Wrym & Reason

Last night I arrested someone for a mental evaluation- all because of voices talking in his head.  I work as a reserve police officer for a local agency. The work often inspires ideas for my writing.  Las night, I just felt fortunate my partners couldn’t see inside my head.

If you are a normal person, multiple voices telling you what to do is a liability.  For us writers, it’s an asset. An author’s voice is something we seek to find and nurture. Well defined character voices enrich a story and provide authenticity. When handled correctly, they are the mark of genius.  When the voices overrun a writer, the story can become a muddled mess and leave an aspiring author stuck in the slush pile. Here are three tips to help you find your characters’ voices, wrestle them into control and use them to improve your story.

Try an in-character journal-  Journals are a personal experience, used to help us capture our thoughts.  When written from a character’s perspective though, they can help us harness a character’s voice, motivations and needs.

One of my favorite character journaling exercises, I learned from Lorin Oberweger, Editor in Residence at the Writers’ Retreat Workshop. She adapted exercises recommended by Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg. Her advice was to sit and free write a journal form a character’s perspective using short prompts such as, “My biggest fear is…”, “If I could only…”, etc. Try this for your protagonist, your antagonist and other special characters.

Write letters from your character’s perspective- My critique partner, recently suggested this to me as I was grappling with a character’s voice. The benefit is that you can see how your character interacts with various people inside their world. This offers insight into how they work and helps you find subtext for your stories.

Allowing yourself to slip inside a character’s head for a few minutes allows your character’s wants and desires to take shape. It can help you find motivation and more importantly help you find their voice.  Once you have these tools, you can control the characters in your story. Use your new knowledge to ramp up tension, increase conflict and make your characters unique and interesting.

Cast your story- Most career best sellers probably don’t have the cash to hire A-List cast to act out your stories, however, we all have an imagination that lets us do this for free.

Actors make their living finding the voices and rhythms and ticks of characters. Put this to use. Though they reprise different roles, you pretty much know what you are getting if you go to a George Clooney or Angelina Jolie flick.  Think of an actor you like that could fit the role and imagine them saying your lines and acting out your scenes. If you’re struggling to find a voice for your character, try imagining who would play the character if you were directing the story as a Hollywood film.

Creating interesting characters with unique voices is one of the many tools that writers must wield to author a compelling story. Writers who create characters with special voices are writers that readers return to again and again.  Understanding how to harness and control the voices inside our heads is a trick that will help get us on the bookshelves and hopefully keep us out of the loony bin.

From time to time, I’ll share bits of my projects. This here is a scene from my current WIP, Napalm Sticks to Kids. This is affectionately known as the tequila bottle scene. I read it at the Writers’ Retreat Workshop last August. I also recently ambushed literary agent Don Maass with this during a recent Fire in Fiction Workshop when he asked for samples. While reading, imagine Don miming out some of the actions described to a room of 150 RWA ladies (and four men). If anyone has video or audio of that, please let me know.

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Thomas woke up hungover. He didn’t remember returning to his dorm. He slipped his arm out from under Becca’s neck and rolled onto the pile of dirty clothes next to his bed.

His mouth felt like he’d chewed on cotton balls all night. He looked around his dorm room for something to drink and spotted bottle with water still in the bottom lying askew on his desk amidst a mess of papers. He picked it up to take a swig, but noticed just in time that it was actually a make-shift bong, assembled in an emergency after breaking his glass one.

Not able to find water, Thomas grabbed the next best thing, a half-full bottle of two-dollar tequila. He unscrewed the cap, took a mouthful and swished it around his teeth and cheeks. He choked it down then followed with another generous sip.

Thomas thought back to the night before, but through his haze, couldn’t recall any real details of what he might have done. He glanced over at Becca, lying in a state of undress that suggested he might have done her.

(more…)

I’m stubborn. It’s not a secret. My mom, my old teachers, coworkers- they all could tell you. Hell, ask my wife. It’s been a common trait all my life.  I’ve worked on it. I realize there is value in listening to advice and changing. Sometimes though, even when I know better it takes awhile to break through my thick skull.

So it goes with my current rewrite. I’ve been struggling with one particular chapter for a couple months. Deep inside, I’ve known all along that there are problems with the chapter. I’ve even received feedback from a crit partner or two telling me something is off.

All along, I’ve known what’s wrong. I didn’t have a foundation in the basics. You see, any scene at its heart needs two things: a character with a goal and something to stand in the way of the goal. Pretty simple, right?

Without this, a story lacks conflict.

Now, I’ve rewritten this scene again and again. I’ve known the root of the problem, but ignored it. I’ve wanted to listen to the positive feedback- there are some funny jokes in the scene, the scene is important for the story. Maybe if I make it funnier and more important, I can justify the scene.

The problem is a writer can’t write a scene just because it’s important for the story. Without conflict, people will skim. Or worse, they’ll put the book down.

So what’s the answer? Well, I could have deleted it. That wouldn’t have been right for the story. The scene did need to take place. I just needed to frame it differently. Put my protagonist in the driver seat. Create some resistance and add some stakes for her.

The result. Well, the scene is out with the abuse…err my critique group, so the jury is still out. It seems much stronger.

I knew what had to be done all along, but for some stupid reason I kept fighting it. One of these days I’ll learn to listen to my instinct and stop being so stubborn. Or maybe I could just do it right the first time.

This s a placeholder post, in order to show the category on the menu bar.  This is my catch all category.  When I feel like ranting, it’ll go here.  Eventually I’d like to start working on short articles that I’ll also post here.