Tag: Character development

Writing Exercise: Mealtime

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of marin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lots of my stories revolve around food and mealtimes for a reason. Aside from sleeping, the majority of humanity’s time is spent dealing with caloric intake – preparing food, eating food, cleaning up from food. You may say, what about working? So on the job, the worker starts with his morning coffee, then has a mid-morning snack, followed by the lunch conversation (eat out, order in?) and then lunch, maybe an afternoon snack, and finally thinking about preparing dinner (what is in the house, is a grocery store run needed, or will take out do). And the reason why people work: (1) roof over the head and (2) food on the table. Instead of spending all day out in the field growing food, industrialized people now spend all days in a building making or selling stuff to get money to buy food. Food = survival. I think I can say humanity (as a whole) spends about half to three-quarters of its waking hours devoted to it.

Everyone has a different relationship with food. A different favorite food, a different favorite meal, meals cooked by certain people, food eaten for certain holidays, comfort food, power food, … the list goes on.

Food can even drive a narrative or provide information through show instead of tell.

In the flash “No More Cheeseburgers“, the mom, Heather, uses cheeseburgers as a metaphor for planetary loss providing Gilbert a means to grasp the inconceivable and act.

In the final chapter of Honestly, the following paragraph on food shows the comprises people make becoming a couple.

A big pot of Vietnamese beef pho simmered on the stove. Unlimited pizza for lunch and a home-cooked dinner was the payment offered for help moving. She stirred the noodle dish. She <Kassandra> was tempted to add a little more cilantro and fresh basil, but Troy was cooking. They had reached a truce for meal preparation, he didn’t mess with her chili and barbeque and she didn’t mess with his pho and xoi. Salads and hamburgers were fair game.

In neither case did I consciously plan food to provide an underpinning to the plot, but food is a part of life.

WRITING EXERCISE: What is your present main character’s (MC) favorite food? What is his/her favorite meal? What is the go-to comfort food? Why?

Create a short scene where the MC is either preparing or eating food. What do you learn about the MC from the scene?

READING EXERCISE: In your present read-in-progress find three examples of food being planned, consumed, or cleaned up. How does the food scenes advance the plot, provide character development, or reveal a back story?

Other Cool Blogs: Pop Culture Detective May 29, 2017

Erin Penn

After watching Doctor Strange, I felt strangely let down. At first the character development and plot were strong, but about half-way through they were thrust aside for wiz-bang magic battles. So I rattled the change in my pocket and bought a ticket to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them which had all the wiz-bang magic battles and special effect, plus never letting up on characters and plot. I found the hero more engaging and sexy than the aloof, arrogant Dr. Strange.

A vlogger breaks down why Fantastic Beast is amazing; why heroes do not have to be bullies. Even as adults, the American culture still worships the high school popular jocks and pushes aside heroes who care for others, who stand up and say “no” quietly. Who Will Not Be Moved. Who offer a gentle caress instead of a fist. The police officer who helps a boy find his way home is as much as a hero as a police officer who shoots at a hostage holding bank robber.

We forget this truth too often.

WRITING EXERCISE: Review your various short stories and characters. Do you have any quiet heroes or heroines? Do you like them more or less than your superpower, warrior heroes? Are the only strong, quiet types old people offering sage wisdom? Are they all female or are some of them male? Once your review is complete, take a character from your present WIP and put them in a situation where they are a quiet hero. Write a flash of 500-1,500 words. How difficult was the flash to write?

READING EXERCISE: Find a children’s book where the hero (this one should be masculine) does not use direct opposing force to “win the day”. If you have children of a particular age you read for or recommend books for, the children’s, middle grade, or YA book should be age appropriate for the minor. How many books did you have to go through? 

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words May 13, 2014

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Characters Who Matter

Found it! I remember this post – it has hung on the edges of my mind as a MUST for writing since the first time I read it. Now I have it again, and I am not letting go (mwahahaha).

But I will share.

Darynda Jones. Magical Words May 13, 2014. How I Make My Characters Unforgettable.

A lot of people talk about characters needing likability. More importantly, reader need to connect to the character before anything happens to make them disconnect. Disconnect too soon and they won’t read. Don’t have a disconnect and the narrative becomes boring instead of tension driven; readers do not want Mary Sue, a perfect person.

What Ms. Jones defines is how to get that connection and how soon.

<A writer> must create empathy BEFORE introducing any negative flaws in <the> character, anything that will distance us from the reader.

There are five ways to create empathy: (Need to use AT LEAST two of these.)

          Sympathy
          Jeopardy
          Likability
          Power
          Humor

Read the full post here: http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/darynda-jones-how-i-make-my-characters-unfogettable/

Writing Exercise: The Other

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Other. Other what? Other person, writing someone other than you. The female, the male, the black, the white, the able-bodied, the physically disabled, the transgender, the heterosexual, the asexual, the old, the young. Crawling in their heads and bringing them to the page beyond stock tropes.

George Stroumboulopoulos once interviewed George R.R. Martin and asked him the following:

There’s one thing that’s interesting about your books. I noticed that you write women really well and really different. Where does that come from?

The fantasy master responded with:

You know I’ve always considered women to be people.

As a writer, solid worldbuilding means having characters in your world as diverse as the world you live in and making them real people.

A writer is told to read to outside the comfort zone become better. Reading outside your comfort zone does not mean just crossing genre lines. (See The Man who Doesn’t Read Women by Lorraine Berry, March 15, 2017.) To be well read requires exposure to thoughts and ideas different from your own.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a flash with The Other as the Point-of-View (POV) character. 

READING EXERCISE: Read a book with the main POV character who is The Other.

Other Cool Blogs: Horror Writers Association January 30, 2017

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Idea go at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bad Guys

Read outside your genre, they say.

But I don’t wanna. Horror scares me.

Isn’t that the point? Yeah, but recreational reading shouldn’t be uncomfortable. The challenge is finding the balance between having fun and branching into new territory to get more tools for the writing toolbox (which with a love of urban fantasy, military science fiction, superhero prose, and sweet romance with an occasional dip cozy mystery I am doing fairly well). One way to accomplish expansion of the horizons is looking at blogs in the genres you avoid for one reason or another.

I ran across this particular post by the Horror Writers Association through the recommendation of another friend, “Peekaboo with the Devil: Strategies for Hiding and Revealing Your Antagonist” written by Mac Childs. The focus is on horror antagonists, monsters and serial killers, instead of the bad guys found in romance and superhero prose, but that doesn’t mean the tools of hiding the Big Bad until the last fight shouldn’t be in the tool box.

What I want to remember from the blog:

  1. Big Bad backstory may be detailed in my head, but skimpy on the reveal to readers. The less they know, the more the readers fill in with their own personal monsters.
  2. A indirect reveal (through a keyhole) of the Big Bad causally dealing with a minion the main character (MC) just barely survived defines power stakes in a scary, but initially survival fashion.
  3. Small subtle evils can be scarier than big shows.
  4. I want to write a bait-and-switch baddie.

“the kind that tricks others into thinking they’re harmless (maybe even helpful), lulling the protagonist and readers into a false sense of security and then striking while everyone is watching the flashier villain.”

Other advice is provided in the post. Find the ones which speak to you here: https://horror.org/peekaboo-with-the-devil/