Getting Into the Heads of Your Characters

Characters are my absolute favorite part of writing any story. They’re often the spark of a new project for me—I get an image of a scene in my head, and while the events are exciting, it’s the characters’ dialogue that has me scrambling for a scrap of paper and a pen. It’s my first glimpse into their world and who they are within it. What are they feeling? Why? How did they get here? How do they relate to each other?

Different writers approach developing their characters differently and have varying philosophies about the process. For my protagonists and antagonists, my process usually involves discovering them rather than designing them (although that sometimes happens, too). Not all characters kick in the door to my brain, ready to reveal everything about themselves. Sometimes, for the sake of the story, a character takes intentional design. Old-school allegories are an example of designing a character for a set purpose.

I’m particularly fond of the cast of characters fueling my current work in progress (this protagonist was definitely a door-kicker). So today, we’re going to talk about a few tips for getting into the heads of your characters.

Complete a Character Questionnaire

Google “character questionnaire” and you’ll find a hundred pre-made questions all centered on character details. You can find quick versions with introspective questions—What motivates your character? What’s their darkest secret?—to questions so detailed you’ll walk away knowing your protagonist’s favorite type of cheese (brie, anyone?). These are a great place to get started if you haven’t done a character outline before, and can be super helpful to keep on hand for consistency once you start writing. For example, if you’re writing a rom com and want the love interest to bring the protagonist their favorite coffee after a fight, it’s helpful to have a reference sheet so you don’t have your protagonist loving caramel lattes in one chapter and spitting caramel out in disgust a few chapters later.

Take A Personality Quiz

There are a lot of personality quizzes out there: Myer Briggs, Enneagram, even Buzzfeed. Not all of them are free, but if you hunt around you can find them! Whether or not you believe in the validity of personality assessments for yourself, they can be a tool to get a better idea of your character, even if you already know them pretty well. I did this recently with 16Personalities (it’s free!). I picked two characters from my work in progress and completed the questions how I believe my characters would answer them. Are the results of these types of assessments generalizations? Absolutely. Do they account for individual experiences and how they shape a person? No. But it can still be a good way to gather an overarching sense of why characters (outside of their individual life circumstances) might approach their world the way they do.

Connect through Other Mediums

I’ve found using mediums other than writing, such as drawing, fashion, and pre-existing imagery (like Pinterest boards) sometimes help me nail down details about my characters. While external appearances don’t determine personality traits, I think it’s fair to say that in life, people often use external means like clothes, hair styles, home decor, and similar things to outwardly express how they internally feel or view themselves (or to the opposite effect, to hide those things).

While I’m not magnificent at drawing, I enjoy it, and drawing my characters together helps me get a visual sense of their relationships. I think of it like taking a candid photo: “If these two characters happened to be next to each other, what would their expressions and body language be? Are they the type of friends who nudge each others’ shoulders? Friendly rivals who would smirk at getting a rise out of each other? Loners who wouldn’t be caught dead standing near anyone else at all?”

Fashion can be used to a similar effect. You can sketch out what you think characters would wear or collect images of aesthetics and make a collage or Pinterest board. If you’re a fan of cosplay, how would you dress as each of your own characters? All of these things are fun and useful ways to get into the heads of your characters.

Happy writing!

Hello, Old Friends

It’s been a while. Nearly a year, actually, since we last found ourselves together here at Girl Meets Fiction. I won’t go into how disorienting, disheartening, and strange the events of the last year have been because we’re all here living it, whatever that means for each of us. Thankfully, there have been some bright moments. The glimmers that keep us moving, even if we’re not entirely sure of the direction or the outcome.

Being forced to slow down and reprioritize in 2020, I thought I would get a lot more writing done than I did. But I’m still here, writing, and I’d like to believe I’ve learned a few things along the way.

It’s Okay to Take a Break

There have been stretches of time where it’s felt as if I’ve been disqualified from the writer’s clubhouse because I’m not actively working on a project. What I’ve come to realize is that the word count per day, or even per week, doesn’t get the final say. It’s the stories that continue floating around my head, even if they don’t make it to a page. It’s reading books that inspire me to want to inspire others. It’s talking to other writers/readers, skimming Goodreads, and compiling Pinterest boards for character aesthetics. Sometimes, it’s naps. It’s too much TV. It’s trusting myself enough to know that I can take a break (even a long one) when I just need rest. If you’ve ever had a similar experience, then you probably already know what I had to rediscover: when you’re ready, the stories will still be there.

The Words Will Come Back

When you are ready to open your laptop or pick up your pen again, it doesn’t always go the way you plan. For me, it’s felt like there’s been a lot of rust to scrape off to get to the good stuff. It’s slow work sometimes. Many freshly minted sentences have quickly met their doom by way of the delete key, repeatedly. It can be maddening. It can also be the thing to finally unlock a worthwhile phrase or idea. When I couldn’t bring myself to work on one story, I ended up starting another. The second had no outline, no premeditated character motives, nothing. It was freeing to begin a project without all that pressure. Although that particular piece might turn out to be nonsense and never see the light of day, it helped me to get excited again, which led to me diving back into the work-in-progress that has really been needing my attention.

Someone Wants to Hear Your Story

At the start of the fall, a friend and I were walking after an outdoor, physically-distanced coffee date. Our conversation eventually came around to how my recent work-in-progress was going. I hadn’t been writing much at the time, but I gave her a summary of the story. Immediately, she asked me follow-up questions. She wanted to know my characters, to hear about their plights and the outcomes. Her genuine interest in their stories helped me fall even deeper in love with the characters. It also revived my excitement to solidify my ideas on paper. Anytime I exchange creative ideas with someone, it reignites my fuel and motivates me to start writing again. Since that walk, there have been plenty of times when I’ve slid back out of “writing mode,” but talking about the book with someone usually sends me right back into the fray. It’s reassuring to know that someone out there wants to hear the story I’m trying to tell. Someone is looking for a story like yours, too.

Be kind. Stay safe. Happy writing!

Love,

The Girl

Weekend Writing Prompt: The House on the Hill

Happy writing!

Agree to Disagree

From The Office‘s Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute to Harry Potter‘s Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, or Wicked‘s Elphaba and Glinda, there’s something irresistible about a frenemy relationship. A spark of rivalry between characters can lead in a lot of different directions for a story—comedy, romance, tragedy— and is even at the center of many narratives. There are four basic stages to the frenemy relationship: harmony, the incident, tension, and acceptance.

Of course, we all know the harmony phase. It’s the time when the two characters are either friends, or have yet to experience each other in a competitive or negative way. So we’re going to dive straight into stage two.

The Incident
This is the root of the rivalry, and it can come in many forms. It could be an actual event, a verbal misunderstanding, a difference in opinion or morality, or a born-and-bred resentment brought to the surface, just to name a few. Whatever it is, the incident sets the tone for the relationship as a whole and can majorly impact the story’s direction. For example, when Elphaba (green, edgy, and dry witted) is mistakenly roomed with Glinda (glittery, popular, and seemingly air-headed) at their university, two women with opposing values must find a way to survive living together. The incident is further agitated when Elphaba’s natural magical abilities begin to visibly outshine Glinda’s. This sets the board for a complicated, competitive relationship.

Tension
Once the characters decidedly loath each other (though sometimes frenemy relationships can be one-side), it’s time to build the tension. The tension is what keeps us hungry readers biting the edge of our smiles or holding our breath in anticipation; in a moment of vulnerability, you never know if one character will choose to help or hurt the other. These moments can be small, like when one sees an opening to make a verbal jab and embarrass their rival. Banter is beautiful. But a build up of tension can also set enormous events into motion, like when one walks away from helping the other and tips their frenemy status into a betrayal that becomes the story’s center conflict. Or, on the flip side, when one chooses to help the other in a dire moment, maybe even saving the day by doing so.

Acceptance
The last phase can go a couple of ways. Acceptance could mean the characters make peace with each other and become true friends. It could also mean they just accept that they will always be rivals, and that while they don’t always agree, they would never do anything to actually harm the other person. Of course, though, there is always the third option. They could accept that they are actually too different to continue having any sort of friendly relationship and resort to full-on enemy status. However the cookie crumbles, there is usually some sort of resolution to the relationship by the end of the story, even if the resolution is that they continue on as rivals.

The frenemy stages don’t always fall into a neat order like I’ve listed here. For example, sometimes the relationship is cyclical. Whatever the case, they give a writer the opportunity to create dynamic and authentic characters who be wildly charming and impactful to the story.

Happy writing!

Why Are My Protagonists All the Same? (And How to Fix It.)

It’s a bright afternoon; you sit down and start thumbing through some of your in-progress stories, trying to decide which to work on today. But as you’re browsing you realize something truly horrifying: many of your protagonists share the same characteristics. They may even be (gasp!) one dimensional.

Friend, we’ve all been there. So what’s the source of this sameness, what do we do with it?

Mirror, Mirror

There are a few reasons characters may start sounding the same. One that’s common for newer writers is putting too much of your own personality into the character. It’s something we’ve all done at one time or another, whether it’s conscious or not, because we’re writing based on our own perspectives. And it’s not always a bad thing! I love to drop bits and pieces of myself into my characters, it’s part of how I’m able to express myself through writing. However, if I invited every protagonist I’d ever written to a party and they all showed up in same outfit and had a tendency to flick their bangs when they got nervous, it’d be a really boring and probably kind of creepy party.

The key is moderation, and keeping diversity in mind. And of course, experimentation. To grow as a writer means to push out of your comfort zone, so take a stab at writing from a point of view that’s different from yours. Write a protagonist who has a life motto you don’t agree with, or who comes from a different background than you (this may take some thoughtful research and others’ input), or try to model the character after someone else you know. It may take some practice, but dynamic and diverse characters are worth the effort.

Chicken or the Egg

Another reason might be that you haven’t really fleshed out the character in your own mind and are more focused on the action than who is carrying it out. (Guilty as charged.) This could be a red flag for other issues too. Even if you aren’t writing what would be categorized as a “character driven” piece, it’s important for readers to be able to connect with the people they’re reading about. Characters make decisions, which cause actions. The actions have consequences, which forces new decisions to be made and more consequences to be triggered. In other words, your protagonist is always effecting the plot progression. If you’re having to bend their personality over backward to make the story work, it’s probably time to revisit whose story you’re really telling.

My solution is to usually find some hefty characterization lists online or make shorter ones of my own. I don’t always stick to them, but they give me a baseline to start with. It also allows me to compare characteristics of different protagonists, their companions, and their antagonists to make sure they aren’t all cookie-cutter.

Make a Wish

Sometimes we are so wrapped up in making our protagonists heroic that we forget to give them realistic desires. That means giving them multiple objectives, and multiple obstacles that keep them from those goals. The main desire is going to be the driving force for their decisions, but it’s the smaller ones that make the characters real. For example, in my novel, Mara’s main goal is to steal enchanted objects so the villain doesn’t kill her. However, she also wants to prove that she’s worth loving. The two desires don’t seem to play hand in hand, but combined they influence the choices she makes as she tries to obtain both without losing either.

So that leaves me with the question, what does my character want most? What additional desires might they have and how might those desires create conflict or work together toward a common goal? Answering these questions can help build a stronger character, and tip you off to protagonists who are too similar (as in, they all share the same goals and for the same reasons).

I hope this helps you as you look for ways to create different kinds of characters in your writing, particularly protagonists.

Happy writing!

Getting Back into Writing

When is the last time you intentionally sat down and wrote something?

I’m going to be honest, I haven’t written creatively for a while. There have been a few fits and starts, but as a whole my writer’s well has felt a little dry lately. It can be hard to get back in the groove after taking some time off. Life happens, and it’s left me wondering: Where do I go from here? I found my answer, of all places, in a pair of bright-eyed fourth graders.

My workplace recently hosted a group of fourth graders who came to interview the staff about their jobs and learn about different careers. I was interviewed as a “Professional Writer” by two initially shy and then unapologetically enthusiastic girls who, after a little prompting, shared their love of stories with me. (We may have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with that one, so I probably wasn’t the best example of an on-task professional, but we got around to finishing their questions eventually.)

Hearing them talk about why they enjoyed writing, and how they loved to tell stories about people and struggles and imaginative worlds, made me hopeful about my own work. It reminded me that there are little girls out there who are still recklessly hungry to share their creativity, voices, and thoughts with a world that could learn something from them. And isn’t that what storytelling is all about?

Fourth grade was when I really started pouring myself into my stories, too. As I got older, I didn’t realize how easy it could be to have the desire to share my voice dampened. Don’t get me wrong, the desire for stories is always there, but sometimes it takes a fresh perspective, or a reminder of their purpose, to kickstart inspiration again.

All of this is to say that, when we as writers feel like we’re falling a bit flat, I think it’s important to remember and be encouraged by why we are telling the stories we tell, and who we are telling them for. Because there are wide-eyed little girls (and boys, of course) learning about life by watching us and by reading the stories we hand to them. Let’s make it worth their while.

Happy writing!

Attention Hog: Being Intentional About Writing

Like many people, I have a habit of leaving used dishes around. It’s usually nothing too gross. Mostly cups of water that I put down and forget about, forcing me to get a new glass mere minutes after pouring the first, only to rediscover the original a few hours later. (When I was a kid, my dad found this habit slightly eerie because it remind him of the little girl from the movie Signs.) But what does this unsolicited fun-fact about me have to do with writing? Well, like those abandoned glasses of water, it can be easy to forget to write, I mean really, intentionally write. It’s easy to get distracted, procrastinate, or straight up forget to make time for writing once you fall out of the habit (*cough* guilty). Here are a couple ways to get back in the groove and give writing the attention it deserves.

Use a Writer’s Devotional
Yes, a devotional may sound a little cheesy, but habits form in small, consistent steps. It will provide you with structured daily prompts that force you to put something down on paper even during those creativity downswings. And they’re usually short, so it’s easy to make time for a 10 minute writing exercise. I understand that some writers don’t work well with structure, but who knows, those first 10 minutes of rusty-nails-on-chalkboard writing may even bloom into something more inspirational!

Join a Group
The first writing group I joined was actually an annual weekend camp at Michigan State University called the Greenrock Writers Retreat. Being around other writers my age, and being assigned fun but consistently themed prompts kept me in a fluid writing mindset. It also gave me a relaxed environment to experiment with my craft. In college, I joined Writing at the Ledges, a local group based out of Grand Ledge, MI. The majority of its members are at least ten years older than me, and many of them have published work outside of our group anthology (the latest of which includes three pieces by yours truly). Their creative experiences and factual knowledge of everything from grammar to genre tropes significantly advanced my own writing, for which I am incredibly grateful. I recently moved too far to continue attending meetings, and I have to say I miss having a community of writers so close at hand. Through WATL, I also attended my first Rally of Writers, which is a conference that I HIGHLY recommend.

Talk about Your Work
Now this one will get a little uncomfortable for some of you. Maybe because of what you write about, or maybe because you simply don’t feel confident to talk about your writing with other people. I get it. Telling someone you enjoy writing is one thing, but giving an in-depth look at a particular piece or idea can make you feel overly exposed. But what I’ve found is that if someone manages to pry the general idea of my latest work out of me, and if it’s something I love enough, I actually want to keep sharing because there’s a story inside me that is dying to get out. And that realization often leads me to finally chase after it. If the story has to come out, even if it isn’t pretty the first draft, it will find a way.

Happy Writing!

Weekend Writing Prompt: The Comeback

Happy writing!

Weekend Writing Prompt: Safety First

Happy Writing!

Weekend Writing Prompt: After the Sun Goes Down

Happy writing!