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    Discovering Characters: Think like a Pro Writer
    Discovering Characters: Think like a Pro Writer
    Discovering Characters: Think like a Pro Writer
    Ebook246 pages2 hoursThink like a Pro Writer

    Discovering Characters: Think like a Pro Writer

    By M.A. Lee

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    About this ebook

    One of the hardest things to do in writing

    is to create characters that readers will care about,

    that will make them have to read on. ~ Noah Luke

     

    Discovering Characters is like investigating a house we want to buy.

     

    No, I'm serious. Characters have an exterior façade that we comment upon as we drive past. Through the windows we catch glimpses of interior lives.

     

    Even in cookie-cutter boxy cliques, characters have individual characteristics, just as the suburbia ranch houses have their garden plantings and the urban row houses have their painted doorways. These small touches create individual homes in neighborhoods.

     

    Some characters enjoy the bright city lights. Some are loners, nestled against a national forest.  Characters, houses—each have individual personalities. Some are blingie, with the latest décor while others enjoy the comfort of yoga pants and old sneakers.

     

    As writers, we capture these individual characters and save them from the cookie-cutter boxy stereotypes. We delve into interior rooms for glimpses of formative baggage. Finding their backstory is a search through attics and cellars, storage closets and garages. Characters hide their pain and fears, painting them over and adding distracting artwork.

     

    Our job as writers is to find every detail of our characters then use snippets so our readers will see our characters as they drive through our books. We hint at the foundations while opening doors to their plans and purposes.

     

    Discovering Characters is designed to help writers find the exteriors and interiors, public and private. We'll dig around the foundations and climb to the roof. We'll explore the open rooms and the storage closets. We'll peek into rooms inhabited by such characters as diverse as Elizabeth and Darcy, the Iron Man, Aragorn and Frodo, Travis McGee, Medea, Macbeth, and Nanny McPhee.

     

    Five areas comprise this guidebook. Just as characters—and houses—are individual, this info is individual. You won't need every bit. Dip in and out, skim around. When you reach locked rooms, come back and explore to discover the keys to your characters.

    • Starting Points ~ offering templates and character interviews
    • Classifications ~ common and uncommon ways of discovering characters
    • Relationships ~ couples, teams, allies, enemies, mentors, etc.
    • Special Touches ~ progressions, transgressions, and transitions for character arcs
    • Significant Lists ~ archetypal characters and much more

    Discovering Characters, with 44,000-plus words, is the second book in the Discovering set, part of the Think like a Pro Writer series for writers new to the game as well as those wanting to up their game.

     

    Writer M.A. Lee has been indie-publishing fiction and non-fiction since 2015. She has over 25 books published under her pseudonyms. Visit her Writers Ink Books website to discover more information.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM.A. Lee
    Release dateOct 31, 2021
    ISBN9781734015904
    Discovering Characters: Think like a Pro Writer
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      Book preview

      Discovering Characters - M.A. Lee

      Discovering Your Characters

      Think like a Pro Writer / Book 5

      by M. A. Lee

      Writers Ink Books

      www.writersinkbooks.com

      winkbooks@aol.com

      Discovering Your Characters

      Think like a Pro Writer series

      Copyright © 2019 Emily R. Dunn doing business as M.A. Lee & Writers’ Ink

      First electronic publishing rights: August 2019

      All rights are reserved.

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the permission of the author or of Writers’ Ink.

      NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

      This book is a work of non-fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents of fiction and nonfiction are cited by the author merely as explanation. Any persons or entity, existing or dead, are also cited by the author for the purposes of explanation. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content. This book is written entirely by the author without any collaborators or ghostwriters.

      Published in the United States of America.

      www.writersinkbooks.com

      winkbooks@aol.com

      Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design

      Contents

      Discovering Your Characters

      Contents

      Introduction

      Open the Front Door

      Getting Ideas

      Templates

      Interview

      Basic Terms

      Writing the Story

      Perspective

      Characterization

      Thru the Back Door

      Reaching the Psyche Of your Primary Characters

      Writing the Characters

      Dualities

      Protagonist

      Antagonist

      Simple Boxes

      16 Boxes

      Original 12 Archetypes

      4 types of Leaders ~ Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta

      4 Unheroic Heroes

      4 Bright Lights / Hot Messes

      4 Last but not Least

      Rooms for Living

      The Couples Bond

      Contract vs. Choice

      Breaking Relationships

      Tripod for Relationships of Choice

      Love Deeply and Well

      Team Roles

      Basics on Teams

      Team Members in Conflict

      Team Roles

      Peck vs. Pack

      Allies, Enemies, and More

      Allies and Enemies

      Allies for the Protagonist

      Neither Ally nor Enemy

      Tests from Enemies

      Love Interest

      Mentor ~ 4 Types of Wiser Eyes

      Side Cars

      Décor

      Special Touches

      Lessons from Myths

      Sliding Scales

      Progressions

      Transgressions

      Transitions

      Ornaments

      Significant Lists

      Index

      Concepts

      Major Works

      Well-Known Characters

      Well-Known Writers

      Websites

      Introduction

      One of the hardest things to do in writing

      is to create characters that readers will care about,

      that will make them have to read on.

      Noah Luke

      Characters are like houses.

      No, I’m serious. Characters have an exterior façade that we see and comment upon as we drive past. Through the windows we catch glimpses of their interior lives. Public masks hide their internal purposes and plans.

      Even in cookie-cutter boxy cliques, characters have individual characteristics, just as the suburbia ranch houses have their garden plantings and the urban row houses have their painted doorways. These small touches create individual homes in neighborhoods.

      We can take the character as house metaphor further. Houses have their open spaces and private rooms. They have places designed for particular purposes: The kitchen where savory dishes simmer and sweet treats are baked. The back porch for musing over nothing and gathering with friends. The storage closet where baggage accumulates and never gets sorted and eventually tumbles out when an unwary person opens the door.

      Characters are rooted in their unseen foundations, formed in the past then hidden as they build up their education (framework) and their goals (layout). Paint and flooring, cabinets and furniture draw attention away from the cracks in the walls, the nail heads pushing through the drywall, the missed splotches of spaghetti sauce on the kitchen range, and the spider webs and dust bunnies that accumulate, no matter how much cleaning occurs.

      Some characters enjoy the bright city lights. Some are loners, nestled against a national forest.  Characters, houses—each have individual personalities. Some are blingie, with the latest décor while others enjoy the comfort of yoga pants and old sneakers.

      As writers, we capture these individual characters and save them from the cookie-cutter boxy stereotypes. We select their facades to hint at their inner lives. We delve into their interior rooms for glimpses of their formative baggage. Finding their backstory is a search through attics and cellars, storage closets and garages. Characters hide their pain and fears, painting them over and adding distracting artwork.

      Our job as writers is to find every detail of our characters then use snippets so our readers will see our characters as they drive through our books. We’ll hint at the foundations while opening doors to their plans and purposes.

      We’ll invite readers into the neighborhood of our books, let them view different houses, and usher them into the homes of a select few primary characters. We won’t take every reader to the attic or leave them stranded as the closet of baggage tumbles onto them. The secondary and tertiary characters from the book’s neighborhood will have some houses as open public spaces while other houses offer the front door welcome mat or a back-porch visit.

      Discovering Characters is designed to help writers find the exteriors and interiors, the public and the private. We’ll dig around the foundations and climb to the roof. We’ll explore the open rooms and the storage closets.

      Not every character in our stories will need full-blown development. The primary characters certainly do. We’ll look at various methods to reach the heart of your primaries. Some of the work will fly; some will require looking into your own heart and soul. At times, the information will appear easy yet be deceptively simple. Other info will appear complex yet be easy to grasp.

      Five areas comprise this guidebook. Just as characters—and houses—are individual, this info is individual. You won’t need every bit. Dip in and out, skim around. When you reach locked rooms, come back and explore to discover the keys to your characters.

      Starting Points ~ offering templates and character interviews

      Classifications ~ common and uncommon ways of discovering characters

      Relationships ~ couples, teams, allies, enemies, mentors, etc.

      Special Touches ~ progressions, transgressions, and transitions for character arcs

      Significant Lists ~ archetypal characters and much more

      There, that seems simple, doesn’t it? I’ve taken you on a tour of the house. Let’s start the home inspection.

      Open the Front Door

      Starting Points

      There are only two or three human stories,

      and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely

      as if they had never happened before.

      Willa Cather

      Getting Ideas 1:1

      Templates 1:2

      Character Interview 1:3

      Basic Terms 1:4

      Getting Ideas

      What’s the story you want to tell?

      What’s in your mind?

      Anything? Everything? Both are terror-inducing problems for writers to have. Let’s back way, way up, up the hill, around the curve, and start at the beginning of the beginning.

      Stories start in various ways. Countless writing craft seminars and conference panels and online courses will use the classic What if? scenario as every writer’s starting point. While that’s a way, it’s not the only way, and it’s certainly not the way that many writers begin.

      What if? is not even the true starting point.

      If we consider a story like a plant, especially one that fruits, then the What if? is the moment when the plant pushes through the soil to reach air and sunlight. What if? is the vision of the plant’s growth, as it transforms, enlarges with stems and leaves, even flowers and fruits. Yet through its growth, the plant will remain firmly rooted in the soil.

      That’s where story ideas start: the soil. The dirt. Nourishing. Rich. Filled with all sorts of organisms wiggling through it, including the microscopic cells that enrich the dirt for the planting of seeds.

      The incipient seed planted in the soil of your mind is not What if? The seed can be a variety of ideas, ever personal, ever burgeoning, ever morphing.

      Many writers are asked, Where do you get your ideas? That question asks for the seminal inspiration that strikes the writer and leads to the idea pushing out of the mind and onto the page. New writers have a constant fear that they will run out of ideas.

      To answer the question, long-term writers[1] will say one of the following~

      The title just came to me.

      John Darnielle*[2] came up with Wolf in White Van then decided to explore characters born out of that title.

      A great opening line floated through my head.

      This is an alternate version the title as inspiration.

      I had this weird dream.

      Stephen King keeps a dream journal.

      I had this neat idea for a PI in a houseboat OR a girl riding her motorcycle through the desert OR a klutz trying to cover a dance competition.

      This is starting with a character in a situation. John McDonald’s Travis McGee is a PI living on a houseboat. I don’t know about the girl or the klutz. Do you?

      There was this book (or film), and I hated how the characters were developed (or wanted to put a new spin on the story). I decided to write my version.

      This applies to virtually all the writers who re-worked Alice in Wonderland as zombie stories as well as many others who have explored new takes on the old classics. The famous mystery writer P.D. James took Elizabeth and Darcy of Pride and Prejudice and placed them a few years later with a murder at their beautiful estate in Death Comes to Pemberly. Jane Austen’s Emma became Clueless. How many times has Othello or Romeo and Juliet been retold? R&J itself is a retelling of the Greek myth about Pyramus and Thisbe.

      Start with a metaphor.

      I did that for this book. In the introduction, I compared characters to houses. You’ll soon encounter another metaphor comparing ideas to something else being born.

      This photograph intrigued me.

      Ransom Riggs* collected old photographs that intrigued him, which eventually led to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

      On her website storey-lines.com, Robin Storey shares the amusing statement by Robertson Davies that I don’t get them [ideas], they get me. (17 Sept. 2017)

      Storey goes on to share that characters were taking residence in my head and nagging at me constantly until I wrote their story.

      In his blog Where Do You Get your Ideas?, Neil Gaiman[3] says he used to lie when people asked this question. He lied because people were disappointed when he told the truth, that the ideas came out of his head.

      Here’s Gaiman’s wisdom from that blog: An idea doesn’t have to be a plot notion, just a place to begin creating. Plots often generate themselves when one begins to ask oneself questions about whatever the starting point is.

      The place to begin, the what-if? The idea that pops up, the seed that plants itself in the fertile dirt of your brain. The seed might have been planted years ago or yesterday. All that matters to you the writer is that the seed breaks its husk and transforms into a seedling reaching through the soil for the air and sunlight.

      All you have to do is let the idea come forth, feed it the air and sunlight, let it grow its stems and leaves, and soon it will flower and fruit.

      The seed for one book may not look like the seed for the next book.

      You may have a handful of seeds that all look the same, and when the ideas push out, they appear identical with the same stems and seeds, but the flowers and fruits are very different.

      As a writer, your job is to help the husk come off the seed, give the soil whatever nutrients that the seed needs to germinate a beginning plant, and shape it into the form it needs—with roots and leafy stem—that will power it to emerge from the dirt into the air and sunlight.

      So, the seed is in the dirt of your brain.

      You have multiple seeds there. Grab the one that you want to work with. You know, the one that keeps popping up whenever you think about writing.

      What next? Well, where do you want to start?

      Template?

      Character interview?

      Type of character?

      Sketching out a scene?

      All of these are valid approaches. Whatever sparks ideas is all that matters. The creation of more ideas is all that matters.

      Wherever you start, your fertile dirt-brain will quickly decide your approach to the story: central character, evil confronted, perspective, genre, length, and more. Let it flow. Don’t stop it.

      This book will present quite a lot about developing characters.

      Here’s another metaphor—or three. Discovering your characters will be like entering a vast country or moving into a strange neighborhood or traveling along a road you’re not quite certain about. Your characters will reveal to you the writer certain things that they would never want revealed to anyone else. As a writer, you can commit to keeping their secrets and dark desires and past traumas and hopeful dreams. Or you can blast them into the world through the medium of story.

      It’s your decision. As a writer, everything is your decision.

      That’s incredibly freeing.

      And scary.

      And fun.

      Templates

      New writers always search for the perfect method to develop characters. They hunt on the internet and on Pinterest and find scads of character

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