Who is this anyway?

One of the most common errors in story telling is naming a character wrongly. That is, after writing for some time about different characters and how they interact with each other, you accidentally misname one or more of them.

For example; David and Charlie both have designs on Cheryl. David arranges a casual date with her. While on the date, Cheryl asks David’s character a question. “So tell me Charlie, when will you be done shooting the scene?” Charlie ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s been pretty rough, but we should be done in a day or two.”

Do you see what I mean? David is in the scene, not Charlie. This happens more often than you’d think. It usually doesn’t occur until after you’ve been working on something for some time. In the beginning, you’re very clear about your characters, what they look like and how they act, etc. But after you’ve lived with them for awhile, you start typing automatically and sometimes your fingers just misname someone.

Obviously this can be a real problem for the reader as it leads to confusion. It can also take away from your credibility as a writer. If you have an editor they’ll most likely come to your rescue. If your goal is to self-publish or to become an Indie writer, it’s entirely up to you unless you hire an editor/proof reader.

How do you avoid this? Often mistakes such as this are caused by fatigue. When you’re tired your mind doesn’t work as well, you aren’t as sharp and alert as you should be. Take a break. Lie down. If you’ve been up most of the night writing, call it a day and go to bed. Proof read! Don’t wait until your project is finished, you’ll be sadly disappointed. You don’t have to read all that you’ve written over and over, but it’s a good idea to proof read your previous days work. It’s also a good idea to have someone else read over your work. Fresh eyes can pick up errors before yours will.

Another common error which is related to this is description errors. If ‘Isabella’ has long thick, wavy black hair don’t suddenly make her a blonde with straight hair. This often happens when we leave a character for some time and then bring them back into the story. Refer to your back ground document, often. That document that has all of the character descriptions, locations, and miscellaneous things that are important to your story.

I hope I’ve given you some helpful information.

Good luck with all of your writing endeavors.

Borough Hall

He's handsome and she's sexy but what are they like?

You can describe a characters physical appearance in order to give your readers an image of him or her. Hair color, eye color body build and facial descriptions all let your reader know what your character looks like.

None of those things tell what the actual character is like. Simple things like their preferred dress can help. A character that traditionally wears dark or black clothing might indicate that the character is a ‘dark’ person. If a woman repeatedly dresses in flowery dresses or frilly clothes, she might have a fun, flirty personality. Or if your female character usually wears sophisticated business suits, then she must be intelligent and business like. If she adds a blouse the shows a little and pairs it with a smart skirt with a slit, then she’s also has her feminine side.

Facial expressions often indicate characters traits. Men leering, women walking provocatively, smiling, sneering, etc. all give clues too a particular characters personality. Help the reader understand what your character is all about by using clues.

Provide some background information. Maybe your character has flash backs to an earlier time in their life or a particular event. This can help the reader understand your character better, help them understand why the character acts the way they do. Perhaps they had a devastating or traumatic event that made them completely opposite to what you’d expect.

The protagonist in a series of books by one of my favorite authors is an Italian female. She loves to cook, especially if she’s under stress. You can often ‘see’ her shopping for select ingredients for a meal later that night. The character is under stress a lot. While she’s a chief medical examiner, she’s almost always in the middle of a dangerous situation, coming close to being a victim herself.

So beyond the physical descriptions let your reader know what each particular character is like through their mode of dress, facial expressions, how they carry themselves, and language use or dialogue.

Finally, if you’d like to be a featured author on this blog find me on Facebook and PM me.

Happy writing!

Borough Hall

He Said, She Said; The Road to Boredom

Dialogue is so important in a novel. Dialogue can create emotion. In writing, anger can be easily expressed with an exclamation point. Excitement can be expressed the same way. “Eureka! I’ve found it!” and “So help me, if you come near her again I’ll kill you!” are two examples.

In my novel Borough Hall, the setting started out in 14^th century Bucharest, Romania. The dialogue had to be old world, with little to no abbreviations, such as using the phrase ‘we can’t’ instead of ‘we cannot.’ It was also important to keep that same dialogue going throughout the story even though it covered several centuries. It was important to me that the characters maintained their ‘old world’ personas.

When you’re in a room with any number of people, it’s easy to keep track of who’s saying what to whom. When you’re reading a story, it’s more difficult. If the story has three characters talking to each other, they have to be identified with names and you have to let the reader know who is talking. Let’s say you have a woman talking to two gentlemen. “Where are you from?” John asked Sarah. “I’m originally from Salem, but I recently moved here.” Alan asked her “What brought you to this sleepy town?” You know that John and Alan each asked Sarah a question. You also know that she answered merely by the response. I didn’t have to say ‘Sarah replied, or said.’

The use of ‘he said, she said’ can be abused. Repetitive use of such verbiage can quickly lead to boredom for the reader.  Obviously if you only have two characters talking with each other, it isn’t necessary for you to tell the reader who is talking all of the time. It should flow just as in real life. However, sometimes you want to add emotion to the statements. Example: Michelle hung her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about him” she said with a sigh. You can tell that Michelle is in a situation that she is having a hard time dealing with, and it’s weighing heavily on her.

Dialogue can also help build a certain type of character. If you’ve ever read any Elmore Leonard you know what I mean. Most of his characters are gruff and their language reflects that through their dialogue. His books are most often crime novels and the characters are on the tough, sometimes seedy side. ‘Street language’ has a large role in his books. I love reading him.

That’s my post for the week. Take some time to check out Borough Hall: Conversion.

Also take a look at my featured author of the week:

Carrie Aulenbacher, author of The Early Bird Café (on SALE starting Feb. 1^st)

Ms. Aulenbacher also contributes to iUrban an online freelance magazine that helps authors become more known.

Set the Scene

What makes a movie good? Is it the plot, the action, the drama, the comedy, or the music? It’s all of those things of course. Have you ever watched a movie and after some time you decided that it’s a really bad movie and left? I think everyone has seen at least one bad movie in their lifetime. Chances are that the movie was based on a good book. I’m also willing to bet that the movie had a bad screenplay. It simply wasn’t written well.

So much goes into making a movie. The actors have to play their roles well. They don’t even have to be well known actors, as long as they play the characters well. The music has to fit the story or scene. The sets have to be right. In case of a western, you have to have vintage sets, such as a ranch or old west town and vintage costumes. This may be a stretch but can you imagine the local sheriff walking around in a tuxedo with a six shooter hanging from his waist?

As movie goers we can watch the action being played out in front of us. We can SEE the setting. You can see the beautiful mountains in “The Sound of Music” or Tara burning down in “Gone with the Wind.” Reading a novel, we don’t have that advantage. The author has to describe the scene so we can visualize it as the author sees it in his or her mind while creating it.

Let’s say a lone medieval female character is walking through the woods at night. What is she wearing? What’s the weather like? What’s the mood? Obviously there’s a big difference between a clear star filled night and a “dark and stormy” night as Snoopy might write. So our heroine may be scared of something other than the thunder claps roaring above. The wind might be making strange sounds in the trees. Adding to the scene, maybe the wind is making her dress billow and the white top of the dress flare about, and disheveling her hair. As an author you have to describe that scene.

In the next scene the character arrives at her destination, a large room inside of a castle. There is a long heavy table in the center surrounded by padded wooden chairs. She’s having an argument with her lover. The mood is dark and charged. Do you have lots of sconces burning to give lots of light? No. But you might have a fire burning in the chimney, thus creating moving shadows on the cold stone walls of the room. Maybe a chair or two have been knocked over. What is her lover wearing? Do you want him sexy and partially dressed?

I’ve already said that they’re having an argument. Describe the action. They’re being physical with each other and shouting. Communicate that to the reader. Describe how he’s grabbing her and how she’s trying to fend him off. What are they saying (or shouting) to each other? The setting, action and dialogue all create the scene for that reader. Don’t be afraid of detail. Help the reader move from one scene to another.

Happy Writing!

Borough Hall

I have a new feature:

Author of the week!

Aria Michaels

KILLSHOT

How to Start Writing

So you want to become a writer.

I’ve been there. A few years ago I asked myself “What would it be like to write a book? How would I start such a thing?” Well, I started by writing short stories for my self. At first it was just a few pages, less than five in fact. It really doesn’t take long to fill a page with words that eventually lead to a story. Eventually it led to stories of thirty or more pages. At that point I challenged myself to begin writing a book, and started typing away. I admit that I was influenced by the works of other authors for my ideas.

After several months I had my first manuscript written. Manuscript is a book, that hasn’t been accepted by a literary agent yet, nor is it a published work. When I was in my twenties, I managed book store chain satellite location. One of our standard reference books was called ‘Writers Market.’ Writers Market is an excellent resource for finding literary agents and publishers. Since I’d already known about it, I got the latest version. I realized that there were also short pages of advice from other writers included. One of the best ones was simply about “just starting to write.”

That’s true! If you want to become a writer, just start writing, every day. Write whatever comes into your head. Write about your experiences as a child. Write about your passion, be it painting, landscaping, photography or whatever your passion is. Write a diary. The thing is, the more you write, the better you become. New ideas will start coming to you. Write them down. No matter where you are, if an idea comes to you make a note of it, on paper! When you have time, write that idea out and expand on it. Just write!

Think about that book you want to write. If you’re already thinking about a book, then start writing a story line. Start writing paragraph after paragraph. This doesn’t really have to be your book but by writing your story line you’ll have a sort of outline, a beginning. When you feel ready, you’ll already have ideas written out.

That said, you also don’t have to write in your proposed genre. You can write anything at all. Random thoughts! As long as you write daily, no matter what the subject, you’re getting practice. Try to come up with at least a full page every time you write. This means at least one full page per day.

Earlier, I mentioned Writers Market. I highly recommend this book. You don’t have to rush right out for it, but I would suggest you get it before you get too far along with your writing because of the tips and insights it offers.

Until next time, happy writing!

Borough Hall: Conversion