Character development writing tips

Creating Characters in Springtime

Spring equinox I’ve forgotten to count the atmospheric rivers that have gushed across the San Francisco Bay Area, but the incredible deluge seems to have sparked a lot of literary ideas for me. When the 50 mph winds are bending trees sideways and sinkholes are appearing in the roads, it’s a subtle hint that you have nowhere better to go than your writing desk. I’ve cradled my laptop many of these dark, rainy mornings. I’m…

Continue reading

Character development character types characters great characters jane friedman writing fiction writing tips

Two Types of Characters in Stories

Can there only be two types of characters in fiction? I’ve read many articles about types of stories, claiming that there are a limited number of stories in existence. I don’t believe it. Not for a second. There are as many stories as there are human beings — and humanity is changing all the time. But when you’re creating a character, a fictional construct perhaps based on a real person, you have to make a…

Continue reading

#amwriting #fiction Character development Characterization novel storytelling Writing

Character Quirks & Little Defining Things or Events

I’m working on a new novel. I know the basic setup: it’s about two half-sisters who clash over inheriting a cottage in Italy, along with its resident ghost, the poet Perch Bysshe Shelley. The setup (hook) has specificity, but a story that can fill a novel drills down into such granular particularity you find yourself imagining exactly how each character walks, eats, where they carry their stuff, which kind of pillow they prefer, and whether…

Continue reading

#amwriting #fiction Character development equality female characters feminism video poetry woman president

Strong Female Characters and America’s First Woman Nominated for President

It’s official. History made. Glass ceiling — well, not if shattered, a network of cracks so numerous and widespread you know whose head is going through it soon. America may well have — at last — our first female president. So how has literature responded to the new world that presidential campaigns seem to indicate is approaching, a world of equality for women? Last year, complex and unlikeable but interesting female characters led the NYT…

Continue reading

Character development conversation gratitude mindfulness neuroscience novel novel writing prayer

Your Protagonist’s Thought Patterns

Emotion is important in fiction, but thought and will are also a huge component of character and character development. You can identify with a character’s thoughts and decisions when she’s under stress. One of life’s pleasurable but stressful activities is travel. Since my novel’s main character is on a three-week, intensive tour of Renaissance Italy, stress is a given. May Gold combats it through her Gratitude Practice. I gave May this habit of enumerating things…

Continue reading

Character development Italy novel novel writing

Writing My Character’s Future Life

Photo: Nadya Phillips, Venice 2015 In writing a novel or story a writer gives lots of thought to what happened to the main character before she or he arrived at the beginning of the tale, but have we considered where she goes after the ending? If you’re contemplating a sequel or a series, it’s a natural question. But how to begin to answer? J.K. Rowling planned not only her characters’ arcs, but their futures beyond…

Continue reading

birds birdsong Character development poetry

For the Birds

“Hope is the thing with feathers” led me in an interesting direction: a series of poems with birds in them. Inspired in part by Emily Dickinson’s interest in birds and her many bird poems–which I found collected in a book called A Spicing of Birds –I wrote a series to decipher the messages I hear in the silver clamor of morning and evening birdsong. One poem, “Year Year I First Heard Birdsong”, found its way…

Continue reading