If you read a book or watch a movie, and you’ve learned even a little about GMC, then you can figure out a character’s GMC… If you read the biography, you can clearly see where I found these goals and motivations. But, let me say this: these could be better. Analysis below.Read More →
I think I opened one hell of a can of worms when I offered to post one of my sample biographies last week. Three hours later, I’ve done the prep work and I’m ready to post. The biography I’m including today is for a secondary character in the manuscript I’m working on now. Because I wanted to make comments so you could see my process, I typed it into MS Word, used the Review>Comment button to add info along the right side (in pretty blue bubbles) and, occasionally, in the text itself (but also in blue). You can download the PDF here* and itRead More →
I wanted to work on GMC for my secondary characters. I’d already written maybe fifty pages of info and backstory on my main characters. But, I couldn’t figure out what my secondary characters wanted. Why did my villain steal? From charity money to build a facility for children? I read somewhere, and strongly believe, a character can do anything as long as they have good and truthful motivation. This was a big deal to me. And I had five secondary characters to do this with. They mattered. They needed their own stories, at least in their minds. Yeah, I know, that sounds weird.Read More →
So, I’ve had my cards a week now. First impressions: the cards I chose (the Vanessa Tarot) are small. I was expecting big and… important. But they’re small, like regular playing cards. But once I had them out, handling them, shuffling them–I didn’t mind the size so much. Using the tarot was both harder and easier than I expected. At once, cards that called to me, that spoke to who my characters were and what I knew of them, made their way into the spread. I’ll just give you some samples, since I wrote all of my cards (and impressions) down. Character: The three ofRead More →
So, I needed some creative inspiration. I keep coming back to these characters. Their story stalled on me. It lacked direction, I think. But the characters. I love these characters. Then, a series of blog posts came across my computer, on Tarot cards and writing from Raelyn Barclay (@raelynbarclay on Twitter). I remembered a Material Girl post I did, years ago, about using Tarot cards to help write. I’d even picked out the deck I wanted (which is good, I’d never have remembered after this long). I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I checked out the cards again and they’re just beautiful.Read More →
I learned a few years ago, when I lost an entire weekend to the time-suck that was Seasons 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy, if you watch a television series in order, for at least a season, you can actually learn a lot. A season of television (good television, anyway) has story structure, character arc, and escalating conflict. Think about it. You get 22-25 or so episodes in a season of (most) TV shows. A season is structured to introduce the season’s conflict, build the tension, tie up the plot in a nice bow, and introduce next season’s story question. An episode does the sameRead More →
To me, especially when writing romance (which, I do), the two main characters have broken places*. It’s not that they couldn’t get past what’s dug in deep or that they’re incapable of healthy relationships. It’s that, just like in real life, we sometimes make bad choices when it comes to who we date and those bad choices can often be seen through a filter of our experiences. I know people can grow into their thirties, forties, fifties or older before finding what makes them choose people who are wrong for them.
In romance, to me, it’s about coming upon this person who is actually a perfect fit. Not perfect. Perfect is dull. But perfect for the character. And then it comes down to this push-pull that they’re just right because of how they not only soothe, but embrace, the broken places except the character isn’t ready yet because they need to grow. Need to arc, if you will.Read More →
I read a post a few days ago. It’s not the one linked below, because I had Kindle Klipped it to myself and read it there. In fact, I can’t track it down at all, because a Google of “brainstorming 100” comes up with lots of posts from different sites. It didn’t even hit me that much when I read it, except to say, “Hmm. That idea doesn’t suck.” But then I started reading a novel and, while trying to go to sleep, began looking for the GMC in that book. I was impressed to realize that while the hero’s GMC is obvious from the beginning, theRead More →
There are approximately a billion ways to create a character. A lot of people use character worksheets or questionnaires. I do not use these. I will be brave enough to admit that one of those reasons is because I never spell questionnaire correctly on the first go. That alone puts me off them. But, really, they just don’t work for me. I have a few personal tricks for developing* a character. I usually, but not always, start with an idea of what they look like using pictures of actual people. If it’s not there from the beginning, it comes quickly. Once upon a time, IRead More →
And the birds sang, the trees swayed happily, and I was free. Free to spend as long as I needed filling in character, backstory, synopsizing scenes, and outlining. I have this from very reliable sources. I recently took a Write It Forward workshop from Bob Mayer (on Twitter @Bob_Mayer) on Plot and Outline. He says: Failing to do this essential background work sabotages the story before you type your first word and becomes very apparent to readers as they progress in your work. (Truly, this workshop was chock full of empowering, on-target info. It would be worth the money to invest in one of the WriteRead More →
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