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

Blogging, Social Media & Networking

Chersti Nieveen came to talk to us about about blogging, and social media tonight. It was great how much she told us about twitter and blogging.

Blogging:
Look at the people who are successful and see what they are doing:
Here's a great example of a successful writer's blog:   brodiashton.blogspot.com
Her blog helped sell her book

The blog shows her writing style. She talks about her kids, her life, a little bit about her writing. But its really about getting to know you. It’s all about connecting to other people. It’s all about presenting yourself. You have to go and find other blogs and comment on them, and become friends with those other bloggers. It’s all about networking.

Blog about something that is genuine, something unique about you.

Often – if you don’t blog once a month, don’t blog

You want to connect with your readers

Twitter:

1.     Lotsa followers
2.    Quality followers/following
3.     Inform yourself

• Writing community on twitter is pretty close
• You can meet agents and people on twitter

You want more people to follow you, and you follow a fewer amount, but

1000 followers, 1500 u following – that’s okay

Some common hashtags:  #askagent   #amwriting  #amediting

Use the things that are going viral to help you. i.e. writers are doing #mustachesformaddie and that’s going viral..so you could post on twitter your picture and be a part of it..

#bookbirthday – you celebrate the book’s birthday when it is published

Do not dis anybody, do not dis any writers or agents or anything.

Be very positive & encouraging.

If you’re going to use twitter, you should use it several times a week. If they aren’t

People are selfish – give them something. If you’re funny, you’re giving them humor. You could give them advice..You could share cool things about writing. Just be doing twitter all the time, and get on and check it super often. You want to be able to get on very often – especially when you’re growing. So when someone responds to your tweet or something, you can respond back quickly – people will follow you more if you’re active.  Don’t just say “my book is this, go look at it!”. Give to other people.

Twitter Pitches: Pitching your book in 140 characters.  There's lots of great advice here on writertherapy.com
*Find contests for doing pitches for your book. Sometimes you can put several pitches, so you can try that too. :)
Find these on twitter, http://brenleedrake.blogspot.com/, http://authoresque.blogspot.com/, or http://writertherapy.com/