Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Being Unique

Is your story unique enough? Is your character original?

Plot: Pick out a couple stories who have a similar plot to yours. List the differences between your plot and theirs - then decide if it's got enough to make it a new story.

Protagonist: Ask yourself these questions about your character.
1. What makes them different than the other people around them?
2. What makes them act differently than someone else would, in a certain situation?
3. What little things make them interesting - their pet peeves, their fears, their quirky habits?
4. If there is a romantic subject, what makes this character different than what would be the "typical" character? In other words, think of the "typical" character type out there that your protagonist would be most like, and identify what differences there are between the typical, and your original.
(You First Novel --Ann Rittenberg & Laura Whitcomb)

Antagonist: Our bad guys need originality too.
1. First thing to check: Is your antagonist just bad, because he is the bad guy? Usually you want him to have slightly-relateable drives. I.e. Voldemort wants to avoid death. Basically every other character in Harry Potter (as well as each of us) want to avoid death too. Gollum is drawn (addicted) to the power of the ring. Practically everyone else is too. The Wicked Witch of the West is upset that Dorothy's house killed the Witch of the East (You would be upset too if someone killed your friend, right?)
**Your bad guy needs humanizing / relatable / somewhat-understandable characteristics or motives**
This helps them feel real.
2. Think about the story from their perspective. Maybe they want to keep power. Maybe they honestly believe that pure bloods are better than muggles and that the world is better without muggle-borns.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Characters - Realistic & Exciting

Orson Scott Card makes a clear point in "Characters & Viewpoint" that your characters need to be interesting enough to have a story, but ordinary enough to be relatable and to avoid being over the top.

"[R]eaders tend to like a character who is at least superficially like themselves. But they quickly lose interest unless this particular character is somehow out of the ordinary. The character may wear the mask of the common man, but underneath his true face must always be the face of the hero." - Orson Scott Card

Okay, this is a funny post you might enjoy about a female writer trying to write a realistic guy:
http://blog.liviablackburne.com/2011/02/on-writing-realistic-male-characters.html

Here's one website on writing from the POV of the opposite gender:
http://learnasyouwrite.com/how-to-write-pov-for-the-opposite-sex/

I think sometimes we use the stereotypes too much, and other times I think they can help us - because sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.

Character Development Writing Exercises:
http://www.pgtc.com/~slmiller/characterexercises.htm
http://writerstrust.blogspot.com/2007/10/character-development-exercises.html
This is a fun little step-by-step get-to-know-you-character exercise I found:
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Realistic-Fiction-Character