If you are not of a geeky persuasion and/or have no appreciation for popular culture, you probably won’t appreciate this. But if you know who Pavel Chekov is, then I hope you like and enjoy.
I made a series of geeky to-do / check-off lists for you. I call them…
wait for it…
the CHEKOV LIST. Continue reading
These character packets will help you organize your characters’ traits in one central location.
Have you ever written a character who had short, lustrous hair in chapter one and frizzy ankle-length hair in chapter fifteen? Okay, maybe not. But perhaps your character had gray eyes in one chapter and green ones in another. Or maybe his or her last name changes halfway through the book.
Collect all of your information together with these worksheets in lieu of scraps of paper and sticky-notes all over your office, kitchen, computer, and sister’s house. Continue reading
This is Part Two in the Write, Edit, Repeat Character Series.
Backstory is whatever happened to the characters before the story starts. It’s the stuff that the writer knows (or discovers), but what doesn’t show up in the story that the reader is reading.
Backstory is the reason we have Pottermore. Rowling had so much backstory that she could make an entire interactive experience for her readers out of it. An obsessive fan base and millions of dollars to create it doesn’t hurt.
Anyway, the most logical visual for backstory is an iceberg. All the stuff under water might be interesting, in fact, it might be really really good. But if it isn’t absolutely necessary to drive the story forward, then it doesn’t need to appear above water, in the finished piece. Continue reading
Last week I gave you a little “quiz” to use to figure out the Myers-Briggs of you or your characters.
This week I am giving you another little helpful chart about eight divisions of the MBTI types. As before, please see the official Myers-Briggs page here, or read more about typing on blogs dedicated to typing. Again, these are my favorites: Which MBTI Type… and MBTI Types.
Below you will find a downloadable reference I created for the sixteen MBTI types divided into eight groups of two. I gave examples of fictional characters that, I think, embody those types. In real life, people are complex and may not fit neatly into one of the divisions. (I certainly don’t.) Fiction imitates life, so well-written characters are pretty complex, too. See my note about Hermione Granger following the images. Continue reading
Lara Willard 