Who Are You? Character Building and the Character Bible.

Good stories have a few elements that make them great.

Characters, themes and settings. The order is not terribly important, but the development of these elements is vital to making or breaking your story.

Who is your character? If you’re a Pantser, like me, you’ll have a basic grasp of who your character is. I.E. Name, what they do, what the look like, etc.

If you’re a planner, or want to add more depth to your character, it’s a good idea to build your character from the ground up.

The best way to do that, to keep all that information together, is to put together a character bible.

A character bible is akin to a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet. For example you’ll list off physical attributes, strengths and weaknesses, traits, background, etc.  It really makes you get into your character’s head and see their quirks and how they think.

Using a character bible isn’t necessary for building a character. Those who have used them, however, swear by them.

So why are you talking about it?

What?

You’ve never used a character bible, why are you talking about it?

You always gonna interject like this?

I’m your inner-jerkface. It’s my prerogative. 

Sigh.

I’ve never used a formal character bible.

I have talked about using the character bible on a twitch stream with my friend Jared Quan. Talking about this, I discovered that it could be a useful tool. It’s something that I will likely will be using in my next book.

Having the traits of your character, their likes/dislikes, their background written down can be quite useful. Referring back to it will help with your consistency. It will also help when you need to write a choice for your character. You won’t write something that’s out of their character.

I go more into depth with Jared Quan in this video.

The Days: Good and Bad

When you wake up in the morning, you don’t know how the day’s going to go. If it’s gonna go your way, or if circumstances are going to seem stacked against you.

If the day goes well, you’re going to feel successful. Things will get done, and you’ll have that great feeling of accomplishment and you’ll feel great going to sleep.

When the day turns on you, it feels like nothing works. Things need to get done, but will feel like they aren’t getting done. It will feel like you need to expend double the effort just to move forward at all.

So why am I writing about it?

The point is that we don’t know how our day will turn out. But we need to go on with the day.

If our day is tough, we push through it.

If our day is awesome, we shine.

At the end of the day, no matter how it’s gone for us, what matters is how we’ve conducted ourselves.

The Blank Page and How to Defeat It

There it is.

The blank white screen. Or if you write long-hand, the blank white page.

It’s ready to be filled with your scribblings. Your words need to be written on that page.

There’s a problem though. Nothing’s coming out.

You stare at the screen/paper. Nada.

You even resort to pleading with it. No dice.

It’s at this point you wonder why you didn’t listen to your mother and go into a nice lucrative field like Engineering or something.

Writing is a difficult habit to sustain. It’s even more difficult when you can’t figure out what to write.

Blocks like this are the most frustrating point for a writer to get into. The advice for breaking through writer’s block are many. I have a few that have worked for me that I can pass on.

1. 22 Tips on Storytelling by Pixar Want some great advice? Go to the writers of Pixar.
2. Neil Gaiman’s 8 Good Writing Practices Neil Gaiman’s advice is simple, to the point and, makes you want to write.
3. How to Get Past Writer’s Block Might seem a bit on the nose, but this is the distilled knowledge of several authors on how they overcame their own hurdles.
4. Writing Prompts: Here and Here are some of the best. It gets the creative juices churning and frothing to write about these ideas.
5. Neil Peart’s Top Ten Rules for Success As Rush’s lyricist and drummer, Neil Peart is a force of nature. His advice isn’t exclusively for musicians. It can be applied across the creative spectrum.

If these can help, wonderful. I’m glad they did.

If you find another way around the block you have, do as Yoda says. “Pass on what you have learned.”

 

Down & Back

I’ve been lying low for the past two and a half months. My presence online has been lower than normal since…well, ever.

I thought I’d do some explaining.

Midway through December a couple of things happened to me at once. Both debilitating and both at the worst time ever.

Number 1: I got the flu. Found out later this strain of flu had been putting people in the hospital. I was fortunate enough only to lose 25-30 pounds by not being able to eat for two weeks.

The less said about that, the better.

Getting the flu wasn’t enough, though. I was at work at the time and had to drive myself home. Walking out to my car lead me to…

Number 2: I tore a hamstring.

Those who don’t know me, here’s a fun fact. I can hyper extend my knees very easily. It’s a fun little party trick. I do it to freak out friends and relatives. It can come back to bite me. Especially when I’m distracted and I, for example, step off a curb. Sure enough, I stepped off a curb and snap! I’d done this before. Hyper-extended too far and on accident. Nothing came of it the last time. So I figured it was the same scenario. Until my foot started to swell like a balloon and hurt like a [LANGUAGE REDACTED].

……uh, pretty sure I meant to swear there.

MOM!!!

Oh well.

Paying a visit to Urgent Care, the Doctor informed me that I had torn a hamstring and I was supposed to stay off my feet.

So I was sick and hobbled.

The flu kept me down for a good week and a half. The hamstring kept me down for longer.

I was not myself and not very fun to be around.

Something I need to say here is my wife is a sainted woman. She took care of me during this time. Going above and beyond.

I really love her. More so now than before.

One other thing about being hit by all of this at once. When I was down I was so out of it that all of my creative endeavors fell by the wayside.

Fortunately, I’m feeling much better now. I’m walking and working again. Most importantly, I’m writing again.

So enough talking about what put me down. Time to get back to it.

Focus

This is a tough one to admit.

I love to write.

Always have, always will.

That’s not the admission. Read on.

Every thing I see, every thing I do, inspires a new story idea. I forget ten ideas for every one I’ve written down.

Thing is, while I love the writing, I’ve let myself become distracted by it too.

“You know, a story about this would be really cool…” So off on a tangent I go.

Or…

“I’ll bet no one’s come at this idea from this angle…” And away I go.

It’d be great if I finished these. I haven’t. They’re languishing in disparate files on my hard drive.

My sequel’s in a different, but no less desperate situation.

Instead of a flood of input there is a drought. Where I once had rivers of ideas, I’ve not a trickle.

Mebbe I should focus more on consistent writing, less on the metaphor of frustration.

“What’s the meta for of fussteration, boss?”

Quiet you.

I know where the story is supposed to go. I know what I want to do. The problem is getting the words to fit.

I suppose I just need to sledgehammer the words into place.

Ugh. Metaphor again.

“What kind of meta for was that boss?”

Quiet you.