BE MY GUEST: How to develop an engaging main character: Nicky Wells

There are always some characters which stay in our mind for years after reading a book, what makes them so memorable? What makes them so engaging? Is it because they are well-rounded and relatable? Or do their flaws make them stand-out and get stuck in our heads? Is it because such characters can be visualized by the readers easily? 

Nicky Wells, author of “Sophie’s Turn”, answers these intriguing questions and ruminates on creating and developing a main character, also known as “protagonist” in technical terms.

How to develop an engaging main character 

By Author: Nicky Wells

  

When Komal contacted me and suggested I should write a guest blog on writing and developing a main character, my first reaction was one of despair. I’m not a ‘trained’ writer as such, have never been to any writing courses, and have never tried to teach anybody else to write. What I do, is write. So how could I possibly offer a guest blog on this subject?

Initial panic quelled and calm thoughts restored, I thought I’d do what I do best: write, and this time, write about what I did, and how I did it. This is not intended as the definite guide to creating a lead character; this is simply me sharing my experience.

So I decided to write my big novel, finally. First things first: I had a think about my characters. The female character was obviously the focus of attention; she would be the I-narrator, and she’d lend her name to the book. So I started with a name.

I picked ‘Sophie’ out of a long list of baby names on the internet for two reasons. Obviously the name appealed to me, but also at that time I didn’t know anybody personally by that name, so there could be no connection with a real person.

That accomplished, I sat down and created a character profile, which looked like this:

The character profile had to answer key question that I would know about my best friend—and I considered Sophie to be one of them! So I thought of all the important and not so important things that one typically knows about one’s best friends, including what they like to eat, their pet hates and their happy buttons. Once complete, that character profile lived on my wall where I could see it while writing. I let it percolate for a few days to make sure that I really ‘knew’ Sophie… and of course, I did the same for the other key characters. Over time, as I was writing, it evolved in places but largely, that profile was my framework of references in all things Sophie.

Right then, now that I had a ‘feel’ for who Sophie was, I needed to think about her motivations. What does she want from life? And is she getting where she wants to be? In Sophie’s case, the answer was quite simple. Actually, she’d love nothing more than settling with a gorgeous man somewhere in a nice house (doesn’t need to be big or pompous, just nice and comfy) with a couple of children and a lovely part-time job that she enjoys. At the start of the novel, she has a job that she adores, and a really close friend who acts as her extended family. She rents a flat that she likes but would be even happier if she could buy it. And she has Tim, her boyfriend of two years, who she is reasonably happy with… BUT.

This was Sophie’s starting point. Things are good, BUT. And this ‘but’ sets the story off for Sophie as there is something missing in her life. This is where character development began. Initially Sophie thinks she is discontent because Tim isn’t proposing. As far as she can see, all the other pieces necessary for happiness in her life are more or less in place.

But actually, by and by she realises that there is more amiss with her life than she thought. Specifically, she is missing some kind of excitement, some glitz and glamour. And at this moment Tusk and Dan come back into her life. While the flashbacks ought to have served as a hint to Sophie, it is bumping into Darren (the guitarist) at the airport that really opens her eyes to her own motivations. In this way, I moved Sophie from the ‘mostly happy’ into the ‘confused and uncertain’ state of mind.

Things get even worse when Dan starts wooing Sophie in the most romantic way imaginable. Here she is, straight as an arrow, never lied to anyone, only looking for fairly simple ingredients to her happiness… and Dan throws a massive spanner in the works. What’s a girl to do?

You may have noticed that planning the development in Sophie’s motivation (and events in her life, obviously) is closely linked to the development of the plot as a whole. So after the character profile and basic thoughts on her motivation, the next step wasn’t actually outlining her evolution, as I just did above. The actual next step was to plan the plot in meticulous detail, and then dovetail her emotions, motivations and actions with the storyline. It’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg question, and I tend to do a little bit of this followed by a little bit of that… a kind of incremental, interlinked character and plot development.

And this, in a nutshell, is my approach to creating and developing a lead character. If you’re starting to write a novel right now, I’d say the absolutely most important thing is to make sure to get into your character’s head. You have to know him or her as though he/she was a real person. And yes, that may involve holding the occasional conversation with them, arguing and debating with them and, sometimes, telling them off. If you know your character intimately, you’ll find it relatively easy to grow and evolve them.

A Big Thanks to Komal for hosting a guest-blog stop on my “Virtual Book Tour” for “Sophie’s Turn”.

About the Author:

Nicky Wells is a writer and former business practices researcher. Born and raised in Germany, she moved to the United Kingdom in 1993. Having received degrees from the University of London and from the University of Oxford, she has spent six years working as a researcher and project manager for an international Human Resources research firm based in London and Washington, DC. She has just published her novel, “Sophie’s Turn” which is a contemporary romance tale. To know more about her and her writing, visit her website: http://nickywellsklippert.wordpress.com

About her Book:

Slapper. Slut. Adulteress. These are hardly words that Sophie Penhalligan would normally use to describe herself. And yet this is exactly how she is behaving, all things considered, even if she isn’t quite married to Tim yet. Aged nineteen, she travelled halfway across the country to honour an invitation by her favourite rock band, Tusk, to join them for the last gig of their tour. And now her past is coming to tempt her... How could Tim ever stand a chance against Dan, the charming, handsome lead-singer? How could she?

Sophie, now twenty-eight and a budding newspaper journalist, is happily embroiled in a relationship with Tim, her boyfriend of two years. Until recently, she was confident that Tim would eventually propose—probably as soon as he could get his act together. But just as Tim’s persistent inaction is beginning to cast a cloud over their relationship, Dan’s sudden reappearance turns Sophie’s world upside down. Thus unfolds a roller-coaster of events including an ill-fated trip to Paris with Tim, a night of unfulfilled romance with Dan, Sophie and Tim’s engagement party gate-crashed by Dan, and Sophie’s professional secondment to accompany Dan’s band on their revival tour—at Dan’s special request and very much against her will.

And then, one fine day in Paris, Sophie suddenly finds herself engaged to Dan while her erstwhile fiancé Tim is... well, doing whatever it is Tim does back in London. What is she to do now? Who wouldn’t give anything to meet their favourite star, let alone marry him?

Find out how Sophie gets into this impossible situation, and how she turns it around, in Sophie’s Turn, a modern romantic fairy tale. – (Courtesy: Amazon.co.uk)

To buy this book on Amazon (UK), click here.


To purchase from Amazon (US), click here.

BE MY GUEST: How to write a Short Story: Deborah Batterman

On my blog, in previous guest posts, authors have talked about various aspects of novel-writing, marketing and publishing issues. But this post is different because it does not talk about any aspect of a “novel”, rather it takes a look at another form of writing - a “short story”. 

Let’s find out if it is just the length of a “short story” which sets it apart from a “novel” or there are other things to consider too, while developing a “short story”. Deborah, an experienced writer, tells all wanna-be short-story writers what it is about and how to get started on this creative pursuit.

Guest Post:

How to write a Short Story 

By Author: Deborah Batterman 

Every couple of years, it seems, an article appears confirming that the short story is alive and well, possibly in a state of resurgence – a “heartening development,” said the New York Times when it counted twelve collections in its 100 Notable Books of 2009. Whether or not that was a watershed year, the Wall St. Journal took note, When Brevity Is a Virtue. Yes, it’s true that the marketing powers remind us, again and again, that short story collections do not sell as well as novels. Subsumed within that conventional wisdom is the suggestion that the short story, as an art form, takes second place to the novel. On the contrary, an argument can be made that the short story, contained as it is, can come closer to something of artistic perfection than its sprawling cousin. Think Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, William Trevor, not to mention Edna O’Brien, Grace Paley, Raymond Carver, Charles Baxter, Stuart Dybek, T. C Boyle. Chekhov.

And yet, there’s no arguing with the day-to-day immersion in another reality that is part and parcel of the novel’s pull. A short story is a one-sitting affair. Before the written word, there was the oral tradition of storytelling – folk tales and fairy tales, myths and legends passed down from generation to generation. With the written word came a new paradigm for conveying stories. Reading became a new form of listening. Today, with the ever-shifting ways in which we read – so much demanding even more of our limited attention – there’s every reason for short fiction to thrive. Hybrid forms like flash fiction and the prose poem have never been more popular.

Sometimes, a story, finished as it seems, demands more. The eponymous protagonists of Saul and Patsy, a novel by Charles Baxter, had an earlier incarnation in short stories of his, one of which ends with their death in a car accident. Baxter has said he came to see the stories as a cornerstone for the novel. In my own collection, two stories, seemingly unconnected, started nagging at me, suggesting more than I had intended. All of which speaks to that part of writing I love most, when characters take on a life of their own.

So where do you begin writing a short story?

I’m tempted to say from the heart, not in the sense of something maudlin or melodramatic, but in the sense that, if something moves you, it stands a better chance of having an affective quality as a story. The genesis of “Shoes,” one of the title stories in my collection, was the image of pairs of shoes lined up on the floor of my parents’ bedroom; a woman from my childhood, off-beat in her way, gave rise to a hybrid character, “Crazy Charlotte”; “Vegas,” a metaphor in its own right, became the place a son would take his father in the early stages of dementia.

Image – the very word is rooted in our capacity to see something beyond direct observation, and yet direct observation is so often where it begins: a woman crying into her cell phone outside a restaurant, a man uncorking a bottle of wine on the train, a woman walking at a snail’s pace across Grand Central Station. What image compels you to sit with it, get beneath the surface of conscious thought and see if a narrative reveals itself?

Situation/issue/setting – There’s a sense, in writing a short story, of casting a magnifying glass on a particular situation/issue (in contrast to the long view that belongs to the novel): A wedding that goes awry, a car accident on an icy road, a parent grappling with the death of a child from an overdose of drugs. If there’s no immediately compelling situation from your own world, there’s always the news: a man is arrested after throwing $20 bills and baggies of marijuana from a rooftop; a man on death row requests oysters for his last meal; a woman leaves all of her inheritance to her dog. The truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

Who/where/why/how/when? – If writing is an act of discovery, beginning a story is an act of faith – faith in the process that will take you from point A to B, C, and D via a narrative arc that is integral to the story itself. Some stories demand a straightforward telling, up close and personal via first-person; others require the space and distance of a third person, omniscient or not; still others are best told via a dual perspective.

Let’s assume you have your first line and/or the image/situation around which the story will take shape. From there, as simplistic as it seems, the narrative unfolds around questions lurking beneath the plot line, the assumption being that you, the writer, are as curious as your imagined reader(s) to know what happens next. A well-paced story derives from a willingness, in the first draft especially, to trust that imagination, below the level of conscious thought, will take you, by the seat of your pants, from scene to scene. It may be helpful to make a rough outline of the scenes, bearing in mind that the more deliberate work – the ruthless cutting of lines and paragraphs, the shifting of perspective, the realization that the real beginning is on page five – is yet to come.

The sum of the parts – In the way that image can get you started, another word rooted in ‘seeing’ – revision – brings you home, lets you see if the whole is in fact greater than the sum of its parts. The analogy of a jigsaw puzzle is often used in the crafting of the story, the pieces being of your own devising – the ‘telling’ details that make a character or setting jump from a page, the sequencing of scenes, the lasting resonance that casts a light on an otherwise mundane scenario. The inherent form of the short story makes the beginning-middle-end narrative arc, with all its meanderings, more readily manageable. It’s in the honing, draft after draft, that the spirited plot is kept from plodding along.

About the Author: 

A native New Yorker, Deborah Batterman is a fiction writer and essayist. Her stories have appeared in anthologies as well as various print and online journals. A story from her debut collection, Shoes Hair Nails, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Visit her website: http://deborahbatterman.com/
She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

About her Book: 

Shoe Hair Nails: Anthology of Short Stories

The settings of these stories - 1980s New York City, 1950s Brooklyn, Las Vegas, an exurban town post-9/11 - are as diverse as the rich palette of characters drawn with heart, humor, and sensuality. With a sharp sense of the telling detail, Deborah Batterman weaves narratives around the everyday symbols in our world and their resonance in our lives.

To buy this book on Amazon, click here.

Are you a short story writer? Have you got your short story published in a magazine or on a website in a competition? Tell me about it in the comments section below. You can also provide the direct link if it is published on an online portal. If you have any questions regarding short story writing, feel free to discuss them here.

BE MY GUEST: On Writing Fiction by Author Samantha Bayarr

@The Review Girl

Samantha is one of those versatile writers who know how to please their readers. I caught up with her to know what makes her choose different genres of fiction. I told her that many of my readers are aspiring writers, who would love to know the craft of writing “fiction”. So, in today’s guest post, she is here to share with all of you, the whys and hows of writing fiction, the rules she swears by and how it feels to be an indie author. Read on! 

Guest Post:

On Writing Fiction

By Author: Samantha Bayarr

Why and How I Write:

I have been referred to by my friends and fellow writers as a sort of “writing savant” because of the way I write and the different genres that appeal to me as a writer. New books come to me almost on a daily basis, and it doesn’t take much for the ideas to flow. Once I come up with an idea for a book, the entire book, including the last line, is in my head and I can never seem to get it down into my computer fast enough. Though I am a very fast typist, my mind reels at warp speed and if I don’t write something each day, my busy mind will interrupt my sleep with ideas.

At the present time, I am writing five different books in the following genres: Paranormal Romance, Time Travel Romance, Chick Lit, Amish Romance, Young Adult Fantasy, and I just finished a Young Adult Paranormal Novella.

Most people write one genre that they are comfortable with. I write several different genres because so many subjects interest me, and I happen to have a very big imagination. I like to challenge myself in my writing, and I love to take my readers on unlikely journeys. For instance, my first Amish Romance, Little Wild Flower, is about a hippie chick in the 1970’s who falls for the Amish boy next door after her family moves to an Amish community as a respite for her alcoholic mother.

Most of my books come to my mind when I look at photographs, sometimes for potential book covers. For other people, it’s the other way around. They think of a book, write the book, and then they go hunting for a picture or illustration that fits their book. I do the exact opposite! For my first paranormal novel, The Apothecary, the idea for the book came to me when I was looking at a 100 year old photograph of three children that I’d found in an antique store. I looked into their faces and wondered who they were and what their lives were like; since I didn’t know, I reinvented them.

 

The same holds true for my recently published novella, Grave Robbers. I came across the picture while searching stock photos for a book trailer. When I saw the picture of that little girl with a dirty hand clamped over her mouth, I knew she had gotten herself into some trouble. So, in my imagination, she became twelve-year-old Charlie—a jewelry-stealing grave robber.

To me, there is nothing worse than reading a book that feels like the author was bored with the subject when he or she wrote it. Those are the books people put down and don’t recommend to their friends. I want my books to be as interesting to my readers as they were to me when I wrote them.

My Rules of Writing:


My first rule of writing is always to set goals. When a new book idea hits me, I set a goal of how long it can reasonably take me to write it. After deciding how long I want the book to be, I do the math and divide the number of words the book will contain by how many words I can reasonably write per day, and the end result is an approximation of the book’s release date. I don’t recommend this method for the faint at heart, because it takes discipline, and determination. As evidenced by the fact I have written and published eight books in the last ten months.

A second rule to observe would be: if you’re bored or hit a stumbling point, move to the next project. I write several different books at the same time, and often write several chapters in the same book at the same time (this helps to keep your time-lines straight). I may write in one book for several days straight, then, move to another book as the ideas flow. I don’t know how people can stand to write one book from start to finish. In my mind, I assume that’s what causes writer’s block!

Last, but not least, yield the advice of those that have gone before us. They all say two things:

1. Keep a notebook handy—in case of inspiration.

I have several. I keep one for general ideas and new titles that come to me when I’m busy with something else (or trying to sleep). But the most important notebook I keep is the one that I use WHILE I’m writing. If I’m writing, and an idea to twist the plot occurs to me, I write it down immediately—mostly because I can usually write 5,000 or more words per day, and I don’t want to stop in the middle of a writing jaunt because I usually have to continue writing until my brain is emptied for the day!

2. Throw away your thesaurus.

No one wants to have to keep a dictionary on them when they’re reading your book. I’ve found the best way to gauge this is to write the same way you speak. And unless you make a habit of stopping midsentence to look for a bigger word for what you are trying to convey, you shouldn’t do it with your writing.

Being an Indie Author:

I published my first book in August of 2010, and currently have eight books published, with a goal of publishing a minimum of five more before the end of this year. I’ve observed the release of books by fellow authors that are in contract with big publishers, and I see that they publish only ONE book per year! That would drive me absolutely mad!

I have several book ideas of different genres in my head at any given time. Being limited to one book per year in one specific genre would not only prohibit my creativity, but would slow my career to a pace I could never tolerate. As an Indie Author, you can go at your own pace, and the sky is literally the limit if you go by this route.

About the Author: 

Samantha Jillian Bayarr is the founder/owner of Livingston Hall Publishers. Working in the production aspect of publishing has provided her with the expertise needed to produce, develop and design books from the inside out. When it came time to publish her own work, her experience in the field lent her the ability to produce several genres such as: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult Fantasy, Time Travel Romance, Chick Lit, and Amish Romance. 

To know more about her and her books, visit her blog: http://livingstonhallpublishers.blogspot.com/

To buy her books, click here.

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