probably a good recommendation if you are trying to sell nonfiction, and you are an expert on the subject, but I've never heard of an agent or an editor looking up an unpublished author on the web.

Others suggest you set up your website as soon as possible after signing the contract. This will allow you plenty of time to concentrate on the site before you become too busy with other aspects of prepublication.

The last suggestion, and the most common one, is to have the site up just before the book shows up in the bookstores.

My own feelings are that you should have the site up at least four to six months before the publication of your book.

During this period, the publisher will start marketing your book to various distributors, early advance review copies will be sent out for quotes, and a certain amount of buzz will be starting about your book.

If your website is up, you can take advantage of this early period, and you can also improve your book's chances that it will be picked up by major distributors because they will often look at a site to see what kind of promotion the author will offer.

Writing Descriptions

Sometimes, it's hard to decide what to include in our descriptions of a scene.

The trick to deciding is to remember that you're in a character's viewpoint. Ask yourself what is important to that character.

A cop entering a room where a gunman may be hidden is seeing different things than an interior designer who enters a room a rival has just decorated. The cop doesn't give a damn about the charming shade of blue in the wallpaper, but he'll notice the large pieces of furniture someone could be behind, the amount of light and shade in the room that makes seeing movement tricky, and the possible exits.

At the same time, the character will be aware of the sounds and smells in the room-- the faint smell of gun oil, the Chanel No. 5 of the wealthy woman who owns the home, the tap of the nails as a toy poodle moves across the oak floor, and the slight rustle of something moving behind a curtain.

With just the right specific touches, the room will come alive for the reader and at the same time you're building tension and giving character details, and you're not stopping the action.

REMINDER: Marilynn will be teaching an online class on writing to first chapter in March. To learn more go to
http://marilynnbyerly.com/marilynnbyerly/firstchapter.html

An online contest by a great agent, MARKET

Jessica Faust of Bookends, LLC, a highly respected literary agency that specializes in genre fiction, is having a contest at her blog. She will read the first 100 words of your novel.

The title of the blog entry is "Our Valentine to You," for Thursday, February 14th. Here's the link
http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/

The mystery contest is already over because the entry time is less than 24 hours, but they will also have contests for

Paranormal Romance/Romance With Fantasy Elements
Erotic Romance
Women’s Fiction
Romantic Suspense
Contemporary Romance
Thriller/Suspense
Historical Romance

Bookmark this blog and check it daily if you are interested. The contest rules are in the blog entry, and the prize, beyond being read by a very successful agent, is a chance for a critique of the query letter, synopsis, and first chapter.

Reality versus fiction

"The way things happen in romance novels don't truly reflect the way things happen in our subjectively real universe. " -- Comment from reader


The truth of the matter is nothing reflects the "real world" of experience. Not fiction, not nonfiction, not bland news reports, not even media like film and TV. Reality is simply too complex.

A writer uses her own vision of the universe to create her fiction. That vision is ordered so that the complex chaos of reality makes sense and has a pattern.

If readers find her vision of reality to be truthful for them, (they buy into her vision and understand it), the writer has been successful. Part of that "buying in" is seeing the complexity of human personality and the male/female romantic relationship reflected in that writing.

Since so many women read romance, romance must reflect emotional, if not physical, reality for women.

In the same sense, most of us don't believe in vampires, but that doesn't prevent us from enjoying a good vampire romance. Those of us who analyze our responses to books see that the vampire romance reflects certain emotional needs and power issues for us so it is emotionally real although not "reality" real.

Fantasy and Reality

In my dream, I walked into the snack bar of the student union of my alma mater. Daniel, the hero of my first novel, sat at one of the tables. He melted me with a sexy megawatt smile and purred, "Hello, Penn."

The awake part of me cringed--Penn was the heroine's name--and muttered, "You're going over the edge, Byerly. Writing IS a form of schizophrenia."

"Uh..., hello, Daniel." I sat down beside him and decided, to heck with mental illness, I was going to enjoy myself.

Even after many years, that dream remains vivid. It was my first encounter with the gray shadings between fantasy and reality in a writer's life. I know the difference between the two, every writer must. I've also learned their interplay enriches my characters and my life.

Parts of me litter my novels like confetti at a party--Tony Chaucer wore the ratty man's bathrobe I refused to stop wearing, Ariel at five snuggled with my teddy bear, and David had my vermouth dry sense of humor. Those parts help my characters live.

But each character is more than just chucks of me. They have thoughts and wisdom I've never had.

I've borrowed Daniel's genius for quick puns and dear Nelson's serene wisdom and faith when my own was sadly lacking. In this manner, my characters have given back as much as I've given them. Almost like real friends.

Are you wondering what happened in that dream about sexy Daniel? We sat and discussed his own college days. You see, fantasy like reality doesn't always have the expected ending.

Spotting a Publishing Scam

This article by a Wisconsin lawyer for other lawyers is a must read for all of us in the publishing industry.

http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Wisconsin_Lawyer&template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&contentid=68934

If this long link doesn't work, do a Google of "Ellen M. Kozak" and "scam" and it should come up as the first result.


NOTE: I won't post a blog tomorrow, but I'll be back on Monday. If you have a subject you'd like me to cover, please contact me via my blog or my Yahoogroups ByerlyWriting@yahoogroups.com.

Creating Characters from Within

From a writer's point of view of creating a character, I believe that we need to look inward. All the emotions that will drive the average, sane person to do something unexpected are all there inside us. Given the right impetus, a person will do the unexpected.

I don't believe a good person with a strong moral center will deliberately do something evil like cold-blooded murder, for example, but a good person will kill in the right circumstances.

From my own experience, I know I'd kill in the right situation. I was sixteen, my dad was camping with the Scouts, and someone woke me by trying to come through my bedroom window in the middle of the night. I had a loaded pistol, and I'm an excellent shot.

I knew I could shoot through the window, or I could get the gun and run to the phone on the other end of our big house. Either way, I'd be safe. But my mom and my kid sister were asleep in other bedrooms, and I'd be leaving them to the burglar's mercy if I ran.

In that moment of decision, and with cold, certain clarity, I realized I was perfectly capable of shooting the burglar to protect my family. I also realized that he'd have to come through the window before I shot so I would know he was down, or he could come through another window anywhere in the house.

I knew if I told him to stop, he'd keep coming because I'm female and so small he'd probably think I was nine or ten, and I'd have less of a chance of killing a moving target with a small caliber gun. I knelt behind the bed with the gun in my hand and waited for him to come through the window. I planned to put three shots in his heart and save three shots for just in case.

Fortunately, the dogs scared him away before he made it through the window, but I'll never forget that moment of cold certainty, and I know that I would do the same now.

As a writer, I've used that moment to help define my good characters who are driven to the edge with hard choices.

The trick as a writer is to make the reader believe that a character will do something outside of their experience. If I were writing that personal experience as part of a novel, I'd have already shown the reader that this character loves their family, and that they have a gun and the experience to use it.

When that moment of decision comes, the reader wouldn't be completely surprised that the character chooses to stay rather than fleeing like a self-centered bunny.

If a writer doesn't make you believe a character will react in a certain way, she has screwed up badly.