Knights in Shining Armor

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today we're gonna talk about white knights on bleached chargers and what causes the little fiends to fall off. So, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Everyone loves a good hero. But what is the main quality of the heroes you remember the most? I bet it's that they have a flaw. Not a minor flaw, but a fatal one.

Shakespeare did this well. His tragic heroes all had a fatal flaw. One that led to their doom. Now, I'm not saying everyone in your novel must die, just that your hero (and heroine) must have flaws of some kind. This goes back to an earlier post I did on making your characters feel real to your reader. Aristotle wrote about tragedies in his book Poetics.

If you're a writer and you've never googled this, it's time you did. He wasn't a stupid man.

Basically, his idea says that you can't have a tragic hero unless that hero has a fatal flaw. Otherwise, nothing makes sense. But let's get off that and into non-tragedy.

If your hero is to be believable, he needs to commit some act that makes his flaw leap to the forefront. No one is infallible unless they're a saint. Let's face it, saints don't make for good fiction. You want your reader to want the girl to end up with the guy of your choosing but you can't make it easy for her. She needs to struggle with the decision a little. Every real relationship has things that must be overcome in order for it to work. If they fight like cats and dogs, use it to your advantage. If both your main characters have flaws, they can seem incompatible and you can use that to heighten tension.

Of course, a third character acting against the first two can also give your characters much needed tension. But it doesn't have to be a love-triangle scenario. That character can be a girl who doesn't want to lose her BFF or a guy who doesn't want to lose his football game buddy. It can even be a god or a ghost!

But your hero must also have some deep redeeming quality that allows him to rise above everyone else. It's a fine line to walk.

When you're writing a character bio, keep these tension points in mind. Heck, after reading Aristotle's writings, you may decide you want to pen a tragedy! For the love of all that's good, google Poetics and have a read.

Who was your favorite hero? Why?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Flipping the Switch

Happy Tuesday! Hi, good people of the blogosphere! I hope you all had a good Monday. Nothing like a great Monday to preclude a fabulous Tuesday, eh? Today we'll be talking about twisted characters; or, the switch, if you prefer. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

What's in a switch? Well, you have to first think about who's in your novel. You've filled out your character bios and given everyone a role, thought about your plot and where your main character will go from the beginning to the end (the journey), and considered who's going to be good, bad, or just a pain in the arse, right?

That's where the switch can come in. Look closely at your characters and their lives, then go read my human nature series of posts (found under the first heading - Writing) and think about your characters' lives, habits, personalities, and experiences. What can you bring to the front to make them false friends? Consider carefully because if your character doesn't surprise you with what they're doing, they won't surprise your reader.

Switches aren't always foregone conclusions. Sometimes, a switch can come in the form of someone leaping out from around a corner and yelling, "Boo!" They surprise you. Just keep in mind: Their proclivity was bent that way to begin with. It can't come out of nowhere. There should be some vein of something you show a peep of through your story to make the character's switch believable. But don't ruin it for your reader by foreshadowing too much.

Now, this can be a good guy who turns bad, a hidden society that the reader doesn't know existed until that moment, or a person lost from the character's past that comes back seeking revenge, love, or acknowledgement. Your choice! Yet another reason a character bio is so damned important.

Anyone have an example of a character switch that worked well? If so, please share with the rest of the class!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

What's in a Character?

It's Thursday, oh my! One more day until the weekend and you can all relax into your planned debauchery for two days. Today's post will be about character bios. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

What is a character bio?

Basically, it's a white paper on each of your characters that tells basic information. In order to portray a rounded character on the page, you need to understand why they'll react in a specific way in any given situation. To prevent screwing up things like age, height, or description, you need something you can reference quickly without having to scroll through your whole manuscript to see what you said about this or that. It helps you keep your story straight.

That's all well and good, but what should you include in a character bio?

Some of the same items on your Timeline should be included in your characters' bios. Here's a list of what I include - you may want to add to this.

• Full Name - First, middle, and last along with any other names they've had along the way.
• Location - Where they live, where they were born, if different, why it changed.
• Age - Includes birthday, zodiac sign, and recent celebrations.
• Physical Description - Height, weight, hair color, eye color, shoe size, skin color, manicure?, pedicure?, hair length, eyebrows (V shaped, bushy, pencil thin, etc...), identifying marks, for women: bra size.
• Mental Description - Self centered, egotistical, timid, brash, vengeful, etc...
• Reasons for Mental Description - What happened in life to make them that way.
• Friends - Other characters. Are they major? Minor? Plot changing?
• Relationships - Spouse, kids, parents - with names and nature of relationship.
• Goals - What their ultimate life goal is.
• Career - What they do or want to do.
• Skills - Any skills they may have.
• Magical Powers - For fantasy or paranormal. Can they shoot fire from their asses? Lightning bolts from their eyes? Levitate? See through peoples' clothing?
• Sexual Orientation - Straight, gay, bisexual, etc...
• Fun - What they do to let their hair down.

Again, feel free to add to this list. But if you fill out all of the above for each of your characters, major and minor, you'll have characters that feel real on the page because they're real to you. Fully developed and fleshed out completely.

I hope this helps in some small way.

Is there anything you include that's not on my list? Care to share?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo