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Character Development, Characters, Class, Writing

Bringing Good Things To Life

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Week 3: Bringing Characters to Life

The notes from my Character Development class.

The chart below was passed out. This is one way of testing your character from your storyline. The four sections are for action, how it is revealed, feelings and appearance.

character_trait_chart

Your story should have all of these. The action that occur and how is it revealed. How does the character feel about this occurring and lastly what do they look like physically.

If the function of our characters are not convincing or can act out or function in a believable and right proportion then the reader will get bored.

When you start revising from the first draft onward, your character should stay consistent. If you need to change their actions or thought patterns from A to B, it needs to make sense to the readers and the story.

We need to grab the audience within the first few pages about the main person or else you will lose readers.

One more thing, the naming of one’s character is not something to be taken lightly. You have a small window at the beginning of the book to grab your audience. Giving them a memorable yet interesting name will help.

There were little notes taken during this class since we discussed and asked questions throughout.

Award, Blog, Ramblings

And the winner is…….me!

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Hello out there! I have just been informed that I have received the Versatile Blogger Award for the second time. How freaken cool is that, right?

I would like to thank the lovely Shanona who nominated me the first time. She is a ray of sunshine. I did not post at that time that I had won since  I didn’t know the rules of the award, go me. 🙂


I like to thank my good friend Nancy who has been such a strong supporter of this blog, she is always there to give me kudos when I seem to need it. When I first started this site, it was for me to have an outlet to express myself and the many thoughts that run rampant between my two ears. Knowing people are actually reading it and enjoying the posts makes me go woohoo inside. Yes, it really does. 🙂

As part of the award, I will be nominating bloggers who stand out and make us as readers take notice. That will be posted in a few days, so many amazing people out there.


Blog

A Facelift of Sorts

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I saw a post on a writer’s group about blogs, how if it was not done right or if it was overpowering that people would not return. Silly me asked people to take a look at mine. I knew it was not the best but I felt it was decent. What I got back was that it was not personally engaging. Now I had just returned home from a four hour outing with a fellow writer. We had enjoyed the time together as we shared our present project, our future goals and also tips for each other. However, in that five minutes that it took for me to ask and get that reply, my inner joy crashed. It was like the band aid that held my creative juices together had been ripped off. It stung hard. My eyes filled up with tears which gently rolled down my face. I had to wipe my glasses clean, they were so streaked with water. The more questions I asked the more dejected I became. While the tips given were helpful, inside my brain went into overdrive. Did I need to redo all the posts on my blog? Did I need to start a new blog? Should I just make the next entry better? I decided to give the blog a face lift of sorts. I did not want to eliminate the information I had laid out for it was still part of me and who I am, even if I was not expressing it properly. I wanted this blog to be the good, the bad and the ugly. But while I waited for someone, anyone, to tell me one good point I was asked what do I write about. My reply was my life and the things that come across it. Did this make my life unengaging? No, absolutely not. It just meant I had to figure out how to place on paper what was in my head in a different way.

Still the words “not personally engaging” kept being replayed in my head like a broken record. The ranges of emotions were sadness, frustration and at one point anger. The people who have viewed my blog had not once mentioned this small fact. Did they not want to hurt my feelings? Perhaps they did enjoy the blog. Not everything I write about will be liked. This did give me a time to reflect on this aspect of my writing. For in that, I found a silver lining. Regardless how the criticism made me feel, it was something I needed to hear. I did not doubt myself in my abilities to put words on paper. Writing is in my blood and it consumes me. So I will sort through the tips given, keep what works and tosses what does not. At the end of the day, I will still write.