TECH: How do you "get into" your characters?

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Original Posting 16 Feb 2011

Over here http://www.sfnovelists.com/2011/02/15/simple-writing-tricks/ S. C.
Butler talks about the way that some writers develop extensive background biographies for their characters, filling out character sheets, writing up interviews, and such, before they start work on the stories. He suggests that he has found a single-word summary such as Dogged, Devious, and Greedy also works pretty well.

(anyone remember Everyman and the morality plays? Well, maybe not. Anyway...)

He suggests that this is kind of a shortcut (or shorthand) for motivation. It might also be a way of summarizing where they are on their character arc?

What do you think? When you start a short story, or perhaps a novel, how do you "get into" the characters? Do you have a mental or real picture of them? Descriptions, character sheets, or something else? Do you start out with a well-defined cast of characters or does it develop while writing?

Does your character description change while you are writing?

I have to admit, I tend to have a mental sketch or picture, but often not much more. Names... I usually come up with those beforehand, but sometimes end up adjusting them while writing. I tend to the pantser side of the house, even though I appreciate all the guidelines and worksheets around...

FILL: A touch of conference envy

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Original posting 18 Feb 2011

I've got conference envy. I was looking at the program for Life, the Universe, and Everything over here http://www.ltue.org/2011_Schedule.html and sighing about not being able to go. And then it struck me... some of these headings are kind of interesting to think about. So, with no further ado, let's take a look.

The very first one is "best and worst writing advice ever given." They have a panel with a moderator to talk about this at 9 AM in the morning. Fortunately, we don't have to get up that early. But we can still talk about what is the best writing advice you've ever gotten (or given)? Along with that, what's the worst writing advice you've ever stumbled over, and wished you had never heard of.

I'm going to recommend two different pieces of writing advice as best. One is the relatively long-term advice given by Heinlein, which I remember as four steps. Write. Finish what you write. Submit. Keep submitting. That may not be exactly the way it was stated, but it's pretty close. Second is the short-term advice that I've seen many places, but I think has been best summed up in Howard Tayler's pithy acronym -- BICHOK. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. Yes, you need thinking time, pondering time, research, filling the well, and lots of other stuff. But the key to writing is to write. Get those words out.

Worst writing advice? I need to think about that a little.

What about you? What's the best and worst writing advice you've ever encountered?

EXERCISE: messages from the underground

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Original posting 23 Feb 2011

The Japanese news has been following the earthquake and rescue efforts in Christchurch pretty closely. We've all gotten familiar with the videos of the earthquake, a map of Christchurch with red Xs where there are major building collapses, and the mud and water pictures. But one particular focus has been a six story building in Christchurch that had a school with many Japanese students -- on the fourth floor. The building collapsed completely, leaving a pile of rubble and the elevator and stairs tower. Some number of students were trapped inside. Today's news indicates something like 21 are still missing and presumed to be somewhere in that pile.

However, one of the stories that came out was that one of the students, a young woman, was somewhere in that pile, with her cell phone. Sending text messages to her father. I believe her father was still in Japan. The first short "We've had an earthquake" was followed by "I'm trapped with several others. I can't move. Breathing is hard." After a few other messages, including at least one about it being dark, spread over nine hours or something like that, the father received a message saying, "I hear rescuers."

What a short message to carry such a heavy load!

In fact, seven young students were found, one of them being this young lady who had sent messages to her father. In the dark, under the rubble.

I have to admit, one of the things I was thinking as I watched this story being explained on the television was that it might've actually been easier before we had this kind of technology. After all, letters and newspapers used to follow such incidents by a significant amount of time. You might get a letter from your daughter telling you about what had happened, but you weren't likely to get minute-by-minute reports as it happened. Even the telegraph and radio really didn't change the situation that much.

Television... well, the Vietnam War was one of the first times that the evening news really brought the war into your living room. But it was still a little bit distant, you didn't get your son sending cell phone videos of his foot being shot off or whatever.

Nowadays? Especially with modern cell phones, everyone's a reporter.

What's next? And what does it mean to us as individuals when our family and friends everywhere can tell and show us practically immediately every little nook and cranny, the good stuff and the bad stuff, as it happens.

Even messages from under the rubble.

So, there's your exercise. Imagine that scenario. Take one or more of these people: the girl with the cell phone, her father, perhaps one of the others trapped in the dark. Or what about parents or relatives of some of the other students, either the ones found with her or the ones still missing? Then tell us the story from that point of view.

Feel free to adjust genders, catastrophes, and so forth to make your story.

Just write.