Digging Deeper

I'm talking about characters.
Yep, to make our readers enjoy our stories, to fall in love with our characters, we have to make them believable, real. 3D characters are what gives life to your work and makes it memorable.

Disney is great for giving us lasting themes to pull apart and use for our characters. Time-worn but loveable themes like Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella are used over and over again.
I watched The Princess and the Frog for about the fifth time on Saturday night with my kids and it struck me why i like it so much.
Sure it's got the jaunty music, a handsome prince and some comedic secondary characters. But what really got me was the message behind Tiana, the lead. She is a hard-working girl, doing everything she can to achieve her dream. There is no waiting for Prince Charming, she's taking life by the reins and getting herself her dream, all by herself.
However, this is where we discover, with the help of the catchy song by the Cajun Priestess Mama Odie, that in order for Tiana to realise her real dream (that being something that she didn't know she's always wanted!), she has to dig deeper.

How is this relevant to our writing? To your characters?
To make your characters 3D, lovable, believable and root-worthy (get your mind out of the gutter!) they need to walk onto that first page with a dream, or with something that they want with a passion. As the story progresses, they clash with other characters or they are forced by excellent plot devices to realise that their dream is deeper than they realised (but that we, the knowing reader always suspected!), and this gives them that 3-dimensionality that keeps readers turning the pages.

It is also part of a characters growth known as the character arc. Another excellent way to make our characters believable and real, but that may be ideal for another post!

Happy writing :)

Writing Tip: Characters Secrets

I've just read an awesome post by fellow kiwi as-yet-but-so-close unpublished author.
I love Jackie's blog, she is so honest and she gives the best tips that she has learnt on her very rocky journey!

This post is about the BIG secret that your characters have, what seems to be the surface conflict. Jackie describes it so wonderfully potentially being the thing that drives the story and character, but what would happen if you the author revealed the big secret earlier is in the story?
You them have room to explore the deeper issues associated with the big secret. Have a read of her post and tell me what you think!

I've recently begun editing my Price of Passion (Billie and Cooper) story. Billie has a secret, and it's not until the end that Cooper finds out, but i have always wondered what would happen if she told him near the beginning? It is a wonderful opportunity to explore their deeper conflicts!

What about you? Do your characters have secrets?

Making your Characters Suffer

From a blog i follow, Word Play by KM Weiland, i thought you may like to read this post.
It shows how evil we are - and have to be - to our characters to create page turning quality in our stories.

It's all about conflict and frustration and not giving our characters what they want until either they have grown, or you are at the end!

Have a read here! and let me know your thoughts!!

Points of View

Which character do you find the easiest to write?
Is it from the perspective of the leading lady, or the hero?

It occurred to me this morning, that i seem to find the hero's perspective easier to write from.
Could it be because their feelings and conflicts, aren't simple, but less complicated than a woman's?

Or it could be, i'm remembering a conversation i had with a friend and fellow writer, that we know, as women, what we want in our ideal hero, and it's easier to write him based on that? Throwing him roadblocks and watching how he deals with them, in the way we would want our ideal hero to cope and overcome any obstacles.

I've also found it easier, when first constructing my character's conflicts, to construct the hero.
The female always ends up being too complicated or her conflict unclear and murky.
I hadn't even figured out what Billie's true conflict was until i'd completed the first draft! And that was even after character interviews and countless pages on figuring out personality and background.

So, whose point of view do you find it easier to write from?

Creating Characters

Lately I have been reading a lot about Character creating and thinking about my own process. I tend to just write them when i get an idea and they evolve as they come to me.
Which causes a lot of problems and i tend to stare at the computer screen trying to figure out what they are going to say now and why they aren't reacting the way i want them to. I'm trying to make my characters act out of character to fit my story.
There seems to be a need to get to know your characters before you start writing your story. I just don't have the patience for this, i have to leap in and start writing the darn thing! But i can see the benefit of it, it would make the process so much easier.
There are some interesting discussions on Maisey Yates's blog and Jackie Ashenden's Blog on Characterisation with links that fellow writers use to understand and get to know their characters either while they write or before they start their writing process.
Which do you? What works best for you?