WiP Wednesday: Character Hobbies

One of the things you should know about a character is their hobbies. What do they like to do in their spare time, to relax or to let off steam? What a character likes to do will give the reader some insight into who they are as a person. Someone who races cars when they are upset will generally come across as quite different than someone who crochets on their lunch break.

WiP Wednesday: Character Development

All of the major characters in a book should be fully developed. You need to know the various aspects of their lives, past and present, to properly depict how they will act and speak in the future. Not everything that you come up with will make it in the book, and it shouldn’t because most of it is useless to the reader and bogs down the current story. Yet every move a character makes, every step they take, will be influenced by their history.

Readers are smart and, if your character acts out in an unexpected way, they want to know what caused such a reaction. They also pick up on anything that contradicts earlier behaviour and will call you on it. In real life, people change their minds all the time and grow as humans but a book’s characters need to have some consistency even if they transform to become their true selves.

Yet, that isn’t the only reason why character development is so important. You also want to ensure the reader can tell your characters apart. No one wants to be reading about a bunch of clones unless you are writing science fiction. Small things like appearance and speech patterns and behavioural ticks will keep a reader from being confused. The reader needs to be able to keep everyone straight in their head in order to enjoy a story.

WiP Wednesday: Writing Inspiration

I mentioned in a previous post that during my book shlump I became addicted to Kdramas. They weren’t something I ever considered getting into, but my streaming subscription kept recommending I watch one called Cinderella and the Four Knights until I finally gave in. The fact I am a sucker for anything inspired by fairytales probably had something to do with it, and the fact it was based on a book is probably why I liked it. I watched more international shows after that.

Then, when a classmate discovered we had similar taste in television programs, she suggested I try another show called Boys Over Flowers. This one is based on the Hana Yori Dango manga series. I have never read any sort of graphic novel before, unless you count those old Archie comics from the nineties, let alone one from another culture so I had no idea what to expect.

WiP Wednesday: Finding Your Why Not

Every year I say I will write a novel and every year I do not write a novel.

I will plan to write it and even create a schedule to add a block of time for writing in my daily or weekly routine. I may even start to write my latest literary genius. However, before long, my life gets overwhelming, my schedule goes out the window, my creative energy is sapped, and I do not make time for writing.

Once again, I made the new year’s resolution to write a novel. It was going well for two months and then a repeat of all the other years happened: my seasonal depression hit, even harder than usual, and everything around me went haywire shortly thereafter… such as finding out my mother’s tumor came back and she required another surgery. This meant my mother would need care and someone to take over her role as caretaker for my grandfather. Not hard to guess who got both jobs.

The story I had been working on up until then that had once filled me with excitement now held no interest for me. I thought if I just got back to it, reread what I’d written so far and sat down to continue writing, I’d get that old feeling of enthusiasm back. But I couldn’t work up the energy to so much as open the document on my computer.