Debating our Characters

12 08 2011

My friend Cassie just wrote a post about one of her characters, a bad guy that she has gotten to know through writing about him.  And this got me to thinking about writing characters and how they fit into stories.

My stepson was talking about studying to become a lawyer.  Great Idea, I said.  You are good at arguing, but suggest you join a debate team.  Debate team?  Why?  Because then you get good at arguing a point, whether it be one you agree with or not.

And it struck me, quite often we have to write a story with a character we don’t like, but we have to like them.

Let me clarify that for you, because even I am getting confused.  Sometimes we have “bad guys” in our story, you know, the one that gives the hero(ine) a hard time.  Sometimes we just hate these people, they are only there to advance the story.  But sometimes, we need to investigate further into why they don’t like the hero(ine).  What was it that they didn’t like?  What happened in the past to make them hate the person or is it what they stand for.

Sometimes we need to have a better understanding of our bad guys, before we can write them into the story, so that we can make sure that their ideals are put across.  We don’t have to agree with their ideas or theories, but to understand why they made the decisions they did to become who they are, helps us to write them better.  And if we write them better, we write our hero(ines) better.  Hope that makes sense.

Here is an example.  I had a bad guy in one of my very early stories, and as far as I was concerned, he was down right bad.  But I couldn’t really see his evilness, I couldn’t portray it in the story.  Cassie (ever wonderful woman she is), asked me why he was evil.  That really put me in my place.  Sephron was just evil, there was no two ways about it.  But thinking further about it, I realised that he was full of resentment, his father had rejected him.  His mentor was a dark lord, and trained him in the dark arts.  He chose to use those arts for the purpose of controlling mankind.  He had a hatred of all things good, and worse still, he hated his twin brother.

Now I understood what made Sephron tick, I was able to really write his scenes from a different perspective, from the point of view of someone who had a skewed view of the world, tainted by his upbringing and his mentoring.

So there ends the lessons for today, have fun with writing and remember to always go a little bit deeper into your bad guys, because they might just have a silver lining.


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SoCNoC Debrief

4 07 2011

It has been a hectic month, full of drama, adventure, passion and glory, and that ISN’T in the story!

So where do I start?  I guess the start would be good.  I was a day behind from the get go because of a funeral, but that was OK.  I managed to slowly claw my way back and finish before lunchtime on 30th of June.  Probably the closest finish I have ever had, but a finish is a finish.

Planning

This was done a month beforehand when I decided to let strangers and friends pick the story for me.  They chose, out of the possible three options, the Science Fiction one.  So a week before SoCNoC officially started, I was busy pulling together all the threads of the story I had sketched out and drew up my plan.

While I love planning a story, I also love following the plan, and I have to admit I didn’t realise that there was a flaw in my plan.  I hate flaw plans (hahaha).  Seriously I still have to work this one out, but I have an idea, which was duly noted in my “Edit later notebook”.

My writing actually took off this challenge and hovered about 6 inches above my plan.  While it was close enough, it was also different enough to keep me writing, and if I came to a hitch, I would go to bed at night and ask the question – where exactly do you want me to go?  Kelvaras or Vyvica would tell me, without fail, exactly what they wanted to see happen, and sure enough, it fit within my plan.

The ending was different, more dramatic, but it fits perfectly.

Writing

I managed to write at least every day, even though there was a long weekend in there.  Because I set a realistic writing goal of 2000 words a day, I actually managed to get ahead of my goal by about day 12.  Words flowed, sentences made sense, paragraphs formed scenes.  Fantastic work.  I did realise though that some of my action scenes were sadly lacking.  ONe chase scene lasted two sentences.  A chase scene that doesn’t make!  I went back in and created an entire new scene which was filled with action, adventure, near misses and realistic timing.  And it worked.  It also brought the characters together, so adds more to the emotional conflict that is going on as well.

Characters

I am so looking forward to having my head back to myself.  For too long Vyvica has been in there screaming at me to take notice of her.  Kelvaras was absent until the story, and then I had them bickering in my head.  So looking forward to peace!

Kelvaras certainly had some surprises of his own, suddenly calling himself an underling (which I had to tell him was not happening), then calling the bad guy “Father.”  Now that worked nicely!  And fits the ending so well too – how could I have not seen that before!

Vyvica was a handful from the beginning.  She was argumentative, vindicative, untrusting, she questioned everything I did for her, and I threw her in the deep end.  She swam.  I am extremely happy with her as a character.  Hard as nails, but heart of gold, just has problems showing it.

The other characters in the book have really turned themselves into nice people too, except for the bad guy.  He needs work.  And I don’t want him to be evil, he is just out for something and that needs to be clarified.

Title

I haven’t come up with anything yet.  I will have to rework it and see what happens.

Editing / Rewrite

I want to add more to this story, at least another 25k, which I think I will plan and work on before I actually edit this story.  Only because it needs to keep readers on the edge of there seats.  It does that at the beginning, there are moments in the middle, then a fantastic ending, but the middle could be stronger.  More conflict, more plot details I think.  But at least I recognise that.

Overall

Considering this is my first science fiction story, I am actually very happy with it.  I like the characters and the plot, although that almighty plothole (hehehe) definitely needs to be fixed.  But nothing a wee bit more thought can’t hurt!


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Characters

6 06 2011

I am relieved in a way that the Ice Planet story was chosen, because the main female character has been driving me nuts for some time.

Vyvica is her name.  I tried to rename her several times, and even give her a royal title, but she refused.  I wanted a distinctly Gothic name, but couldn’t really think of anything.  I liked Vy, and she kind of suggested to make it “spiky”, so Vyvica it became.

Let me tell you about Vyvica.  She first started invading my mind about two years ago.  She is very forceful and told me that she wanted a strong story to go with her.  She has got it, in fact it is the most action packed story I have written.  Already in the first two scenes, she has been shot at, lost one of her  best friend’s, and about to have an emotional breakdown.  (Don’t tell her I said that!)

Vyvica is a strong willed person, and the head of the army.  She has to be, there is no way she would have been obedient enough for me to start the story with her lower than commander.  She is very straight laced, has few friends and demands respect.  By the end of the story, she is going to be a completely different person, I can assure you of that!

The main lead character is Kelvaras.  I have loved the name since I first heard it.  It is based on a town in California (although I am sure it is spelt Calvaras) and the name just inspired a vigilante type of loner.  He isn’t in it for anything except the pay packet.

Vyvica and Kelvaras are both strong characters in their own rights, and I expect sparks to fly when these two meet.  Especially when they start having to trust one another, which is something that neither wants to do.  Neither of them trust anyone except themselves, another aspect of the story that will change by the end.

I am unsure at this stage whether one or both will survive the ending of the story, I have some possibilities at this stage, and I am pleased to report that so far, the story hasn’t really followed the one I have plotted, but it isn’t too far away from it either, so when I need to bring it back, it won’t be a big stretch.

So anyway, how are others going with their writing?  What do you like/dislike about your characters?


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Categories : Life

Genre – Hot Topic

17 03 2010

My friend Cassie recently did a post on Genre, and how she was feeling trapped into writing the same genre every time she wrote a story.  Which made me think about my own writing.

While I don’t like writing chick lit, or murder mystery or anything more mainstream, I can’t say that I am stuck in any particular genre either.  The first two (four if you count each separate story in the soon to be non existent trilogy) stories I wrote were fantasy, because that was what the characters insisted on.  But the next one I want to write is more historical – it is still fantasy, but it is also based on mythical fact from ancient Greece, so a bit of research had to go into the story.  The one after that, well who knows, it all depends on who will pop up next I suppose.

What I suppose I am trying to say is that I am not driven to write any particular genre, I am driven by my characters.  Tycelon and Delonia were definitely Fantasy, as are Fabyan and Danya – although their story is more of a romance than action as in Chrystias.  My characters invade my life for the duration of writing.  I lived with Tycelon for close to 6 months, and now while I am editing the story, I can hear him in the background, not as forceful as he used to be (Boy was he forceful!). 

Currently, I have Medusa fussing around in my brain, trying to make me see her as a real person, which she no doubt was at one stage in history, all myths started with a base in reality!  While I haven’t concentrated on bringing her into the light of day yet, I can hear her giving me little snippets of information about her character, her mannerisms, her personality that will be reflected in the story, and hopefully I will be able to do her justice.

So I don’t feel trapped by any particular genre, I suppose it depends on the setting the characters give me, and if one should turn up who wants to be chick lit, then I guess I will have to write it – it had better be a good story though!


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Categories : Speculative Fiction, Writing


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