Weekly Writing Exercise, Week 3
Lawl, third week and I'm already late. THREE DOUBLE SHIFTS IN A ROW; REALLY, LIFE?
Anyway!
So. Characterization. There's so, so, so VERY much that surrounds that topic that I can't even put a dent in it here, so, I'm going to pick a slightly narrower sub-topic.
It's always good to think outside the box, and give your characters tiny quirks and habits that surprise the reader and keep them interested. For example, say you have a very no-nonsense businessman who dresses very snappy, is very clean and collected and kind of a hardass around the workplace. Then you follow him home and find out he's a single father who spends his nights helping his little girl color with crayons and had to learn baking to keep the family fed. Another example: Say you have an alpha male, control-freak shapeshifting lion ... that loves apple pie and hates horses. Another: A high-class Asian warrior who claims to have been well-trained at hand-to-hand combat; later you find out what he meant was, he excels at fencing.
Adding little (or not-so-little) details like these can really flesh a character out and make him INTERESTING to the reader, because it'll throw them somewhat of a curveball, and then they want to read more, to find out how or why. If you break stereotype, or have a conventional character design and start breaking it apart, then you start to have an honest-to-god person that's moving through your book.
Don't ignore the side characters with this, either. It's great if your main character is fleshed out and unique and interesting, but they should not be the only interesting personality in the book. If Interesting has nothing but Uninteresting to interact with, then every scene is uninteresting by default. What makes your token gay Best Friend character unique? What is your main character's boss's family like? What does the main villain like to do on his days off?
ALTERNATIVELY, you don't want to make characters TOO interesting. By that I mean, you want to keep things believable. Go too far outside the box and you end up in WTF-ville with your characterizations in tatters. A sheltered 9-to-5 cubicle employee who's balding, a bit chubby, and has a full family to support probably doesn't know taijitsu and can't defeat a seasoned samurai in battle. A sweet teenage folk-singer from Mississippi probably doesn't go home and try to contact aliens on her days off.
There's a difference between "interesting" and "unbelievable." You'll have to teach yourself to tread that line, and how to make things work for unlikely aspects. But a good tip is: if it feels wrong to you, it probably feels much worse to the reader.
With that in mind, our prompt this week is a great example of THIS FEELS WRONG. Do whatever you want with it.
THE PROMPT: "He's a scrappy guerilla filmmaker who must take medication to keep him sane. She's a virginal extravagent doctor looking for love in all the wrong places. They fight crime!"
Taken shamelessly from the first random result retrieved here. don't play with it too much and get distracted. Yes this means you.
1) 300 words plzkthx.
2) Title your entries "OPEN" or "POSITIVE ONLY"
3) Have fun~
Anyway!
So. Characterization. There's so, so, so VERY much that surrounds that topic that I can't even put a dent in it here, so, I'm going to pick a slightly narrower sub-topic.
It's always good to think outside the box, and give your characters tiny quirks and habits that surprise the reader and keep them interested. For example, say you have a very no-nonsense businessman who dresses very snappy, is very clean and collected and kind of a hardass around the workplace. Then you follow him home and find out he's a single father who spends his nights helping his little girl color with crayons and had to learn baking to keep the family fed. Another example: Say you have an alpha male, control-freak shapeshifting lion ... that loves apple pie and hates horses. Another: A high-class Asian warrior who claims to have been well-trained at hand-to-hand combat; later you find out what he meant was, he excels at fencing.
Adding little (or not-so-little) details like these can really flesh a character out and make him INTERESTING to the reader, because it'll throw them somewhat of a curveball, and then they want to read more, to find out how or why. If you break stereotype, or have a conventional character design and start breaking it apart, then you start to have an honest-to-god person that's moving through your book.
Don't ignore the side characters with this, either. It's great if your main character is fleshed out and unique and interesting, but they should not be the only interesting personality in the book. If Interesting has nothing but Uninteresting to interact with, then every scene is uninteresting by default. What makes your token gay Best Friend character unique? What is your main character's boss's family like? What does the main villain like to do on his days off?
ALTERNATIVELY, you don't want to make characters TOO interesting. By that I mean, you want to keep things believable. Go too far outside the box and you end up in WTF-ville with your characterizations in tatters. A sheltered 9-to-5 cubicle employee who's balding, a bit chubby, and has a full family to support probably doesn't know taijitsu and can't defeat a seasoned samurai in battle. A sweet teenage folk-singer from Mississippi probably doesn't go home and try to contact aliens on her days off.
There's a difference between "interesting" and "unbelievable." You'll have to teach yourself to tread that line, and how to make things work for unlikely aspects. But a good tip is: if it feels wrong to you, it probably feels much worse to the reader.
With that in mind, our prompt this week is a great example of THIS FEELS WRONG. Do whatever you want with it.
THE PROMPT: "He's a scrappy guerilla filmmaker who must take medication to keep him sane. She's a virginal extravagent doctor looking for love in all the wrong places. They fight crime!"
Taken shamelessly from the first random result retrieved here. don't play with it too much and get distracted. Yes this means you.
1) 300 words plzkthx.
2) Title your entries "OPEN" or "POSITIVE ONLY"
3) Have fun~