Facebook – and Chandler’s Ford Today
My post for Chandler’s Ford Today this week is a review of three different plays staged in one production by The Chameleon Theatre Group. There was Oh What a Lovers’ War (set against the background of August 1914), The Dreaming (a surreal play), and Pina Coladas (a mystery). All were very good and I loved the mixture of plays. More details and pics in the post. Well done to the Chameleons for a great evening.
Image Credit: Many thanks to the Chameleons, especially Lionel Elliott, for kind permission to use the images, which were taken by them.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
There will be a new flash fiction piece from me up on Cafelit tomorrow (sometime during the early evening onwards) called Getting Lost. Must try and enter more flash fiction competitions this year too.
I tend to draft promising first lines and then draft stories to fit them (often when on train journeys). It definitely beats doing the crossword by a very long margin! Often that promising first line sparks ideas for the title of the piece too.
How do I decide whether a story will be a drabble at 100 words or a longer one? Basically when I know I cannot edit the piece any more without it losing something that contributes to the characters or the overall story. I then leave the piece be and whatever the word count is remains the word count! Often this will be at 100 words or under but sometimes a piece really does work better as a 250-300 worder. This is where reading a piece out loud can show you how well the whole thing “flows” and if it “flows” well, that is when it is time to drop the editing pen.
Fairytales with Bite – Describing Your Characters
If you were asked to talk about your characters, how would you describe them (and without sending whoever questioned you to sleep!)?
I like to start with traits – for example, Eileen is brave, resourceful, and rebellious. Those three words alone give you a good starting point for portraying Eileen. Getting your characterisation right is everything in getting the story right (and therefore give it much more chance of being accepted somewhere). A good plot needs great characters to make it work.
It is useful to outline a character whether you put all you detail into a story or not. (The likelihood is you wouldn’t. I know I need to know this and that about a character, your readers might only to know “this”). However, outlining a character gives you all the information you need to work out what kind of story they would be in, how they would handle a situation (or mishandle it), and what their “happy ever after” ending is likely to be. It is then up to you if they achieve it! (Great stories can be found in a character attempting to get to this point but never quite making it so they have to adjust their “happy ever after” for something more sustainable over the long term. I guess this is where the “happy for now” endings, especially in romance novels, comes from).
I’ve found it does pay to take time outlining. I find when ready to write the story itself, I write it quicker because I’ve already got the “building blocks” in place ready to go with my tale.
This World and Others – Ten Things a Great Character Must Have
1. A sense of purpose – whether they’re the hero or villain.
2. Determination (without it, there’s no chance of fulfilling their purpose).
3. A worthy opponent. (Sherlock Holmes is wonderful but Moriarty challenged him and Holmes needed that challenge. Your leads need those who will get in their way, try to thwart their plans etc. That’s where the story comes alive).
4. A cause worth supporting (even if they are the only ones supporting it! Not quite the same as 1 above as a character can have a sense of purpose even without a cause. The great sidekicks in literature are often like this. Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings saw his cause as being supporting Frodo. It was Frodo who really had the sense of purpose and Sam didn’t always understand Frodo’s “intensity”, Frodo had both the sense of purpose in that he had a job to do no matter what, which was at one and the same time also a cause worth supporting).
5. Courage. This comes into it somewhere in the story. It has to. The kind of courage can vary from the obvious courage in battle to the quieter kind where someone will keep going to support someone no matter what the hellish circumstances.
6. The ability to ask for help. Not every character has this. Recognising you need help and the best people to give it shows humility and pragmatism (as the character comes to terms with knowing they need help if they are going to fulfil their objective at all).
7. A mentor/adviser. This ties in with 6. A great character is going to need guidance to help them meet their goal and knows who to get that guidance from.
8. The ability to get on with most characters. This ties in with 6 and 7. Nobody is going to want to guide or assist a character who is arrogant or overbearing.
9. Planning. The character must work out how they’re going to meet their commitments and then just get on with it.
10 . A cool head. Given the undoubtedly hellish situations, you are going to put your character through, they will still need a cool head to face down those challenges and press on towards their goal.
Allison Symes: Collected Works 