Put on Your Coat, Get Something to Eat

Yes, your story is about character development and plot. If you write literary fiction, you will emphasize character more than plot. If you write genre fiction, plot wins out over character development. In both cases, you have to create the world in which your characters live and your plot unfolds.

You can make your story more authentic and believable by showing your characters doing everyday activities. When it's cold, you need to arrange for them to put on coats. When it rains, they need umbrellas or need to get wet. Your characters need to get hungry and find something to eat.

Stories seldom turn on the daily activities of the characters, the weather, street layout or architecture. However, these things add to the verisimilitude of your stories. Your characters and their worlds become more palpable to your readers.

Writing from Inside Someone Else's Head

The first consciousness we understand is our own. This starts early; watch any two year old assert herself and demand to get her way. As we get older, we begin to understand that others see the world differently, have different needs and hold other opinions. Later still, we learn to understand others from inside their own head.

As a writer you need to create distinctive characters. You will need the empathy and insight to see the world through other people's eyes. You need to identify with a saint at one moment and a sinner the next. In today's writing session, you may need to see the world through the eyes of a young girl. Tomorrow's session may require you to get inside the head of con artist.

The more skilled you become as a writer, the easier it will be to change your perspective and see a given situation from different points of view. Really good writers can empathize with characters they do not like. One of the best ways to understand a character is to develop a full life for that person.

Write a biographical sketch for your character. Briefly describe her childhood, first love, educational background, accomplishments, disappointments and failures. Then, write her obituary. Now you are prepared to see the world from her point of view and with real understanding, even if you wouldn't want to invite her to dinner in your home.

Turn It Around, Upside Down and Inside Out

As a writer, you have to create characters that stand out, distinguishing themselves from other characters in your story. This is one of you major responsibilities. Here's an exercise that will help you with the task.

First, let's start with a thought experiment. Think of someone you greatly admire, someone you have put on a high pedestal. Make a list of this person's traits, personality and characteristics. Write a paragraph or two describing this person's behavior in situations that would challenge the composure, dignity and patience of the average person.

Second, take what you have just written and rewrite it to show your hero in a negative light. Put as negative slant on this person as possible. Since no person has a flawless character, look for those flaws. Even positive acts and good intentions can have negative, unintended consequences. Take your hero to task for failing to anticipate anything that may have gone wrong. Write you champion's obituary from the point of view of his worst enemy.

Third, change your hero's gender and name. Now you have a completely new character. Neat trick, huh?

Creating the Unseen Character

Creating an unseen character is a clever writer’s trick. The off-stage character comes to life through the reactions of other characters. With this device, the writer can slip in a variety of material without developing another full-blown character. For short stories or 30-minute sit-coms, the unseen character is a Godsend.

Serving as a funhouse mirror, the unseen character reflects distorted but telling images of the other characters. If the absent character is extremely messy, the story’s obsessively tidy character is spotlighted. If your absent character is tight-fisted, your main character’s generosity stands out.

In the Frasier television series, Niles Crane is married to Maris but lusts for Daphne. Although you’ve never seen Maris, but I’ll bet your image of her is as clear as your image of Daphne. And Maris doesn’t draw an actor’s salary.

Make a List

It's raining here in North Carolina today. It's the kind of day that makes me want to read or watch TV instead of write. Oddly, bright sunny days have the same effect on me.

This kind of day calls for a writer's trick to get the job done quickly and easily. I recommend filling today's writing quota with lists. This trick works best for non-fiction writers, but it's a good enough trick that all writers should master it.

Ten reasons for a writer to make up a list:

1. Each item on the list is short and sweet.

2. The items on the list do not have to be closely related.

4. Most lists are composed of simple, declarative sentences.

5. Lists are easy for writers to write.

6. Lists are easy for readers to read.

7. A list looks authoritative when printed on a page.

8. Items on the list can serve as writing prompts for the paragraphs that follow.

9. A list allows a writer to fill a page with fewer words.

10. One good list deserves another.

Have you noticed how many titles are based on numbered lists (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or 9 Steps to Financial Freedom)? Now you know why.

Get busy writing lists.

A Matter of Character

If it’s a story, it’s about people. In writer parlance, the people in your stories are characters. You've heard that your characters should be fresh, surprising and believable. That’s a pretty tall order.

Making up a character from scratch requires a fertile imagination, and few writers are good enough to do that regularly. However, you seldom need to create characters from scratch. Give yourself a head start by building your characters based on people your already know. This is the way most writers do it most of the time.

The more closely you observe someone, the better you understand their characteristics. Sometimes you get lucky, and life forces you to observe a potential character. For example, you have to put up with your relatives. Your parents, in-laws, brothers, sisters and cousins intrude on your life and force you to deal with them. The time you spend your dorm roommate, drill sergeant, cellmates, teachers, and bosses is involuntary as well.

If you don’t like the people you must deal with, you watch them closely, paying particular attention to their quirks and foibles. The things that stick in your mind will allow you to write about your your character with depth.

Here’s an exercise designed help you get a handle on a particular character. At the top of a fresh sheet of paper write the name of your character. Now make a list of your character's background and habits. To get you started, answer these questions about your character.

1. Where and when was your character born?
2. Where, when and how does she die? (It doesn’t matter if she meets her demise many years after this story ends.)
3. What does she do for a living?
4. Is she in love with anyone?
5. Does she drink coffee, tea or neither.
6. Do her shoes come from K-Mart or Prada?
7. Does she drive an SUV or a Prius?
8. Does Saturday night find her at the symphony or the monster truck rally?
9. Does Sunday morning find her hung over, at church or both?
10. Is breakfast bacon and eggs or a granola bar?

You should continue this process until you have a very clear picture of your character. Since you started with a real person to create your character, your character will likely be believable. With enough details you should be able to make the character fresh and surprising.

Write on Christmas Day?

You bet. You should write on Christmas day. You should write on your birthday, the Fourth of July and your anniversary. You should write every day. How do I know? Because Frederick Pohl told me so.

Frederick Pohl, science fiction writer and editor extraordinaire, believed in writing 600 words every day. If you refuse to skip a day, never will you experience a dry spell or writer’s block. Equally important, a daily output of 600 (new) words will make you a prolific writer. Do the arithmetic. That would be 600 x 365 = 219,000 words, which equals equals two fat books a year, plus several articles.

Pohl also argued that you should complete every writing project you begin. If you commit to completing every project, no matter how unpromising, you will never abandon a promising project just because it is difficult.

So, quit whining and write something.

DB Dewer

Quill, Pen or Keyboard?

Each writer has her own preferences when it comes to putting words on the page. Some like the feel of a pen flowing across a sheet of paper as the wet words emerge. Others prefer the authoritative drumming of a typewriter or the demur click of a keyboard.

Some writers compose longhand and then pass the manuscript to a typist. Another type of writer switches modes as the manuscript develops. I am such a writer. When my ideas are unformed or tentative, I like to write longhand in 8” x 10” spiral notebooks with wide-ruled lines. Spiral notesbooks claim the virtues of being portable, durable and unpretentious.

I write on every other line, starting with the top line. Skipping lines gives me space for rewriting and editing. When I finish a draft in my notebook, I move to the keyboard, type the draft into the computer and print a copy. After marking up the printed copy, I rewrite on the computer screen, adding or deleting words, sentences and whole sections. I continue printing out versions, correcting them by hand, and fixing them in the computer until I can no longer improve (or bear to look at) the manuscript.

Unfortunately, I am not systematic about keeping the drafts as I go along. My intermediate drafts seldom survive, but that is not a problem. In the end, I may have only my first handwritten draft and my final draft. But that is enough.

DB Dewer

Do You Read Too Much?

Do you love to read? Most writers do. They can’t seem to help themselves. They can’t help picking up newspapers, books and magazines. When nothing else is available, they read advertisements and the backs of cereal boxes. I’m that kind of reader and I suspect you are as well.

Voracious reader learn early that others do not necessarily share their obsessions with words, stories, books and reading. How many times has someone told you that "you read too much?" Pay them no mind. They don't understand that reading is as beneficial to a writer as exercise is to an athlete.

Lots of reading frequently leads to writing. Reading puts the patterns of writing in our heads. By osmosis readers learn style, pacing, grammar and word choice. Avid readers learn how writers plot their stories. Genre readers are actually aficionados of a particular type of plot. When the reader begins to think about becoming a writer, she starts to pay more attention to how writers do their work.

Early attempts at writing usually imitate the writers or genres we love. As a school boy Stephen King wrote an imitation of the Fall of the House of Usher, photocopied it, and sold it to classmates. His friends bought it eagerly. Many other successful genre authors began writing the kind of books they loved. It is a logical, natural progression.

Every book you read offers something to you as a writer. Even a bad book teaches you how not to proceed. Reading widely, you learn to distinguish among a variety of voices. By suffusing yourself in many voices, you are more likely to find your own distinct voice. Reading widely introduces you to how difference writers go about solving a particular problem. Reading is the post-graduate education of a writer.

Fear of the Blank Page

The blank page intimidates most writers. Unfortunately, that intimidation doesn’t necessarily go away with time or experience. Left unchecked the fear of starting with a blank page can turn into full-blown writer’s block. While there is no perfect solution, I do have some tips that may help.
First, downplay the importance of the writing process. Robert Golembiewski, a prolific academic writer, wrote his first drafts in long hand on the backs of old student hand-outs plucked for the recycling bin. How important could anything scribbled on the back of a hand-out be? When writing by long hand, I use a one-subject, spiral notebook. It’s cheap and unpretentious. If you compose on a computer, insert the word DRAFT in large letters in the header and footer of the page.
Second, give yourself permission to write a lousy first draft. Realize that you are going to repeatedly replace the words in your first draft. Since your first draft will not survive, you do not have to fear how bad it is. After you have rewritten your first draft, you can delete it, shred it, burn it – whatever suits you.
Third, never start with a blank page at the beginning of the day. When you stop writing for the day, leave a page unfinished. On that page, leave you last sentence unfinished. This habit will ensure that you never have to face a blank page at the beginning of your writing session.

Revision: Where the Fun Begins

My favorite part of writing – next to seeing my just published article in a magazine – is revision. The blank page and the first draft are painful. When I put a sentence on the page, I know it won't work. I’m certain it will require revision, but that’s O.K. New sentences always need fixing. As writers that’s what we do. Revision is fun, but that’s a trade secret seldom revealed to outsiders.

The first draft gets words on the page. We ask nothing more of it. The initial draft is messy, and the resulting sentences are not pretty. As you begin to revise, cross out stray or redundant sentences. Improve your remaining sentences by cutting unnecessary words and phrases. Next, check for subject/verb agreement and rewrite to remove the passive voice. Now replace long words with short words and trade vague words for precise ones.

Look at your paragraphs. Did you arrange your sentences in the order that best makes your point? Sometimes you'll find your topic sentence at the end of the paragraph. In that case, simply move the last sentence to the beginning of the paragraph. Also, you may find that interchanging a couple of sentences makes the whole paragraph read better. Next, check to see if you arranged your paragraphs in the most effective sequence. Finally, read your first and last paragraphs to confirm that you tied them together.

Repeat this rewriting procedure as many times as needed. You can quit revising when you can no longer make improvements.

Dialogue: Not What It Seems

You’ve probably heard that you should write like you speak. That may or may not be good guidance in general. However, it is terrible advice when it comes to writing dialogue. Actual conversation transcribed to the page doesn’t work.

Speech is disjointed, repetitive and hesitant. When I have a conversation with my wife, we talk on top of and past each other. I pretend to listen, and she usually catches me at it. We leave incomplete thoughts hanging, and our words sometimes just trail off. None of this makes for good reading.

To work on the page, only the most telling bits of a conversation should appear. Repartee is cleverer, putdowns more devastating and comebacks more pointed.

For reading ease, the writer needs to underplay accents and dialects on the page, even if they are important for developing a character. Also, a practiced writer controls the pace of the story with dialogue. More dialogue quickens the pace. More description slows the pace, allowing the reader to catch her breath.

A skilled writer uses dialogue to develop characters. If a character is stupid, or corrupt or compassionate, it shows in the dialogue. Emotions and motives spring to life in the dialogue. For the writer, dialogue is the place to discover the quirks, flaws and foibles of the characters. None of this happens if the writer behaves merely as a stenographer. When it comes to dialogue, good writers muster their best craft and cunning.

Don't You Dare Write a Tom Swifty

Tom Swift was the hero in a series of juvenile science fiction books for boys. Tom solved mysteries and foiled bad guys using his own clever inventions. Typical titles included Tom Swift and His Airship, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, and Tom Swift and His Sky Racer.

The books featured an odd quirk, called a Tom Swifty, which is a pun linking dialogue and adverbs. Here are some examples:

"Hurry up and get to the back of the ship," Tom said sternly.

"Pass me the shellfish," said Tom crabbily.

"That's the last time I'll stick my arm in a lion's mouth," the lion-tamer said off-handedly.

"Would you like to ride in my new ambulance?" asked Tom hospitably.

Tom’s adverbs telegraph the emotions the writer hopes to evoke. Although used to humorous effect in the Tom Swift books, overusing adverbs usually reveals lame writing.

Let your nouns and verbs show the reader what’s happening. If you use nouns and verbs skillfully, you will have little need for adjectives and adverbs. Your readers are clever enough to figure out how to react emotionally.

First Person Point of View

When beginning a story, a writer must pick a point of view. First person? Second person? Third person? Multiple points of view? Sometimes it’s a tough choice.

Most beginning writers gravitate to the first person point of view. This is understandable since their early stories tend toward autobiography. Developing writers manage the first person more easily. Also, some genres, such as the memoir and the hard-boiled detective story, favor the first person point of view.

First person stories are usually simple, direct and straightforward, creating fewer pitfalls for the novice. Readers identify more closely with a first person narrator, allowing the writer to create intimacy and emotional tension more quickly.

The advantages of the first person narration must be balanced against its drawbacks. The first person narrator:

• Can report only what she has seen, heard, done, experienced or felt,
• Cannot directly access the thoughts or feelings of other characters, and
• Has difficulty recounting events that happen simultaneously.

Each point of view serves a different purpose. When writing your story, pick the point of view that matches your story and your skill level.