Category: Character Development
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On the value of steady, quiet loyalty
As I revise my way through “The Crimson League” once again (this time after editor’s notes, yea!) I realize I have come this past year to a great appreciation for a particular minor character I never gave much thought to. His name is Hayden Grissner. He is barely of age, and he joins the resistance […]
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Connecting with that minor character (lessons in charity)
Writing a prequel to my trilogy had some unexpected benefits for me as I am at the same time preparing my Herezoth trilogy for a second edition and re-release after I took it off Amazon years ago. Namely, I find myself relating to a couple of characters more than I ever did before. I understand […]
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Let’s talk about theme
One of my favorite things–and one of the most important things to me–in fiction is theme. If the themes a story explores don’t interest me, I’m not interested. The book might be a classic work of literature, beautifully written, and I might read it on that account, and appreciate it on that account, and be […]
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Creative writing teaches patience
Patience is definitely one of the virtues I need to work on, though I certainly hope I have developed some other virtues to a greater degree. (Courage, too. I need to work on courage. I am a melancholic). As I return to creative writing, though, I’ve realized just how much my fiction is doing to […]
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Character development in “Les Miserables”
Yesterday I wrote about how I didn’t like The Sun Also Rises because the whole point of the novel is the LACK of growth and moral development in the characters. That’s really important to me! I’m in it for the characters. Who are they as people? What are their goals and purpose in life? What […]
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Why I didn’t like “The Sun Also Rises”
Recently, I wrote about the challenges that we as authors present our characters with. I talked about how it’s important to bring them face to face with the challenges they need, even if those are not the challenges they want. Reflecting on how facing challenges makes us (and our characters) grow reminded me of the […]
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The challenges we need
Fiction can fall flat for all kinds of reason. One major factor in such a failure can be that we’re getting plot wrong, as the writer, because we aren’t giving our characters the challenges they NEED to grow and develop. As human beings, I think that acknowledging that we grow only through challenge–that is discomfort, […]
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“Clue! The Movie,” a JFK documentary, and multiple possible endings
I just watched a cool documentary about the JFK assassination called “Frame 313” (a reference to the infamous Zapruder film.) What I liked about it is that it presents the evidence for and against 5 plausible theories to explain the Kennedy assassination. Was it Oswald acting alone? Was there CIA involvement? Was it a mob […]
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Write what you WANT to know
It’s common advice to writers to “write what you know,” and that’s for a reason. What you know is where you have to start. It’s what you have. It’s a springboard to launch into plot and to make characters’ reactions to plot developments ring true. It can make writing therapeutic, among other things. But is […]
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Character drives plot (the big lesson from my first novel)
My very first novel was only read by a handful of close friends. I never self-published it because it was awful. It just didn’t work. I titled it Life’s Little Jokes. I reread it more or less recently, and I realized WHY it doesn’t work. It’s a complete melodrama, but that’s not why it doesn’t […]
Creative Writing with the Crimson League 