Characters (Part II)

I'm back with more ways to develop a character. If you need a refresher go back to "Characters (Part I)." Anyway, great characters are characters who have quirks, itches, motivations, and so on and so forth. Here is some questions that will bring your characters to life.

Distinctive speech patterns can mark a character as... well... distinctive. Marilyn Monroe, for example, talks in a breathy, superficial way; or Robin Williams, he talks in a manicfasthardtocatchallhiswords kind of way. So, when developing your character's speech patterns, here are some questions to ask:

Does your character speak formally or informally (diction, structure, etc.)?

Does your character cuss?

Are there distinctive phrases your character uses? A phrase (maybe one or two or three different phrases) that they use over and over again that marks them and their nature.

Does your character use regionalisms, slang, jargon, etc. (i.e. "ain't"). Do they speak in a way typical of the area they live in or the profession they are in?

Are there typical sentence structures (i.e. a series of fragments, never actually finishes sentences, etc.)?

Your character's speech pattern should fit their personality (and their personality should fit their speech pattern). All the exteriors should line up and not contradict each other. (If you remember, I go into more depth about "exteriors" in Part I.)

I hope this helps develop those life-like characters; I know it helps me. And as always, these are mere suggestions, tools in a writer's toolbox. These are not a checklist where you include (A), (B), and (C), and voila; it doesn't work like that. No. Instead, you use what is helpful for you--the writer.

Stay tuned for Characters (Part III)... I know, real creative.

Writer's Retreat

Hello! I just got back from a writers retreat where plenty of writing, plenty of writing contests, plenty of writing exercises, and plenty of discussions on writing all took place. It was a community of writers just hanging out and writing. Now, if you are not into writing, I know that doesn't sound like much fun; but let me tell, it was.

One of the main writing prompts was that we had to use one of the following three sentences (for our first sentence of our short story), and the chosen line cannot be altered in any way:

1. Rachel's first trip to England didn't go as planned.
2. A light snow was falling as Charlie Reardon left the diner and made his way down Madison Street.
3. Sometimes, when it's quiet, I can remember what my life was like before moving to Cedar Springs.

I chose sentence (1). Here is the beginning of my short story that I am writing based on the prompt:

Rachel's first trip to England didn't go as planned. Just like the second didn't go as planned, nor the third. Come to think of it, Rachel couldn't remember anytime when things went according to plan at England: Family Diner in Boise, Idaho. And this time--her fourth time, with her fifth-grade class--was no exception.


"Class," said Rachel, "we will be sitting in the corner booth seats." She extended her arm towards four turquoise vinyl seats. And then she led her class from the front door; past the regulars, grumbling about those damn kids; past Laverne, the fifty-something, raspy voiced waitress with too much purple eye shadow and deep-red lipstick; and into the booth seats. 

Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL)

Hello. So maybe some of you are wondering how my short stories are doing. Well, like I have expected, they don't draw much attention to themselves. Murder on Laodicea Street and The Awake are Dead are my only two stories that I have self-published on Amazon's Kindle Library.

Roughly, I average selling 1.5 stories a day (that is like 50 cents a day!). Some days I get no sales, and I rank in the 200,000s on the best-seller lists. Other days I'll get three sales and rank #40,000.

But, the main reason I am writing this post is because I have some pretty cool news. Well... at least I think it is cool. Yesterday (2-29-2012), I got my first "borrow." A borrow is when a Amazon Prime Member picks up your book for free. They don't have to pay the 99-cent book price; I don't get the 35-cent royalty.

But wait, there's more!

This is really cool for me because per every "borrow" I make roughly $1.50. Pretty neat, huh? That's one-dollar-and-fifty-cents that I get to keep all of.

So yes, ideally I'd prefer if I got 1.5 borrows a day. But either way, it is a lot fun having people read your work, your writing.