Tips on Developing Characters

Today I welcome returning guest, Susan Oleksiw. Susan is the author of the author of two mystery series, one set in coastal South India, and the other in a small New England town. Today she draws on her experience as a writing teacher to offer some suggestions for developing characters.

The best stories are about people we can't stop thinking about. We get involved in their problems and want to find out what's going to happen to them--we fear for them, worry about them, feel joy at their escape from near death. And if it's a character in a mystery, we wait eagerly for the next installment in the series.

One of a writer's biggest challenges is developing characters the reader will care about and seek out again and again. Coming up with these riveting characters is easier said than done.

I have a few standard exercises that I hand out whenever I'm conducting a writing workshop, and one of them focuses on character development. One exercise is adapted from WHAT IF? WRITING EXERCISES FOR FICTION WRITERS by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. The exercise is to write a paragraph about each of three characters--first is someone you know well, perhaps a relative or close friend; second is an acquaintance, someone you know less well but encounter once in a while; third is an individual you invent entirely on your own.

Connections - and a recipe

Thanks, Galen for that informative post. The query process is daunting enough. Good to know there's help out there.

First – a Happy Anniversary to my parents, who celebrated their 65th anniversary on Monday. They've been a phenomenal role model, and I wish them another 65!

Connections are great. As most of you know, hubby and I are ensconced in a tiny rental while we hunt for a real home. That means a lot of togetherness and tolerance. Yesterday, I hooked up with a couple of Colorado writers for lunch. It was wonderful being able to talk to people who not only understand what it means to be breaking into the crazy business of publication, but are in it with you. The hubster understands, but he's heard it all.


So over an Olive Garden soup and salad lunch, we could blather on about getting agents, getting rejections, conferences, writing groups, what books we love, what books make us wonder how they got published, and on and on. (Hey, the soup and salad are unlimited refills! Plenty of time to gab.)

Keep Reading...

But being able to have those connections with people who "get it" helps get me centered and motivated. And it's something to consider when you're creating scenes for your books. Your characters should have some way to make connections, to be able to hang loose and have someone understand them.

For my cops, they've usually got partners to bounce things off of. For my upcoming release, Nowhere to Hide, my heroine is new to town (and I wrote this LONG before we'd even thought of moving). I had to create a connection for her, both to spare the reader from interminable passages of internal monologue, and to reveal some of her personal "secrets" that tend to surface in girl-talk. Especially over ice cream. And, one hopes, by the end of the scene the reader knows more about the character, and the character is able to move forward.

As for our life here:

The forecast says there could up to a foot or more snow by the time you're reading this. We went to the grocery store to fill in a few blanks—we tend to run out of salad very quickly, and with limited storage space, we haven't done any 'serious' shopping beyond the basics.

However, we did borrow a crock pot from our daughter and bought the ingredients for a family favorite: White Chili. It's very simple to prepare, and yummy. It was originally a stovetop/oven recipe, but since I did so little with the oven in Florida where there was no point in adding heat to the kitchen unless absolutely necessary (or on one of the 5 cold days of the year), I simply threw everything into the crock pot, and the results were fine.


I figured I'd share it today, so maybe some of you can enjoy the enticing aroma the way we'll be doing. In a space this small, there's no escape!

1 medium sized onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 t ground cumin
2 whole large chicken breasts, skinless, boneless, and cut into 1 inch
chunks
1 can (15-19 oz) white kidney beans (cannellini), drained
1 can (15 1/2 -19 oz) garbanzo beans, drained
1 12 oz can white corn, darined
2 4 oz cans chopped green chilis
1 1/2 - 2 cups chicken broth

Stick everything in the pot.
When chicken is tender, it's done. Adjust liquid to taste.
To serve, stir in some hot pepper sauce, to taste, if desired.
Add 1 c. shredded Monterey Jack cheese; garnish with parsley.

The crockpot I had at home had an "auto-shift" feature, so it would cook on high until things reached temperature, then kick down to low until you turned it off. I think this one is just "low" and "high" but it's not like we're going anywhere, so I should be able to handle that change.

And while the chili is cooking, I have some good reading material. For those of you who suggested a 'vacation' after Monday's post, this will be it.

What are your favorite "stuck in the house" pastimes?

Peeling Away the Layers

We're still getting into things here at our rental. I know a lot of the comments left on Monday said the apartment was "cute" or "cozy." Appearances aren't always the same as reality. While we're going to do fine here, I thought I'd use these temporary quarters as an example of how first impressions might not be the same as what happens when you deal with making things work. (and on the slim chance that the property owners read this, we really like the place! I'm just tying it in to writing.)

In writing, characters should be like artichokes. You don't get to the heart until you do some serious work peeling away the layers. What the reader sees, as well as what other characters see when they meet a character, be it protagonist or a secondary character, will be superficial at first. Perhaps the character was too good to be true, and as time goes on, faults are revealed. Or maybe it's the other way around. An unlikeable character turns out to be golden inside.

Keep Reading...

This apartment was where the owners' son and his wife lived after getting married. My guess is that they hadn't accumulated a lot of "stuff" yet, and with parents living upstairs, sharing meals, borrowing essentials, etc. probably was part of their lifestyle. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part, but after two days of trying to squeeze our possessions (and we brought with us only what we thought we'd need before finding a house and getting the bulk of our belongings out of storage), I can't help but try to imagine what the previous tenants were like.

One guess: They were tall. I'm 5-4, which isn't THAT short, but almost everything is up too high for me to reach. Cabinets and closet shelves are deep, which makes getting into them that much harder. Had to buy a stepstool.





Another difference I've noticed as we continue to discover more about this place: the artist owner probably wanted to make the place attractive, which it is. However, there's more "décor" than "storage" and we've already given her back some extras that serve no function for us. When I was buying furniture for our home, especially when the kids were growing up, everything had to have hidden storage in order to make the cut. Coffee tables, night tables, end tables all had drawers and shelves. Since flat surfaces attract clutter, I preferred having hideaways for accumulations of stuff. Perhaps she should have thought "boat".

Before:
After:



The bathroom is beautiful. Small, but efficient. However, the single sink is set into a counter, with no vanity beneath. Coming from a master bath with two sinks with cabinets under each one and six drawers (which I didn't even have to share, given the 3 baths in our former house), it's a jolt not having everything easily accessible. There are shelves above the little LG washer/dryer, and that's where most of the stuff goes. The box I'd packed my bathroom "stuff" in sits on a shelf, and I move the whole thing to and from the counter when it's time to deal with hair and makeup.

We're still finding better ways to arrange things for maximum access, but it's pretty much understood that if you need something, odds are you'll have to move something else to get at it. And it's forcing us to put things away right after we use them. For the "before" version of the following photo, check Monday's post.


How do you reveal characters to your readers? Do you show them the whole picture, or peel away the layers. Readers – how much do you like to know about characters when you first meet them?

Tomorrow, it's another Friday Field Trip. I can't decide whether to share more pictures my son took in the Everglades, or the ones my daughter sent of Wales, since it was St. Patrick's Day yesterday, and Wales is closer to Ireland.

Confronting the Unexpected

What I'm reading: Rain Fall, by Barry Eisler

Thanks to Marie Nicole for sharing her story. There's still time to leave a comment on her post to enter the contest for a copy of her book. Scroll down. I'll still be here.

What's been going on in Florida started me thinking about disruptions, and how we deal with them. We spend a lot of time getting to know our characters so we'll know how they'll respond in any situation we subject them to. Or will we?

It's just as important to know how your character will behave when confronted with the unexpected. And, as authors, we need to keep the unexpected happening. After all, "Only Trouble is Interesting."

For example, here in Florida, we've had the longest cold snap on record. And it's been cold. Ice on the cars and rooftops in the morning. Some days, the temperatures never hit 40. True, if you're from Minnesota, you're probably laughing, but I've lived in Orlando for 22 years, and we've never had the heat running 12 days straight. Heck, most years, we don't have the heat running twelve HOURS, period. Now, it's been chugging along, eating up more kilowatt hours than our a/c does.

Some of the local power companies have been overburdened, and have had to cut power here and there. We have a nifty (usually) gizmo on our electrical system that allows the power company to shut down power to our heat or a/c units for brief periods of time when demands are too great. For this, we get a small rebate on our electric bill each month. In 22 years, it's been turned on exactly three times. Two of them this week.

Sex scenes are more than sex

What I'm reading: Lord John and the Hand of the Devils, by Diana Gabaldon

On January 2nd, the "Hearts and Handcuffs" blog had a post about resolving to write more sex scenes, and some interesting discussion ensued.

Finding myself between projects, I fiddled around with writing an 'out of the blue' sex scene just for fun. On a whim, I sent it to a writing buddy, and it turned into a round-robin exercise.

In the ensuing exchanges, I learned a lot about myself as a writer who writes sex scenes.

The opening was short and simple, a mere 400 words. Woman alone in the bathroom, getting undressed and putting on a silk nightgown. It was primarily a sensual scene, and, as always, I wasn't really sure where it would lead. I ended the scene with this:

She runs a brush through her hair, then tucks an errant lock behind her ear and smiles. Quietly, she opens the door wide enough to slip through, leaving it open barely a crack. Just enough to show her the way to the bed. Where he waits.

The response moved the encounter to his pov and definitely transported it into 'sex scene' territory. And since there was little, if any, character development, it leaned toward my definition of erotica, not romance.

The gauntlet having been thrown, I was faced with a couple of character details I hadn't considered, but hey, I have no problems writing hot and heavy, so I started writing section 3.

And hit a wall. There were two consenting adults in bed together, but without knowing who they were (or at least who SHE was, and a little more about him,)I couldn't write the scene. Absolutely couldn't. I realized I wasn't in her head, and that I couldn't write the physical parts without the mental parts. I had to stop, create a character with back story, with a reason for being where she was – even if it was a casual one-night-stand, I had to know WHY she would do it, and so on. All I 'knew', and this was thrown at me by my writing partner, was that she was an "older" woman. Until I knew a whole lot more about her, the writing wouldn't happen. I simply could NOT write a 'Tab A into Slot B' scene.

Once I created the character, I found it easy to move forward. Of course, the taking turns approach tosses some challenges as it's impossible to plot much in advance, because you don't know what will happen next (even more than my normal 'seat of the pants' writing surprises), but I wasn't looking for plot when I started writing. But without the emotional connection, without a deep understanding of the character, the writing is flat and darned hard to pull off.

As a matter of fact, on round 4, after seeing where my partner took the scene, I put the brakes on entirely, and made the two character take time to talk. Even with some character back story in my head, I needed to show it on the page. I shall await my next installment, but I'm sure my writing friend will have kicked the action back into high gear.