Happy 29th, Again

What is your character’s attitude toward her birthday, and her age? Does she dread every passing year, or does she celebrate with a blow-out party that includes everyone she’s met in her life? When are the birthday’s of your character’s family? If you don’t know, you are missing out on a key area of characterization that you could explore.

More importantly, you may miss her birthday all together! If her birthday falls right into the middle of your story, your character wouldn’t completely forget. At the very least, she would comment to herself about how she is far too busy to go out with her friends this year. Perhaps she’ll miss visiting her parents, because she has now moved halfway across the country to start her new job. Are your character’s kids celebrating their birthdays with a crisis filled birthday party? Her new love interest may forget, and schedule his monthly golf game on the birthday weekend she expected him to take her to his beach side villa. Unless you know, your characters will never age, and gain the wisdom that comes with reflecting over the course of their lives so far.

What’s Your Sign?

Another consideration is that you or your characters may have an interest in exploring what their birthday stands for, in the universal scheme of things. Astrology and Numerology use a person’s birthday to determine their personality traits, and the possible issues they might have to deal with throughout their lives. If you are struggling to flesh out a character, you can look up their birthday, and discover how they might act in their relationships, careers, and home lives. If you don’t like what the results turn up, you can change their birthday to a different sign, and start over. Even if you don’t care about such things, your young college student heroine might read her horoscope every morning, and you ought to have an idea what it would say.

Other uses for birthdays include exploring what happened on that day in history. If your historical hero was born on the day the Civil War started, he would have a different upbringing than someone whose parents raised him during the Great Depression. Many websites and books have such “Day in the Life” descriptions, or you could scan old newspapers near your character’s real world hometown. Even less famous events could play into your character’s life, such as if she were born on the same day the water tower fell and flooded her home.

Planning For Other Character’s Birthdays

Even if your story covers a short amount of time, it is wise to know when all of your characters are born, not just your protagonist. She may be planning a surprise party for her best friend, when she suddenly loses her job and can’t afford to do so anymore. Your antagonist may decide to cause havoc on his birthday every year, because local bullies wrecked his 18th birthday party.

Birthdays are a great rite of passage that everyone goes through each year. It marks new growth, beginnings, and a chance to start life with a clean slate. Your characters could use these same milestones, to take your story in new and unexpected directions.

What do birthdays mean to you, and your stories? Have you explored how your characters react to growing a year older?

Editor’s Note: Know another birthday you shouldn’t forget? Writer’s Round-About! We’re turning 3 this month so come and win some prizes at our birthday bash.

Image credit: Dan Taylor

Join the conversation and share your comments on Character Birthdays: Happy Birthday, Heros and Heroines. I hope you enjoyed this post from Writer's Round-About. If you'd like to read more like this visit the site and subscribe to our RSS.

No related posts.

Dawn: Since it’s National Poetry Month… what are the similarities and differences between writing poetry and short fiction?

Rachel: I think poetry is intensely useful for fiction writers. It teaches one how to create images that are concrete rather than abstract, to fully exploit each word, and to understand language on the detail-level. Poetry spoils me, because you can work on each word until it’s perfect. You can rewrite a poem dozens or hundreds of times to make sure each word is exactly what you want it to be.

Dawn: You can’t do that in a short story…

Rachel: Once you’re dealing with thousands of words in short stories, you can’t give each phrase the same level of attention. With novels, there’s even less ability to focus on the micro-level.

When I took a novel workshop at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Lan Samantha Chang said that one of the most common difficulties she sees short story writers having with the novel form is letting go of their control. Novels are too long to perfect word by word, and usually too much for a writer to keep in mind all at once in the way you can with a short story (or so I’m told).

Poetry is the opposite: you have an extremely high degree of control over the words and it’s fairly easy to keep the whole thing in mind at once, or even to memorize the whole project if you want to. Sometimes that control can be maddening if you can’t create the effect you want, and I know there have been plenty of times when I’ve caught myself retyping the same three words over and over, changing them slightly and then changing them back, until I’m completely frustrated. This is usually a good time to walk away.

Dawn: Your prose is very poetic — one of the things I love about it. Do you make a conscious effort to do that?

Rachel: I do make an effort to be poetic in what I write. Which is to say, poetry is extremely conscious of the language it uses to convey ideas. It’s easier for people writing prose to abstract themselves from the means of communication, because prose is an unmarked form–we use it when we speak, and when we write notes to each other, and when we write up reports at work. It’s ubiquitous, so we can pretend it’s not even there, much like fish probably don’t think, “Hey, I’m swimming through the water” every thirty seconds. But it is there.

Dawn: I think it’s easier to “try” to abstract ourselves from the means of communication. But truly transparent prose can take as much work as poetic prose. Otherwise, it looks self-conscious…

Rachel: Transparent prose attempts to use language in a way that the audience won’t notice–to take advantage of the ubiquity of the medium so it disappears. This can be a beautiful technique. Prose that we consider poetic, or sometimes I hear people use the term self-conscious, is playing more overtly with the medium of language.

Different styles have different kinds of effects on the reader, and may play better or worse with the kind of content you’re trying to express. I try to think about what effect I’m having and what effect I’m trying to create, and then I usually spend a lot of time with the sentence-level language to make sure that it’s doing what I want it to.

Dawn: What do you find most challenging about fiction – the language, plot, characters, world-building or something else?

Rachel: That depends on the story. I probably spend more time on language than on anything else, but I don’t tend to find it challenging, per se.

I don’t feel like I have a lot of problems understanding characters, although relaying that understanding on the page is a different challenge.

I tend to come into stories with plot arcs I already understand, but sometimes the exact process of how to show the characters getting from 60% of the way through the story to 80% can be very difficult for me. Beginnings, early middles, and endings are easy–it’s that latter middle part of the arc which seems to sag. I don’t even want to know what that’s going to be like on a 100,000-word novel instead of a 2,000- to 10,000-word short story.

I wish I was better at dialogue. I think I write dialogue decently enough, but when you read the work of someone who really has an ear for it, it can be this astonishing, amazing thing. Andy Duncan captures people’s speech in ways that feel dynamic, fresh, novel, and totally real–he writes the dialogue equivalent of surprising yet inevitable endings. His dialogue is a small, focused, surprise–but then you realize the character could never speak any other way.

You can read stories and poetry by Rachel Swirsky at:

Tor.com
Subterranean Magazine
Fantasy Magazine
Weird Tales
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Find out more at RachelSwirsky.com

I also really wish I could do tight, focused plotting — the kinds of plots you find in farces or murder mysteries. I’ve been watching episodes of Coupling and Doctor Who by Steven Moffat, and he hits the plot points with just the right amount of precision and wit, with never a wasted word. I want to know how to do that.

Join the conversation and share your comments on Should Fiction Be Poetic? Part 2 of our chat with Hugo and Nebula Award-nominee Rachel Swirsky. I hope you enjoyed this post from Writer's Round-About. If you'd like to read more like this visit the site and subscribe to our RSS.

No related posts.

Writing is like weaving
– from the beginning
to the end!

Our words glide across the page and then we hit enter and move down. We scroll back up and take note of what we’ve written; we scroll back down and finish our thoughts. We move all across the page: up, down, back and forth – all the while we are weaving a story. The pieces, colors, and vibrant picture are moving vividly through our mind, body, and soul.

As we gaze intensely at the computer screen – or our notebook – we are filling the blank page with words, ideas, wisdom, information; we are filling the blank page with our heart and soul.

Some of you weave with dark yarns (aka words), smearing mystical creatures, blood-spilled mysteries, and murderous intent on to the blank page. Others splash colorful hues of passion-filled romance, wild and dangerous affairs, and tug at the hearts of those craving love (or lust!) – leaving them satisfied, yet yearning for more. And there are those of us who choose to share inspiration, motivation, encouragement, and non-fiction information that will leave the reader a little wiser – and more optimistic- than they came.

We writers purge not only our creative minds with our readers, but our hearts as well. We ultimately give the world a piece of ourselves in every page, every word, every article, story, or book. With every word we type (or write), we are weaving…

Weaving When Words Won’t Wake

1. Begin at the end and weave your way back. If the first words won’t come to you for the beginning of your story, think about how you want the piece to end.
2. Start with the title. Take a few minutes to find a working title. Think about what you want to say in your piece and create a title from those ideas.
3. Jump in to the middle. Who says you have to start at the beginning – or even the end? Throw yourself in to the middle of the story and weave your way up and back down (or vice-versa)!
4. Go easy on yourself and weave an outline. Sometimes you need an outline. I find them especially helpful on most of my work.
5. Take a break and create a Wordle. They’re fun, and they’re sure to help you get your weave on!

There aren’t any rules set in stone of how you should weave your stories. Words usually come naturally if you nurture your creativity and treat your body well. Yes, there are dry spells in every writer’s life at some point, but if you follow the tips above, it will help you find inspiration once again.

Your work will be much richer, much more beautiful, if you allow yourself to be vulnerable enough that your heart and soul bleeds in to each and every word you weave.

Did you enjoy this article? Feel free to visit the other articles Michele has written for Writer’s Round-About–or contact her to write for you.

How do you weave your words? Similar to me, or different? Do you apply any of these techniques to your own writing? Do you have any weaving tips to share with us? We’d love to hear from you; please join in – or start – the conversation!

Reference: Wordle.net

Join the conversation and share your comments on Weaving with Words: Writing 101. I hope you enjoyed this post from Writer's Round-About. If you'd like to read more like this visit the site and subscribe to our RSS.

No related posts.

With just a few weeks of school before the holiday season is truly upon us I look around myself today and appreciate the true wonders and joy in my life. From the smiling faces of my children and the tight knit of my loving family to the simpler things like food on our table and a roof over our heads. There are so many things to be grateful for in each and every day.

As writers, we are gifted with expressive voice. Every word we place on the page has meaning and purpose, each sentence expresses an idea. Every story we tell, be it fiction or non-fiction, has a message, something rich and meaningful that our readers take with them when the story is read. Consider, as the holidays approach, including the message of gratitude in your writing.

How can we express gratitude in every moment? Begin, by being truly thankful for the opportunity to be who you are, a writer. Your gift is unique and precious. I give thanks that we might share our gifts with each other.

Join the conversation and share your comments on A Time To Be Thankful. I hope you enjoyed this post from Writer's Round-About. If you'd like to read more like this visit the site and subscribe to our RSS.

No related posts.

As you watch from season one through to season ten you notice the major arc, the one that arches over all of the seasons is huge. Episodes become more dramatic, problems compact on top of each other and characters strengths and weakness grow and shift into complex creations that significantly impact the outcome of every choice.

When we start smaller we see the simplicity of a single episode. One central idea/problem is introduced. This problem is always slammed home in the first few minutes, pre opening credits but I’ll talk more about that in Part Four: Hooks, Hangers and the Sequence of Events. We start with what Les Edgerton (Author of Hooked) called ‘the story-worthy problem’.

This opening scene may or may not involve the main characters but we are always brought to their point-of-view immediately after the opening credits. We see the problem then we backtrack to where the protagonists are right now. They obviously want to solve the problem. As the episode continues they discover that the problem becomes harder to solve, a plausible solution doesn’t work, there are unseen challenges that have to be confronted first, something else happens to compact the situation.

The conflict reaches climax. It’s a crisis moment and a make or break action tips the scales toward success (or failure). Generally the good guys win against the odds but it is not always in a way that means everyone lives happily ever after (more about this in Part Two: Character Development).

The ending is a rush of released tension BUT we are always a left a few points higher on the y-axis (tension) then when the episode began. There are always questions left unanswered. New elements are introduced that may (or may not) play a significant part in the shows future but always leaves us wondering what is next for these characters. The overall series story-arc is never complete (except, perhaps at the end of the series).

Each season has its own story-arc as well. When you see the season as a complete picture you recognize that most of that seasons episodes have contributed to the seasons thread. It is often brought to climax in the final episode and often left hanging between seasons so that viewers are left on the edge of their seat with incentive to hold out for the next season during off-season months.

All of these seasons are held together by the solidity of the overall plot. Questions are introduced that won’t be answered right away. Each of these unanswered questions build upon the plot. The original series worthy problem continues to grow until it too, reaches climax. In fact, it’s often the climax of each season that spikes this major arc over the series to greater heights.

In the overall series plot a number of subplots are woven. These are almost a filler, bulking out the story but also adding elements to enrich the characters and the story as a whole. They stack the odds and continue to develop tension. Sub-plots are often less sub than they originally appear. An alliance formed (or broken) in an earlier episode might seem like a sub-plot but proves to be a significant factor in the major plot events.

For Example: In Season 1 Episode 9, Jack and Teal’c come across a recording of Thor in the labyrinth of Thor’s Hammer. In that episode it seems of minor consequence. They’re forced to destroy the Hammer on Cimmeria to rescue Teal’c. The escape from the labyrinth makes up the climax of the episode and we might assume the end of this sub-plot. In Season 2 Episode 6 we discover that the destruction of Thor’s Hammer has a significant impact on Cimmeria and their whole world is put at risk. We discover that Thor isn’t just a recording of a mythical God. In Season 3 we come across Thor again and again and again throughout the series. Thor (and his race, the Asgard) are actually an incredibly important part of the series plot that originated in what seemed like an insignificant sub-plot.

How does all this relate to our own writing? It throws into perspective the perfection of the story arc. We are given the opportunity to monitor the development of the plot (and of subplot) through an intricate construction over a well developed and very successful series. In some books or even movies it can be easy to lose sight of the beautiful design that a plot takes but it is there, underlining every work of fiction. It is a clarified manifestation of the ‘Beginning, Middle, and End’ concept.

If you’ve ever considered writing a novel or a series of novels it’s important to understand how this structure plays a significant role in your creation. This weave is never perfect in a first draft. To bring the threads together you must pay attention to your story-arc. Weaknesses need to be tightened. Planning your plot in advance is a great way to develop an idea of how your novels various elements come together but you can also see this to some degree in second drafts. The shaping of your story-arc should be an important part of your editing process.

• Five Part Series: Writing Lessons From Stargate SG-1
• SG1 Series Part Two: Character Development
• SG1 Series Part Three: Action and Dialogue
• SG1 Series Part Four: Hooks, Hangers and The Sequence of Events
• SG1 Series Part Five: Formula – Making A Success Key Mould

Join the conversation and share your comments on SG1 Series Part One: Story-Arc, Plot and SubPlot. I hope you enjoyed this post from Writer's Round-About. If you'd like to read more like this visit the site and subscribe to our RSS.

No related posts.