Sorry will be a condensed round up as some mobile apps are proving to be not that mobile!
Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford
Busy night tonight. I look at What I Value Most in my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. See http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/what-you-value-most/
A huge thank you to Patricia M Osborne for putting my 100-words story Views on her blog. See https://patriciamosbornewriter.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/challenge-write-a-story-in-less-than-one-hundred-words-2/
It’s also lovely to give a shout out to Paula Readman and her For Writers Only, who write without Fear of Rejection Facebook group for also putting the word out about Views earlier. As a certain supermarket would say, “every little bit helps”.
The generally mutual support within the writing community is the thing I love most about it.
https://www.facebook.com/501180463318271/posts/1761831773919794/?app=fbl
Sorry above link will take you to my author FB post for 15th May 2019. I’ve been pleased with how much I have been able to blog etc while on the move, but I haven’t got it right completely!
Lovely day spent on Dunnet beach. Lady had a fab time. The sheer expanse is amazing. You really have got away from it all up here, which leads me to wonder what do your characters do to escape the everyday toil and struggle? What are their interests and how did they develop these?
When adventure comes their way, do they have to abandon all of this or can their escape options help them cope with the unexpected?
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Making the most of the wonderful views in the far north of Scotland on a gorgeous sunny evening. I’ve been writing posts using natural light up to 10/10.30 pm. Give it a month here and you can add an hour to that.
You get to see the moon rising on one side of the hills here while the sun is setting on the other side. It’s almost as if the moon wants to usher the sun off the stage and it is not ready to go!
Talking of which, when can you tell if your characters are ready to go on the page/screen? Do you need to know every little detail about them first?
The good news there is no but you do need to know enough about them so you can work out how they would act and react in most circumstances. That still gives room for them to surprise you but that surprise should come out of some aspect of their personality which you’ve not written in the story but which you know they could be capable of when pushed too far.
For example, you know Character A is placid usually but gets riled when injustice rears its ugly head. In your story, they suddenly face injustice and throw a vase against a wall, startling whoever they’re with at the time (especially if they just miss them!). You know that capacity is there. It will be just how angrily they react which is where the surprise will be.
It’s funny how odd moments can inspire stories. Today I discovered Lady thought slowworms were a kind of wriggly stick she could either play with or eat! Not to worry. No slowworms were harmed and I just need to keep Lady away from them.
I suspect there could be comic potential here! I also have forewarning of how she is likely to be towards grass snakes! Now the obvious story here would be from the viewpoint of a dog owner, the dog, or even the slowworm (“good grief, what was that monstrous thing?). But there is a bigger well to drain from here based on the theme of unexpected discoveries and there should be plenty of story ideas there.
Pushing your characters to breaking point is fun! Hey, nobody said writers had to be nice, did they?
The fun comes in as you find out just what your people are made of. Do they have a core of granite or one of melted jelly? Once you know, how can you bring that into your story to increase the drama?
Conflict, the lifeblood of all storytelling, doesn’t just have to be about external clashes after all.
Fairytales With Bite
CHARACTER VALUES
In my CFT post this week, I’ve looked at what I value most. It won’t come as a huge surprise to know I’ve included family, friends, and literacy in this, amongst other important things.
What is it that your characters value most? As with me, it is highly unlikely to be just one thing, but you should be able to deduce which your characters would fight for and which they wouldn’t. It should also be apparent why they would feel this way.
It can be useful information for an enemy, of course. What can they use against your heroes here? What does the enemy value that could be used against them? (It’s never a one-way street in fiction but you can exploit that).
See this as an invaluable part of an outline and have fun working out how you can use a character’s values to strengthen their portrayal and against them to generate conflict.
This World
POINTER CHECKLIST
Hope you find the following useful. The following list is a guide to checking if your created world makes sense to a reader.
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Can a reader picture your world in their imagination?
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Can a reader identify with your characters? They don’t have to like them though!
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Does your world have a system of government that makes sense to your reader? Someone has to be in charge. Your characters should know who they would be answerable to!
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How do your characters survive on a daily basis? They will have to eat, drink, breath, excrete, reproduce, and die (unless they’re immortals of course but could anything threaten that?).
By ensuring you can answer these points, you will have a functioning created world of your own.
Allison Symes: Collected Works 