Five Easy Ways to Breathe Life into Your Characters

 This one is for our writers. Gardeners, back with more about summer gardens next time!

If you love to write fiction—be it short stories, novellas, or novels—you need to people your tales with characters. And, if you want readers to flock to your stories, these paper people need to be believable and interesting. So how does a new writer learn to develop characters that rise above flat Dick & Jane figures?

Here are five techniques to get you started. If you use all of these in your storytelling you’ll move your fiction above and beyond the realm of tired clichés.

Make them talk. In real life, people interact by speaking to one another. Characters who live in their own world, rarely interacting with others—you may call them loners—can come across as uninteresting, one-dimensional navel-gazers. Try putting them into situations where they’re forced into conversation with others. Introspection is fine, but when you let characters voice their desires, goals, intent, fears or even threaten each other…they seem so much more real.

Make them move. Today’s fiction is all about creating scenes that readers can visualize. We’ve been trained by the media. We go to the movies, watch TV, spend hours viewing videos on our computers or phones. We expect visual entertainment. If you don’t make your characters run, walk, gesture, eat, throw things, make love and do hundreds of other things to create visual images in the reader’s mind, you’ll have a very small audience for your stories. We need to “see” a story to become engaged in it.

Give them a friend (or enemy). When we observe a person who is acting as if they are in love, worried about another person, being kind to a stranger, or fearful of someone—we know what that feels like. Emotions are universal. We identify with a character through the feelings this person experiences towards others. And when we identify with a fictional character, we become curious and want to find out what happens to them in their story, so we keep turning pages.

Give them a history. Real people don’t just appear out of nowhere on a street, in a house, or at a place of work. They have a past, and their past determines their personality and how they react to situations. Try “interviewing” each of your main characters. Ask them where they grew up. Did they come from a warm, close family…or a troubled childhood? Was religion a part of their upbringing? What did they want to be when they grew up…and what did they actually become? Ask them anything you like. If you write the questions and answers as an exercise, similar to the format of a magazine interview, you’ll gather valuable information that will bring your people to life. Then use what you’ve learned about them to write your story.

Give them a challenge. A hard one. Don’t leave your characters to idly muse over their lives, their troubles. Force them to act. In real life, we are fascinated with people who tackle their problems with gusto. We love stories about the immigrant who came to this country with nothing and built a successful life. We love stories about the “little guy” who, against all odds, beat out the powerful corporate or government figure. Because they act when faced with a challenge, we believe they exist.

Above all, have fun with your characters. If they entertain you, you can be sure they’ll also entertain your readers. 

Want more tips to bump up your fiction? You might enjoy the book inspired by courses Kathryn teaches for The Writer’s Center & Smithsonian Associates in Washington, DC.

 

You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Novelist-No-Time---Write-Drafting/dp/0692420835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471356664&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Extreme+Novelist

What I’ve Learned About Writing While Gardening

I garden at a community plot. One of the advantages of tending my veggie plants in a shared area—there’s nearly always someone else working on their plot at the same time. Because, usually, they are far more experienced then I am, it’s a great opportunity for asking questions and learning something new. Moreover, I find that I can often apply a gardener’s wisdom to other facets of my life. Like writing.

 

My latest lesson involved sweet red peppers. I’ve never succeeded in growing them, but I so love their colorful, crunchy addition to my salads that I keep on trying. This summer, my tomatoes are growing in abundance and baseball-bat-size zucchini magically appear under nearly every leaf. But I’ve again watched helplessly as my pepper plants produce promising green globes that turn mushy and rot on the vine even as they start to ripen. Breaks my heart. <Sob!>

I’ve asked my neighbor gardeners what I’m doing wrong. They shake their heads in sympathy. One says: “Peppers like consistent watering.” Another is more philosophical. “Gardening is an experiment.” A third suggests, “Try putting them in the ground instead of a container.” But I planted in the ground last year; same catastrophic result.

I take away two messages from my failure at pepper growing. Don’t give up—that is, be persistent. And, if one thing doesn’t work, try something different.

What does this have to do with writing novels and short stories for publication? Or with life in general? Everything.

We often believe that, if we have a goal and work hard at it…we should expect to succeed. But in life, as with gardening, events over which we have no control may either enhance or stand in the way of our success.

For peppers, if the soil or weather aren’t right (or disease, vermin, or insects attack the plant), the plants may not develop healthy fruits. I can try to solve the problem, if I ever discover what it is. But I also might be wise to vary my crops in the hope of coming across another vegetable that I can successfully grow with a lot less trauma.

New writers often start out having a vision of a particular story. If that completed novel, novella, or short story doesn’t get snapped up by an agent and immediately sold to a publisher—the author may be tempted to either give up on writing altogether, or spend years agonizing over revisions of the same story. (I hear of this scenario from many of my students and clients who say they can’t move forward with their writing until they get this first book sold, even after working on it for as many as ten years.)

 A senior editor at a major New York publisher once told me that her best advice to novice writers was to, yes, be persistent—work on your craft daily and keep submitting—but experiment with a variety of genres and styles of writing. Because we just don’t know what we’ll be good at. Aside from that, it’s impossible to predict trends or publishers’ buying patterns. What might not sell today could be the hottest property in four years!

So…my thinking is this: I’ll endeavor to find the red pepper-growing technique that works for me, but I’ll also experiment with alternate varieties of peppers and other types of veggies. I’ll find more that I’m good at growing. And, if you’re writing stories but not having much luck getting publishers to notice you, I’d encourage you to continue pursuing publication of that tale that just won’t let go of you. But, every once in a while, experiment with a different genre. Instead of historical fiction, try a contemporary tale. In place of your usual literary style, try your hand at a fast-paced thriller or swoon-worthy romance. Play with a Western or science fiction or frolic in a paranormal world. Let your imagination and talent run free. Time and again, I’ve seen writers surprise themselves when they took a leap of faith and ventured into unexplored literary territory.

Besides, we can’t stand around forever, mourning those rotting peppers or underappreciated stories. We’re gardeners of words. We need to fully cultivate our minds.

Happy writing, all! (And gardening.) Kathryn

Cover Art that Pops!

Whether you read books, write books for traditional publication or to self-publish them, or enjoy doing both--you have probably come to realize that the images on the cover of a book can make an immense difference in the book's initial appeal. Wise authors and publishers put a great deal of thought (and, often, expense) into designing the perfect cover for a book.

What makes good cover art?

In today's publishing world, it's just as important for a cover to appeal to online browsers as it is to look good in a physical bookstore. And since images on websites are often little bigger than postage stamp-size, the cover must be simple, sharply focused, and have impact that's appropriate to the story or contents.

I'm what's called a hybrid author--since I publish some of my novels with large, commercial publishers...and others independently. Regardless of the method of publication, I want the best cover possible. But that doesn't always happen.

Check out this early version of the cover for The Gentleman Poet. It looks appropriately classical, reminiscent of movie posters for Shakespeare's "The Tempest". The stormy blues and grays are a nice dramatic touch. But...when this is reduced to the size that would appear on a book vendor's website, it likely would appear too dark. It wouldn't "pop."

For this reason, HarperCollins, my wise publisher, decided that they needed to go back to the drawing board. Several other versions of the cover ensued. The final art still gave the novel a strong literary feel, with hints of historical fiction. But the vivid colors and crisp imagery worked so much better when viewed on a computer screen.

The artist managed to portray a storm-tossed ship about to wreck off the coast of an unnamed land (it actually is Bermuda) without darkening the scene to the point of muddying the image. The slash of red across the middle of the cover, backing up the title and subtitle, catch the eye. And we even get a slightly cherubic glimpse of the heroine, Elizabeth. Thank goodness for detail-obsessed art departments!

When I decided to self-pub a non-fiction book based on the course that I teach at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, I knew that I had to be very careful about choosing a cover, or it would be lost in the crowd of how-to writing books. Or worse, it might just come off looking amateurish and stupid. So I worked with an experienced freelance cover design artist. We searched for just the right images to match the title and content of the book: The Extreme Novelist.

I wanted to keep the design clean and simple, and still get the rather lengthy descriptive subtitle on the cover. I wanted an image of a writer immersed in their work-in-progress, but not sitting at a desk. What is an "extreme novelist?" A writer who will take their work with them anywhere. Maybe even to the top of a mountain? The idea was to convey that writers who are serious about getting their novels written will make their writing a priority. The book shows even the busiest of people how to become authors who "get the job done."

If you ever find yourself in the enviable position of publishing a book of any kind, do all you can to make sure you have a professional, effective cover--and you will be rewarded with higher interest from readers...and stronger sales. Traditionally published authors often don't have a say in their cover design, but they can let their editors know that they would like input, or at least a look at their covers before the book goes to print. A calm conversation about what seems to be working well, or not, can sometimes mean a second shot at getting just the right cover. And if you are publishing your own books? Invest in a professional cover artist. Many aren't very expensive, and they are worth their weight in gold!

Happy writing (and reading) everyone!   Kathryn

If you like, feel free to check out the two books I've mentioned above. They can be ordered through any independent bookseller or chain bookstore, or found online here, either as a paperback or digital book:

https://www.amazon.com/Gentleman-Poet-Danger-Shakespeares-Tempest/dp/0061965316/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468859325&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Gentleman+Poet

https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Novelist-No-Time-Write-Drafting/dp/0692420835/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JPGQ11TMD8ESJ3A7XB44