How to Create Characters for Your Character-Driven Novel - C. Patrick Schulze – Author of "Born To Be Brothers"

I suffer insecurities. I come from a long line of Obssessive Compulsives who never found the 'just right' anything. It took me most of my life to realize that it was not me who was not 'good enough' it was everything. One thing I constantly work on is to improve my sense of self-worth.

My daughter, who has evaded these OC's problems, works on my reassurance too. She is one of my beta-editors and she will tell me honestly, when I have missed the mark in my writing.

The very first opening was so much better than any of the successive five
openings. Quit changing it and move on.

That makes it so much easier to beleive when she says, "It's great the way it is."

Since she is busy with her two teaching jobs, one a math and science public academy sixth grade class for the gifted, and three evening classes for a University and then there is Notre Dame in the summer, I try not to bother her too much.

So, last night, when I was wondering if I did not have to re-write my protagonist, I googled him. You know, there is that 'if you Google it they will come" thing going. And, I came across C. Patrick Schulze's article on Creating Characters for your Character-driven novel. And, trust me, they all should be character driven.

Check it out at: How to Create Characters for Your Character-Driven Novel - C. Patrick Schulze – Author of "Born To Be Brothers" It's a great article.

Query day and Madness

Now that the manuscript for Moon Tree Brothers is complete, revised, edited and it's logline is done, it is time to work on my Query letter.

First, never think your logline is done. None of these submission documents are ever "done". They are just complete until you look up the next agent and see what they like and then you can emphasis the things in your novel that "the current submitting to agent" likes.

I think that makes it a bit easier to write them. It's like having an assignment in school and knowing that the teacher is really fond of (gosh, all I can think of here is chocolate), well that would work if chocolate is in your book, so okay, you emphasis the chocolate instead of the spaghetti this time around. But, you still need an original really good synopsis, query, etc to work from.

Late last night I came up with a good way to do it. Well, I didn't http://marcussakey.com/articles_querygoround.php did. Sorry it's not linking right, just Google Marcus Sakey. One of my book loves is mystery and I have turned to Marcus Sakey to figure out this Query in simple terms. "Just the facts, Ma'am."

Summing up your newly finished beloved baby in 3-5 lines is not easy. He says to "focus on the drama and the stakes and leave out the minor characters"...themes/complications. Check out his article if this is not clear enough for you. It seemed clear at 2am. But, I am tired now, from being up that late so nothing is seemingly clear.

The point of the Query, he says, "Just show them you know how to tell a story." Now, that is simple. I have also seen it described as sitting down to tell your manuscript as a short bedtime story. After all, that is what we are selling: We are great storytellers!

That said, I love Madness. Book two , Moon Tree Madness, is going well. I may have mentioned it already but I had this great idea for a character based on Dawn French. She just seems to flow from my fingers. I usually "cast" my characters early on. Even if it is a photo from a magazine of someone I have no idea who they are, I seem to see something in their face that makes them come alive for me.

So, I'm off to finish my basic query, so that I can get back to Madness. Have a great day.

On To: Text to Speech

I have spent a couple of weeks polishing up my character charts. People change and grow and so had some of my characters. I have them all printed out and put in a binder and can now refer to them as I go through the book again. I will be looking for inconsistencies, this time around. However, I also made changes in the book as I was redoing my character charts.

When I found out something about my character, that I thought was important to change or add in the book, as I redid their chart, I did a Word find for their name and made corrections and/or additions in some of the spots where that character appears.

I use the find feature in Word, or find and replace, constantly. One way I use it is with asterisks. Since my book does not have asterisks in it, it is a character that I can use to mark a spot I want to go back to. And, since I now have my whole book in one Word document, it has been a real timesaver way to mark these spots and also where I left off last and wanted to return to.

Today, I started, what I hope will get me nearer to sending the book out. I am listening to the book, using my “Text to speech” feature. I highlight blocks of text and then listen to it without really looking at the text. My mind can concentrate on how it sounds and it also picks out mistakes.

One of the simple mistakes, that I had not caught in umpteen readings, was:

“In between his own yells hear he could hear Joseph yelling.”

I have to wonder how I could have read that and missed it, but our eyes/minds see what we expect to see, and I apparently knew the word "hear" should not be there. An Editor or Agent is not going to see what they expect. They do not have expectations on what is happening next (Well, we hope they do not, as you want to surprise them) so they will read it and read that extra “hear” and it will slow them down. Too many of these spots and you will lose them.

If you do not have text to speech on your computer, you can always set your book aside for a couple of weeks and then read it aloud. Having someone else read it aloud is good too.

Three days, and counting, on Character Charts

I started off with a story idea and then I had about three versions of character charts to combine and fill out for my characters. And, you know what?

After writing for years on this book and being nearly done, these guys are not all who I thought they were. Frankly, I think there is some identity crisis' going on here. Some of these guys are not even the same race any more.

So, I have spent maybe four days, my head is buzzing and I do not even remember anymore, redoing character charts. I hope to finish up today (the best laid plans, she reminded herself).

I am not sure anyone would recommend my thoroughly backward way of writing a book, but it's me. I do not outline, I write. I decide who I want in there and I write. They tell me they are not who I thought they were and I write.

It's exciting, really!

Characters, names, stupidity and Cultural Diversity

I’m going along just fine. Going over the end of the book for an edit and then along comes Master’s Daughter with a question. Well, a comment really. She’s my eyes and ears on the youth and little things that just seem to go right over my head, like a character with the name of Dama Gazelle.

Okay, it’s a fantasy, just accept the name. But, Master’s Daughter points out to me that the children are going to be calling her, “Damn a Gazelle.” Gee, duh, I never thought of that. Therein leads to days, the last three at least, of going over the names I have.

And, as long as I am doing that, I have some cultural diversity but not as much as I would like. One thing leads to another and, I have to admit, it just makes the book that much better. Of course, at this rate, I may be seventy by the time I am done.

Writing Dreams

I have worked on my current book for almost three years now. Since I have vibrantly realistic dreams, I find it odd that I have not dreamed anything for my book.

I have spent hours searching for the perfect name for some of my characters. (Be patient. I will link these two paragraphs in a minute) I was reading Pollyanna and the Random Weirdness of Baby Names « Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom's blog on the Random Weirdness of Baby Names and came across several potentially interesting sites for name generators.

I had to try the Harry Potter name generator Rum and Monkey: The Name Generator Generator, just because I love Harry Potter. But, alas, I turned out to be Hermione. Just between you and me, I think all women turn out to be Hermione. (Personally, I think all women must turn out to be Hermione in this exercise.) I may have been like Hermione in many ways when I was ten, but I am far from her now.

(The connection with those paragraphs will happen now. Just in case you do not get it.) That night, I dreamed I was Hermione and in a huge house and it did tend to go on and on pointlessly. Much as this blog is beginning to do.

Here's the thing. I have had dreams about Nicholas Cage about six times. I have dreamt about the Harry Potter world numerous times. I have actually had several dreams that were in the range of foretelling. But, I cannot get myself to have a dream about my book. Even though it is often the last thing I do, read, and think about.

I am just thankful I did not dream about my Indie Band Name:Rum and Monkey: The Name Generator Generator Silver Alligator Strange Castle.

Text to Speech reads my book

When no one is home, I will often read my story out loud to myself. It is really one of the best ways to test your writing. However, there are still those times when I will read what I am expecting to read and not catch the little mistakes that are there. Text to Speech, on your computer helps catch it all.

When others are here and the tv is blaring, I use Text to Speech in my Windows XP, to read my story to me. And, I know those of you with VISTA have this feature also as it is about the only thing in VISTA that actually works. JRockGuitarMan, youngest boy, has a writing disability and uses it to dictate his papers. You can go into Control Panel and set the speed at which he reads, and sometimes it is spooky.

I swear I have caught Text to Speech putting emotion in that was not accounted for by the punctuation. It has also, I swear, added a Scottish accent to one of my characters. Now, I did use “ye be going” type of speech but I only alter a few of the words because I do not like it when a lot of foreign speech is inserted in a book, but this little machine voice started speaking this characters work with an accent. Okay, so maybe it was late at night, but I swear it's true.

In any event, hearing your writing read aloud should be part of your final line edit. You need to listen to each sentence and analyze whether you have written the most visual sentence you can or is there a better way to say it; to keep your reader in your world. Remember, each and every sentence counts.

Are there real people in your book?

I am sorry, that I have been gone so long from blogging. I have had a touch of the flu here, as well as working with my camera (it is fairly new). I need to really have it down as I am taking wedding pictures, for my niece, in two weeks. I did her mother's wedding photos, oh so long ago.

But, back to the book, I wonder how you 'see' your characters.

Are your characters based on real people?

My book is set in a fantasy world but I definitely use real people for inspiration. Sometimes it’s just a face in a magazine, sometimes an actor and occasionally, I am inspired by someone I know.

As a portrait artist and some-time doll maker, I have always collected photos of interesting faces. I search through this file for faces that say they belong to my character. Usually, already have a good solid description of their character first and use the picture to make them come alive for me. I am a visual person.

One character in my Middle Grade novel, was giving me trouble. I had a description, but for some reason I just could not “see” him. He was a wooden character; without a personality. I decided it was time to find his face.

Nothing in my file fit, nothing spoke to me. It was a voice that finally did it. And, readers of my personal blog Savanvleck’s Weblog have my permission to start laughing, but this is how it happened.

I was watching that extra disc of information that they put in the Lord of the Rings I and III, and other, movies. I was making some notes and not watching it really, just listening and I heard my character speak. I looked up to see they were interviewing Viggo Mortensen. His every day, non-acting voice, was the voice was my character. It was the first time I had heard his calming tone and my charcter came alive and said, "This is who I am." I finally found “the” face.

The really odd thing was that when I went into my character charts to see if I needed to update his description, the only thing I had to change was his eye color.

I almost always have a picture for my character, even if it is a sketch, and a lot of the personality quirks of my three protagonists fit the three boys in my house; obviously real people. Which, is not surprising as they were the inspiration for the story and, in some ways, it is their story.

In the Nick of Time - Before the End

Writing is my life saver. It keeps me sane and maybe it keeps me from packing a bag with my camera, sketchpad and pencils and hitting the road too. So, when my writing is not going as planned, it is really nice to find the perfect answer to the current problem.

I have said before, you need to be “open” to ideas to learn from them and for one to strike just the right note. This has been achieved, yet again, in an article by Cheryl Klein, in her blog Brooklyn Arden and in a speech she gave at the Terminus 2008 Potter Conference in Chicago, Illinois. It is also posted on-line at A Few Things Writers Can Learn from Harry Potter and I thank, Ms. Klein, a thousand times over, for all of the help she has, unknowingly, given me over this past two year period.

Unlike other writing sites, which tell you that you MUST do this and you CANNOT do that, Ms. Klein tells you what is so fantastic about a multi-million dollar book and how to do it in your own way.

Then, she gives you approval, where all the other’s will tell what not to do, she tells you to write what you need to write. Do not write to the market. Write to please yourself first. You are a reader after all, or you would not be here.

So, if you want to know what is so good about a book opening, or how to make your reader fall in love with your characters, or why a YA novel can have an adult theme and how to do it, spend a day or, as I have, two years reading her advice.

I just needed a refresher, to remind me where I am going and what step I need to take now to get there. She puts theme and writer’s voice and plotting into perspective for me and so, now, I shall return to my writing.

I will take my first draft, with its multiple edits done already and I will outline the other four books of my proposed series, because how can I know how to end this book (my latest struggle) if I only have a vague idea of where this journey will take me?

Make your Character Come Alive

I have charts for all my characters. Okay, not all of them yet, but the ones who live in my first book. I have five books planned for this story. I have three, CO-Protagonists. They are brothers. The youngest, Alexander, is the main protagonist for the first book and the series. His two brothers each take turns at playing a larger role in some of the books than others.

As always, I searched books and the internet for character development ideas. I started out with one idea after another s to a list of questions that needs to be answered. I have come to the conclusion that, as with most things, I must work with a chart/list that works for me. Each of my characters usually has several items in their chart that another character might not have. The reason is that I need something different from each one of them.

I have approximately forty character charts filled out for this book. Some are minor "one-line type of characters." The charts are in varying degrees of completeness and I was hoping to copy one into this post but the chart itself did not show up. Below, is basically my chart, sans chart, for a character named Cecil Wurtzel. He is a friend to my protagonist and takes a pivotal role in the series.

Italics are my comments to you

SD 3 CECIL WURTZEL == ASK Why Everything (This is a reminder to myself)

Cecil believes in his fear and self-consciousness. He is a good friend and a good person but he doesn’t realize it. He has no self-confidence. He stands by his friends, only finally accomplishing his tasks when a friend is in need.

Name: Cecil Wurtzel: Cecil=blind -- Wurtzel= beaten (I like word meanings)
JOB IN STORY= Kindness, gentleness, forgiving, vulnerable, Friend to Alexander and Emily
Favorite Saying =“Oh Man —!” usually when he spills his milk (This is a trait shared with my brother, who spilt his milk every single dinner.)
Appearance = Short of stature. He is self-conscious about the burns on his arms and scars on his chest. These add to his uncertainty of his worth.
Behavior = spills milk, tips chairs due to a nervousness about how he will be treated/received
Traits: = He is extremely intelligent and well read. This comes from his hiding in books.
He is also fearful, tense, feels worthless, embarrassed, and lacks confidence
How does he change? = He helps Alexander with knowledge and Alexander gives him confidence by showing him how easy it is to not be afraid of living. Not being afraid of jumping in water or climbing tall trees comes naturally to Alex. Book learning does not, but is easy for Cecil.

As their friendship develops, Cecil learns that you must give people a chance and that most of them will not hurt you.

What does he want = Not to be afraid
What or who is standing in his way? = His own fear.
How does this location affect him?= He is at home here, but has never forgotten the myth he has built up of his mother, nor the abuse by his father.
What shaped his view of world? = Mother died when he was three. Father turned to drink and began burning him with cigarettes and abusing him when drunk.

NOTE TO MYSELF: Ragged Red Fiber is what disease sounds like that causes people to appear or be clumsy - I'm not sure if I will use that in the book at all. But, if I need that information, I know where to find it.

There are a lot of really good character chart ideas on the net and in books. Look at all of them and start with what seems the most complete to you. Then you can pick what you need to develop your character. Just remember, he must have strengths and frailties. He has to have a past and a future. He has to become as real to your world as you are to this one.