Category: characterization
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Friday’s Findings: Storytelling Tips and Techniques
Got an extra Audible credit you want to use? Looking to take a creative writing class? Then I recommend Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques. This is part of The Great Courses Series on Audible. James Hynes, a writing professor and novelist, narrates this 24 lecture course on writing novels and short stories. I…
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Friday’s Findings: Discovering Flannery O’Connor
A couple months ago, my supervisor came into the office excited about a movie being filmed in town. Ethan Hawke had been spotted by the local paper at various locations: the zoo, Old Louisville, and nearby small towns. “He’s filming and directing a movie about Flannery O’Connor,” my boss exclaimed. She loves O’Connor’s short stories.…
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Writing Experiment: Personality Test For Characters
Kieren Westwood runs a writing channel on YouTube. Recently, he revealed he used the 16 Personalities website, and took the personality test. But he didn’t take it as himself. He took it as if he were one of his characters. He recommended doing this for a simple analysis of a character’s personality. I’ve been thinking…
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Don’t Be Afraid to Make Your Character Flawed
Your protagonist and all your other characters don’t need to be perfect. They should have problems, bad habits and insecurities. Don’t worry that your readers won’t like them because this will make them seem more realistic. See more writing tips at Janice Hardy’s blog. Photo by Ron Lach
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Friday’s Findings: Doing Voice Journals
This week I’ve been doing voice journals for my characters as I reach the midpoint of Camp NaNoWriMo. I first read about this practice in James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers. This week I’ve read a few online articles on the subject. I’ve capsulated the main concepts of doing voice journals for…
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What a Mess!
After thirty days of writing over fifty thousand words, what do I have to show? An incoherent mess of scraps of conversations, descriptions and exposition. It’s a mess. And that’s what makes my 2021 NaNoWriMo a success. The story is there, told all the way through. I just have to rework it and rework it.…
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Friday’s Findings: The Story on Two Levels
I believe I’ve quoted this fiction writing axiom before, but Terry Pratchett said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” With this year’s NaNoWriMo, I’m finding out how true this is. I’m feeling exactly what he was talking about. I spent September and October prepping my story. I made up characters. I…
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NaNo Update
Just a quick update on my NaNoWriMo project. Over the weekend I reached 30k words, which was my goal. I’m pleased with how it’s going, but, of course, NaNo is about just getting it down on paper (or on the computer). Some things going well: I’ve written something for every scene in the story. Sometimes…
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Friday’s Findings
From last Monday: I’m on “staycation” this week. As far as my writing, here are some things I promise myself to do with my extra time this week: For NaNoWriMo next month, I promise to do practice writing sprints every day. I will work on my current WIPs. Also for NaNo, I will further develop…
Andrew M. Friday 