Creating believable characters

If you are writing fiction you will be creating characters. These characters may be human, animal, vegetable or anything else that has an impact on your story. To ensure your readers engage with your story your characters need to come to life and behave in a way that your readers can relate to or accept even if this behaviour is immoral or illegal; remember your readers do not have to like the character or behaviour.

Start by writing everything you can about each of your main characters and, most importantly, identify want they want and their motivations for wanting it. You can use a character profile template for each character if this helps or you can free write everything that comes to mind. Give each character some memorable traits that will have an impact on them during your story e.g. a fear of flying, always having toast for breakfast, a scar or a limp. Name your characters when you are ready – this might be after you have completed all of your character profiles.

Once you know as much as you can about your characters you will know how they will behave in any given situation, you will also understand when and why then might act out of character – and so will your readers. You do not need to include all of the information about your characters in your story however you will know what you need to show the reader, such as a character limping, before it becomes an important part of the story.

Here are some headings that you might like to use when creating your own characters, feel free to add other headings, combine them or duplicate information:

Character: main character

Gender: male

General background: write as much or as little as you need to ensure you understand how your character reached this point in time. Man is 36 years old, when he was 25 his parents emigrated to Australia, two years later his only sister (no brothers) was killed in a car accident. Since then he has spent all his time working and has slowly worked his way up. His promotions have been slower than other people and he believes this was because he was receiving help for depression.

What they want: a family

Barriers: you can add anything relevant at this stage if it happened prior to the start of your story however the barriers may be part of your plot and therefore not part of this profile. He pushes people away when they get too close emotionally, this prevents him developing long term relationships.

Traits: these can be character or physical traits or anything that is particular to your character. He is always friendly when he meets new people but will often alienate them if they get too close (afraid of losing people close to him).

Strengths: genuinely cares about other people and will go out of his way to help others.

Weaknesses: he has high expectations in the workplace and can get angry when he believes someone is not performing at their best.

Age: 36

Physical features: hair colour: tall, brown hair, physically fit.

Job: area manager for a chain of health centres.

Hobbies: no hobbies outside of his job

Name: add a name when you are ready

Create profiles for your characters, do this even if you have started writing your novel or short story. If you fully understand your characters and their motivations then it is likely your readers will too.

Happy writing.

The benefits of planning your novel

Some writers will tell you that, when they are writing a novel, they just start at the beginning and keep typing until the reach the end. They don’t plan they just write. Writers who successfully work this way usually either allow the novel to evolve as they write and let the characters to show the way forward or they hold the end in their head and keep writing until they reach it. If this works for you then fine, however for the vast majority of writers staring at a blank screen trying to work out what comes next is unproductive.

Planning your novel before writing has several benefits including:

• Increasing the likelihood of finishing your novel – if you have a good understanding of your characters and produce an outline for your novel you are less likely to get stuck half way through writing and give up
• Improving your writing speed – you always know what the next scene is so no more staring at a blank screen or wondering how your characters will react to a situation
• Reducing the likelihood of writers block – you always know what to write next
• Enabling you to notice and resolve any plot issues before you have written 65,000 words only to realise you need to go back and start rewriting from chapter three
• Identifying exactly what research you need to do for your novel – this can save hours, even weeks, of unnecessary research
• Identifying where you need to add clues or red herrings to support later scenes in your novel
• Enabling you to work out how to show character traits throughout the novel to ensure your readers find your character’s actions and decisions believable.

Try the planning method for your next, or even your current, novel. Outline your novel on a scene by scene basis; add details such as the purpose of the scene, location and characters involved. Check through carefully to ensure there are no holes in your plot and then start writing.

Happy writing.

Create a working office

Extract from Write it! How to write your book in 30 hours or less

In order to write productively and get your book finished you need to set up a workspace that will enable you to start writing quickly during your scheduled times. If you have to clear the dining table, locate the laptop, get the extension lead because someone has run down the battery, turn it on, wait, and then start writing, well your writing time is not going to be best used. Do this twice a day and you could easily waste half an hour of your valuable writing time. Over 10 weeks this equates to another book.

Your workspace is important; however this does not mean that you cannot write unless you have a dedicated office that no-one else has access to, though you might like to add this to your dreams list.

Setting up your workspace

Three questions often asked by people looking to start writing are - “Do I need an office? Do I need a computer? Do I need expensive software?” Let’s take these one at a time.

Do I need an office?

Creating a working space that enables you to be productive, not get distracted and have a work-rate that supports you producing a publishable book in the shortest possible time is vital. This does not however need to be a dedicated office, though this can help, anywhere you decide is your workspace or workspaces is fine as long as you set it up to meet your needs and you can access it with the minimum of fuss.

The working area should be comfortable, have enough space for you to work on a computer (desktop or laptop), make notes, use reference material (one notebook and one reference book) and have a place for a cup of coffee. How big does this have to be? A small garden table and chair are fine. This can even be a fold up type that you can quickly open out and start working. If you have a desktop computer then you will need to have this set up permanently. Select a spot where you can work unhindered, again this does not necessarily mean a quiet spot, but you do not want to be distracted by the TV. If you have to share the computer with the family then have a booking system!

If you are working in time slots that are no more than an hour at a time and no more than two hours a day then the table and chair set up is less important unless you have a back condition. If you are regularly working longer hours then spend some time setting your monitor height and chair position to reduce the risk of aches and pains.

It is important you keep all of your working documents, notes, and reference material together and easily accessible. Use a basket or box with handles so that you can move it around and easily store it. The box needs to be big enough to hold a notepad, pens and pencils, memory stick, dreams folder (see chapter 4), progress chart and one or two reference books. Keep it where you can access it quickly.

Do I need a computer?

You need access to a computer and the internet; ideally this should be one you can use at a time to suit you so having your own is a benefit. If you don’t have a computer then you can still write your book, find out where you can get free or cheap access to a computer with internet access, try your local library or community centre. It might be that your employer is happy for you to use one at work after hours or during your break. Whilst using a computer away from home may seem a disadvantage at first you will certainly be focussed when you sit down to type those words.

Do I need expensive software?

No. Whilst Microsoft Word is clearly popular, if you don’t have it you don’t need to buy it. There are several word-processing and office packages available to you free of charge. Consider OpenOffice or LibreOffice, both are free to download, have an excellent range of features and are compatible with Microsoft Word. You also get a spreadsheet and presentation software as well! Think about the features you really need to be able to type your words. Some basic formatting features such as bold and italic, outline features are useful though not essential, as is the facility to create hyperlinks.

The only other software needed is an internet browser; you probably already have this on your computer however these are also freely available.

This chapter contains a list of useful software available free of charge. You may like to look at some of these and decide if they would be of use to you.

What do you really need to get started?

Essentials

Access to a computer

Word-processing software (available free)

Notebook

Pen and pencil

Access to the internet

Desirable

Dictionary

Thesaurus

Graphics software (available free)

Mobile phone (with camera and Apps)

Happy writing.

Exercise for writers

The more productive you become as a writer the more time you are likely to spend sat down at your computer.  Spend too much time sat down and your body will start to object. In order to reduce the risk of aches and pains associated with lack of exercise, sitting for long periods and using a computer it is important to take a break and stretch your muscles. Try these simple hints and tips in order to remain productive and stay healthy:

• Set up your workstation correctly - ensure your chair is at the correct height, the screen is positioned at the correct distance and angle, reduce glare onto the screen and adjust the keyboard position to suit your needs.
• Look away from the screen every 15 minutes or so and rotate your head to reduce strain on the neck.
• Every half hour move your legs, wiggle your toes, clench and release your calf muscles, rotate your shoulders and wiggle your fingers.
• Stand up and stretch your arms, legs, back and neck at least once and hour.
• If you are spending the whole day writing take a break partway through your working day and take a walk or go to the gym.
• Drink water throughout the day.
• If you like to snack whilst writing choose healthy options such as fruit or nuts.

Try at least some of these suggestions and you will reduce the risk of acquiring the aches, pains and strains that can have a negative impact on both your creativity and your productivity. Stay healthy and keep writing.

Happy writing.

Set yourself deadlines to increase your productivity

When you are working on your own writing projects that you will submit to the market when complete it can be difficult to motivate yourself to complete to a set schedule – after all no-one is saying to you, ”I need that article by Friday.”  Your productivity may be adversely effected not only because of procrastination but because you may also find yourself spending considerable time perfecting your work when in fact your writing is already of a high quality.

If no-one is setting deadlines for you then it can be useful and productive to set your own deadlines.

To set and meet deadlines take the following approach; each week:

• List the projects you are working on or want to begin; these might include a novel, an article for a named publication, a short story for a competition, a short play for the local am dram group and a blog post.
• Prioritise your projects in order of importance
• Note a completion deadline against each one – write it down as this will increase your commitment
• List the tasks involved to reach completion (research, writing first draft, editing)
• Put a realistic, or best guess, estimate of the time needed for each task – for long projects you might put two hours per 1000 words rather than the total time needed
• Schedule tasks into your writing week – it is important to plan the week ahead so that you can see where you might need to make adjustments. Ensure that you allocate time to your top 3 priorities. Also ensure that your schedule allows you to complete a smaller project in no more than two weeks though completing a project each week is even better.
• Follow your schedule and complete the tasks – remember you are aiming for good work not perfection. As you are working think of your deadlines as just that – deadlines, you must complete the article by the set date even if you have to allocate additional writing slots.
• At the end of the week review how well you did and then set your schedule for the next week.

Keep this up for the next few weeks, reviewing and adjusting where necessary, and you will find that as you start to complete projects and send work to your chosen markets your motivation to further improve your productivity will increase. During your writing time you will become focussed on getting the job done which will lead to you getting the job done.

Happy writing.