Flesh and blood characters for stand-out stories

You know how, when you’re thinking about something, everything around you seems to be that same something? For me recently, in writing, that “something” has been character. Everywhere I turn, strange, even bizarre characters have appeared. First, there’s the news, replete with characters to study. Then the writing course offered by NaNoWriMo through the online site Coursera includes a segment on character. Even when I turned to what seemed to be a delightful book about a woman and her pet bulldog, darned if the “character” aspect didn’t appear again. (For both woman and her canine friend!) Finally, half of this fall’s writing workshop sponsored by the Writers Guild of Texas hinged on the aspect of character. 

Creating fictional characters, we as human beings can relate to is such an essential element that the basic formula for story is: character + action = plot. But how to create those characters? (I’ll save the action portion of the formula for another post!)

image: Wikimedia commons

During the Coursera lessons, novelist/instructor Amy Bloom noted, “Most of us have enough trouble being ourselves, without having to then take on the task of (inventing) other people. But when you’re a writer, that’s the job. You have to enter into their body, into their soul, and see the world as they see it.”

So no wonder that after bestselling romantic suspense author Cindy Dees, who taught the WGT workshop, confessed that character development isn’t her strongest point, she developed an entire course on the subject to help her compensate. Because I was a student of Dees at a creative writing course at Southern Methodist University several years ago, I knew there would be character description worksheets. This time they were even bigger and more detailed than I remembered. 

There are innumerable sample character building worksheets online, including one developed just for NaNoWriMo, but I’m addicted to Dees’ version.

I don’t want to – in fact, it’s not even possible – to include the entire volume of information Dees lists in a single blog post. They include all the generalities available online: ethnic, social, economic, religious and educational background; behavioral descriptions; and physical description. (The Dees version emphasizes the way the physical characteristics evoke the main aspects of the person’s character.)

Digging deeper, she asked her audience members to list the main qualities that describe and define each character, the characters’ ethics (what they believe) and their code of honor (what they do), and consider the possibility of internal conflict these present.

“Some characters talk about their values,” she said, “but don’t do a darn thing.”

Dees’ character spreadsheets included side by side listings for both the main character and another primary character (and can be expanded to include multiple other characters). What I found particularly interesting was her suggestion of placing a checkmark by each point at which the characters’ personalities, background, etc., would conflict. And using these points of conflict to help build the story. 

“Is there a moral crisis that challenges (the character’s) values? If there’s not, why the hell are you writing the book?. . .What makes (the character) argue passionately about after they’ve had a few drinks?”

Then there are the detail such as: What’s this character’s most embarrassing moment ever? When did this character feel like the greatest fool ever in his/her life? “Such profound and visceral moments” can make readers so emotionally involved with a character that Dees tries to include at least one in every book.

And the often talked about issue of character likeability? As novelist Amy Bloom also noted in her discussion of character in the segment of her Coursera class, “You don’t have to like your characters, but you do have to love them and be willing to see the world through their eyes.”

It’s great to “have your heroic characters do something heroic off the bat to show us they’re the good guys,” Dees said. But watch out for cliché moments. 

Since the appearance of the late screenwriter Blake Snyder’s handbook, Save the Cat! “I’ve seen a rash of characters who climbed trees and saved cats recently,” she noted wryly.

She continued. Is the character interesting? Fascinating? “Interesting is someone I’d like to talk to at a cocktail party,” Dees told her audience. “Fascinating is, I can’t look away from that train wreck. A person can be terrible and be fascinating. Bad guys are where you can really (write) off the rails.” (I’ll add – study your news sources for examples of off-the-rails, over the top versions.)

As I flipped through the pages of character sheets Dees passed out to the workshop audience, I groaned inwardly at her suggestion to “give a symbol set to each character.” I should have known she had more in mind that yet another magical piece of jewelry or sparkly slippers. Not. She wanted us to think of our characters as that symbol.

“If I think of a character as a motorcycle, I can create a whole set of characteristics without ever calling him a motorcycle.” He/she can be noisy, powerful, eccentric, a loner, with as many of the attributes the writer attributes to motorcycles as the dog writer at the beginning of this post attributed to her bulldog. 

And I thought, yes, I do have a character who’s a motorcycle. . . And maybe one who’s a bulldog, as well.

Here’s a writing course sample – will you open the box?

FLASH: Since posting this, I have learned that the NaNoWriMo courses for 2017 are now closed. Here's the current link, for those who want to see what's publically available. Or mark your calendars for 2018.

I just started another of the online writing courses NaNoWriMo sponsors with Coursera and Wesleyan College. This is my third of the four courses NaNoWriMo wrangled for people interested in participating in its annual November write-a-thon. Instructors so far have been Salvatore Scibona (The End), Amity Gage (O My Darling), and now Amy Bloom (Lucky Us). The classes are billed as lasting four weeks, but I clipped through the first ones at about two weeks each, starting in late August.

image: pixabay

As I’ve mentioned before, you can listen to the lectures and interviews, do the readings and writing assignments free of charge. However, you will need to pay the special $29 fee per class to get (and give) reviews and feedback from your fellow cyber classmates.

Even though one of my peer reviewers was kind enough to tell me that I failed the first assignment in Scibona’s course on The Craft of Style, enough of my fellow classmates gave me a pass to let me slither through the course’s pass/fail grading system.

The assignment was to write three paragraphs of description using language of the physical senses – sight, sound, touch/feel, smell and taste. He didn’t say we had to cram all five senses into those three paragraphs, and I only managed three. Here’s my effort.

***

The Box

I head for the garage to go through that box Matt and I kept in case there were more kids, even after we knew how unlikely that would be. When I flip on the overhead light, a small scorpion scuttles backward, claws clicking, tail raised menacingly. I’ll have to warn the kids about it. Or maybe I shouldn’t say anything. Their boys’ curiosity is as likely to send them in search of the deadly little creature as to scare them away from it.

The box I want hasn’t been opened, although two years have passed since our move here to Las Vegas. The tape sealing its seams is brown and peeling. Written on its dusty side is its room designation: nursery. I bend carefully at the knees to lift the box, conscious of the importance of legs, of knees, of the flex and stretch of muscles, of feet planted firmly on the ground. Things you don’t miss until they’re gone.

Then out to the patio. There are wet marks on the box when I set it on the picnic table. Sweat? You don’t sweat in the dry desert heat of Las Vegas. Sweat wicks off exposed skin before you even have a chance to feel it. But the marks must be sweat. They can’t be tears. Surely, I don’t have any tears left to cry.

***

I realized later, and classmates pointed out, that I could have done more with the smells of the box and garage, or the taste of the tears. Definitely remember that during NaNoWriMo's revision phase. I also (as did most of the classmates I reviewed) tried to make this part of a narrative, which Scibona later told us was not his intention. It only needed to be a portrait, not a complete narrative.

If any of my writing critique partners are out there, they’ll recognize this as a fragment from a work in progress, although the assignments are not intended to give us a cut-and-paste formula for our NaNoWriMo opus.

Could I have managed better by writing longer paragraphs? Maybe. At least one of the classmates I reviewed simply gave up paragraphing altogether. I laughed and gave him/her a pass because the language of the writing was in keeping with the stated assignment.

About those writing classes – what are you waiting for?

Last month I posted about fall writing classes. I personally test as much about what I post as possible. So, when I found a class I’d never heard of before, even though it was vouched for by NaNoWriMo, the annual November writing marathon I’ve participated in several times, I took the plunge. It’s the series of writing courses offered by Coursera in cooperation with Wesleyan College. I’m halfway through my second course, and it’s wonderful!

This series -- about style, setting, character and plot -- is a one-time only offering from an established liberal arts school, taught by visiting professors who are also fine writers. Still, after I posted, readers had concerns. Even I had some concerns. 

The cost is $29 per course, each of which includes a series of four lectures, interviews with visiting writers and editors, readings, and writing assignments reviewed by other students. There’s also a requirement to review at least three other student writers/assignment. All this has been arranged by NaNoWriMo. I initially was taken aback by the possibility of graded assignments, but each assignment is purely pass-fail. No one need ever be shocked by your GPA.

image: pixabay

One reader worried that the $29 fee meant he was required to pay to participate in NaNoWriMo, a misconception which I blame myself for not clarifying. There is not, never has been, and no doubt never will be a charge to participate in NaNoWriMo. Yes, it’s a nonprofit organization, which like most nonprofits doesn’t refuse to have money thrown at it. But it doesn’t charge you to write.

In fact, if you want to take the NaNoWriMo-sponsored Coursera courses, you can do that completely free of charge. The only things you have to pay for are the chance to get and give feedback on the course’s writing assignments. The $29 also nets you an attractive certificate if you complete the course, which Coursera suggests you may want to add to LinkedIn or other social media sites.  (I’m still debating whether to display my certificate for completing the first course, The Craft of Style.)

I also clicked on a link asking Wesleyan for more information about its online courses and learned it has its own, non-NaNoWriMo, non-Coursera online courses. Each of them costs approximately $2,900. That’s not a typo. A standard online course at this old-line liberal arts college costs 100 times the price of the NaNoWriMo-Coursera version.

I’m sure students get more lectures, more writing assignments, more individual instruction in Wesleyan’s non-Coursera classes. After a couple of years of those, they also will have a master of fine arts degree in creative writing to add to their resumes. If they stay the course. For now, I’ll take a certificate or four and run.

Other readers, including members of my online critique group said, no, they never participate in NaNoWriMo. Or, holiday and family obligations prevent their participation.

That also worries me a bit. Is it because the stated aim of NaNoWriMo is to encourage writers to add 50,000 words to their novels in the single month of November? Does the thought of unwashed writers pecking away night and day on their keyboards, foregoing sleep, day jobs, and family daunt us? Does it make anybody who proclaims an interest in devoting an entire 30 days to a project sound crazy?

It should, of course. We’re writers. Crazy is what we do.

To be truthful, I’ve never hit the 50,000-word mark during NaNoWriMo. But I’ve added a few other tens of thousands of words to works in progress that might ever have gotten written without that impetus, still managed to meet a few other family, job, and community obligations. As well as the occasional meal and shower.

The NaNoWriMo-Coursera-Wesleyan series of four courses only runs through October 31, giving us time to finish before the magical month of November. And although each course is billed as a four-weeker, I did the first in two weeks, and look to meet that schedule for the second course. It’s even possible to knock out each of them in a week, but you may want to save your sleep deprivation for the NaNoWriMo marathon itself. Completed courses stay online for six months, giving writers a chance to review and refresh at our leisure.

If you missed your email from NaNoWriMo, or if you haven't yet made the commitment, see the Wesleyan site for details. Don’t hesitate too long. November waits for no writer.

Apple polishing: fall classes to revive a writer

So many of my friends and family are students or teachers, eager for the start of the academic year, I longed to go back to school too. Only not a regimented way. Not by taking entrance exams or aptitude test. Not, just by choosing classes I wanted to take, when I wanted to take them.

For anyone else feeling that yearning (or if members of your writing critique group keep saying, dude, just take a class!) I’ve compiled a list. Some of these are local to my area of North Texas. Many are online, available anywhere in the world with internet access. Costs vary, schedules vary. The following options are listed in alphabetic order.

2-Day Film School: Carpe Diem Pictures presents a live workshop on the fundamentals of filmmaking October 21-22 at the Dallas Marriott Suites Medical/Market Center, 2493 N. Stemmons Freeway in Dallas. Early bird registration (through September 21) is $389. Later registration $439. Register at the site. For additional details, email questions to dfw2dayfilm@gmail.com or call 940-600-3939.

image: Pixabay

MasterClass: This online classroom offers an incredible number of instructors in various fields, including writing. When I took James Patterson’s course here this past year, the cost was $99, but check the site for specifics, including authors in other disciplines.

NaNoWriMo: If you’ve ever signed up for NaNoWriMo, the annual November writing marathon, you’ve already received their email about the online creative writing courses. If not, read on. (Warning: the discounted rates mentioned here only apply if you at least intend to be a NaNoWriMo participant.) This year, the internet learning project, Coursera is teaming with Wesleyan College to offer five online writing courses for WriMos. Check out the site for details. Each class is offered at a discounted price of $29. After November, participants will be able to share their first chapters with the group for another round of peer review.

The Writer’s Garret: This Dallas institution founded by the late Texas poet-laureate Jack Myers and his wife Thea Temple offers both online and in-person classes in elements of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, from overviews of creative writing elements, to voice to writing with diverse characters, to pitching a project, and more. Costs typically in the $100-$160 range for multiple session classes, but see the site for early bird and members' discounts.

The Writer’s Path at SMU: This is Southern Methodist University’s continuing education program in creative writing. You can take their complete pathway, from which selected participants are chosen for a seminar in New York with editors and agents. Four to six-week long on-site classes leading to the New York seminar range in price from $450 to $625. More intensive tutorials in editing, revision and manuscript evaluation are also available. See the tutorial site or email suzannefrank@smu.edu for more information.

Writers Guild of Texas: This North Texas group offers in-person, daylong semiannual writing workshops. It fall workshop, October 7, features Cindy Dees, New York Times bestselling romance author (who also now writes epic fantasy). 9 a.m. to noon, in the Richardson Civic Center, 411 W. Arapaho, Richardson, Texas. Registration is $25 for WGT members, $35 for nonmembers. Limited seating, so the group urges registration by September 23. Price increases by $5 at the door, to the extent seats are available. See the site for details.

Writing Workshops Dallas: Online classes in fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting and poetry, from a plethora of published, often award-winning Dallas-area writers, teachers and editors. Classes can run multiple weeks or require no more than a single afternoon of your time. Costs range from the low double digits to mid-triples. See the site for details.