CHARACTERS-THE VOICES INSIDE OUR HEADS

his was a recent post in the section "What Other Writers Have to Say." Ironically I was watching Masterclass and listening to Judy Blume which I highly recommend if you are interested in writing.

Have you ever gone to the movies or a play or even watched a television show and got swept away by the characters. I do not mean the actor and who they are, but the character they portray. Something in their performance was captivating and unforgettable.

Think about the responsibility a writer has to the reader. I'm only talking about fiction. A writer has to be a director, producer, actor or many actors, and a storyteller.

Settings are very important. Is your fictional story written in  current times, or 100 or even a 1000 years ago. Maybe it's in the future. Whatever setting you create your characters major and minor have personalities to fit the times. 

This is also true, if you are writing a story sometime somewhere your character or characters will take over. They will turn a corner and discover something you the writer didn't see coming. This can be very exciting and disconcerting at the same time. 

In the first draft of any story let your characters run free and grow. In the second and third draft you'll send them to the gym and trim off the excess fat.
​
After five books I find myself not worried about what will happen next, I talk to my characters and ask "what's going to happen." They don't always respond immediately but they do eventually respond.

"Mary had a little lamb until one day----." Imagine if you will how many different scenarios one could write from that one sentence. Dozens if not more.

Let your characters out of the confines of your mind. Let them guide you. At first they may run wild and like any classroom teacher you say, "Take your seats, let's come to order."

I refer to Judy Blume again when she said that she was in restaurant with her family and listening to another family's conversation or argument. 

How do people engage one another? You might want to think about this next time you are walking in a crowd. Listen to other people's  conversations, how they talk to one another, how they interrupt each other, how they laugh with each other. What does their body language say? Are they just friends or more? 

Take notes. You hear something or see something interesting, incorporate it into your story. The recent tragic fires in California are an example. The stories from the eyes of the firefighters, the reporters, the displaced families, the claims adjusters. 

There are dozens of stories to be told just using those characters. Go ahead discover the world through the eyes of both your protagonist and your antagonist. How do they differ?

​#character development,#Ernest Hemingway,#writing,#novel,
#writing fiction,#writer,#voices in your head,#story development,#be a writer 
​