2009

New year, new resolve to work on the book! I'm headed back to basics this month to fill in some gaps. Started out by re-reading James Smith's You Can Write a Novel, and I'm working through his basic steps for setting things up, starting with character cards.

You know what's hard? Fatal flaws are hard. I know enough from fan fiction to tell you that one sure sign of a Mary Sue is if her biggest flaw is that she's too pretty, or too nice; stupid flaws that aren't really flaws are the mark of an amateur. Fatal flaws should be, well, possibly fatal. But it's really freaking hard to come up with them.

What would your fatal flaw be if you were a character in a book? I'm not even sure about my own...

On Creating Compelling Characters

This. Is awesome.

You need to let the reader know the character is like inside. Of course you can’t see inside a person without a whole lot of mess and screaming, and that really doesn’t tell you much anyway, but you can give the reader a hint or two by having the “inner character” manifest itself on the outer. Is your character confident? Give him a confident jaw. Haughty? That’s a perfect thing for cheekbones to show. Passionate? Give her passionate eyes. Eyes are handy, they can say or do all sorts of things that give away what the character is feeling as they race around the room looking for an escape or rest longingly on the heroine’s bosom. Conflicted about his mother? Give him a wussy-sounding name like Percival or Edward. Angry? Nothing shows anger like oversized ears.

I, of course, have NEVER been accused of such blatant bad writing! Never!

APRIL FOOLS!