One of the common causes of the malady known as “Writer’s
Block” can be a lack of communication with your characters — in other words,
your imaginary friends won’t talk with you.
In order to write an engrossing story (of any length) is to
create “real” people and not just one or two dimensional descriptions. This
will allow your readers to identify, care about, and be intrigued with your
story; making your characters real, thinking and emotional beings also makes
your job easier as you allow them to drive the story. But sometimes a character
gets sullen, they refuse to come out and play, and you, the writer, suddenly
feels like you are having a conversation with the open air. Things seem too
hard to record on paper and your story stops dead in your keyboard tracks, if
you force it then the story just seems forced. Readers will probably find
something better to do, like filing their nails or something, than to be bored
with a contrite, phony string of words.
Are you a parent? If you are, or have any real dealings with youngsters
then you probably know what it is like to literally have to pry responses from
your kids… What happened at school today? Why aren’t you and your BFF hanging
out together anymore? What do you think of your new teacher? And so forth.
Every . Little . Bit . of
. Information . Has . to . be . Yanked . Out.
Well you may have to resort to that with your characters.
Well you may have to resort to that with your characters.
Talk to your characters and let them know a little something about
your aspirations, especially your goals with the book. What are their desires?
Just ask. Keep poking and prodding until they start giving you responses. Get
to know the cast and crew of your story, let them become real.
There are a few ways to understand your characters. Remember
that every person comes with history, some baggage, but there is always a past.
It may not be important to share your hero’s life story from birth with your readers
unless some event is paramount to the story, but each character needs a past.
Write a short bio for each major character, start with their birth such as what
kind of family they were born into and know the relationship each one had with
parents and siblings. You should know what interested or bored them with school
and what prompted them to pursue whatever career they chose. The character’s
first kiss and first heartbreak might have a lot to do with the way they view
romance in the present day. Understand your creations’ worst fears and why, and
know what they want so bad that it drives each one.
When you know where your character(s) have come from it will
be easier to let them drive the story and all you will have to do is record
their actions. You, the author, needs to be able to get into the story with
your characters and stop seeing them as mere figments of your imagination —
they have to be real to you if you want your readers to see them as real
people.
Writing exercise: Write a brief summary of your life
including its highs and lows. Make sure that you list the things that have
impacted and influenced you the most.
Writing Prompt: List the (up to 10) most influential
people in the world today; next to each name put NO MORE THAN TWO words
describing who each of these people are.
Challenge Assignment: Choose any one of your major
characters in your current or past WIP and make a list of 20 interview
questions for him/her to answer. Now interview your character and write the
responses in that character’s “voice”. Bonus tip: Save the interview and post
it on your blog when you need to start promoting your newest story/book.
