Wednesday's Writer's Tip - The Final Four Ways to Show Characterization #MFRWauthor #amwriting

Exposition - This is the most direct way of showing characterization and is used when there's no other way. Two people could be talking about a third character and letting the reader see things from the views of other people,

Description - We all do this. Write a paragraph using the character's physical aspedts, how he looks, his hair, her body, her features. One problem here is allowing the description to go on so long the reader sees more than he can process at the time.

Narration - Simply telling to reveal how a character may act or plan to act.

Action - Showing the character in the middle of doing something. This can be a physical action scene or one where he perhaps eat. He sat with his head bent and pushed food into his mouth like he was starved. Or She ran as though being chased by a monster. Pale hair flowing behind her and a scream on her lips.

There are a multitude of ways to show characterization and by using more than one the story will be fresh and the reader will form a complete picture of the characters in your story.

Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Four More Ways To Show Characterization #MFRWauthor #writing

 Give the characters a bit of conflict to give a view of them. The conflict can be with other characters, or nature, or society. I'm currently writing a scene with an avalanche of mud and rocks. This is shown from two people's view and they are in conflict with each other. Can make for adding tension to the story.

Here's one that can prove interesting. A moment of truth. When one character learns what they have believed is either the truth or a lie. Can lead to a show of arrogance or a need to rethink their decisions.

Confession - This is often used in stories where one character must confess a secret, a love, a good or bad deed showing the reader and the other characters a slice of their nature.

Choice is another area of revelation. A character is faced with a choice to take one road or another, to do one thing or another. I remember writing a sceen in a book where the heroine a nurse comes upon an accident. She goes to the car and checks the driver who is barely alive. She also hears a boby. She removes the child fron the car and takes her to her own vehicle. One of my critique partner thought she should have stayed with the woman until help arrived. There is such a thing as triage that says when faced with multiple injured take care of the least injured first and then the more injured.

Motivations and characterization

What drives your characters? Why do they have a particular goal? The answer is their motivation. A character with weak motivations isn't going to charm the reader into turning the pages. Not all the characters in a story will have motivations. The walk-ons won't for they're for a purpose and once they have served that purpose they won't be seen again. The hero, heroine, villain and vital minor characters should have strong motivations. Just what are motivations? A motivation is a reason.

There is the one concerned with self-preservation such as hunger, shelter safety, self-defense.

The need for love in all it's phases such as loyalty, sexual desires, loyalty, pity.

The adoration factor including things as gratitude, awe standards of right and wrong.

The power factor which is the desire to rule someone or many.

The social factor or the need to belong to a group including the herd factor and social considerations.

A character may have more than one of these motivating factors which makes for a complicated character. Usually one is the predominating motivating force that drives your character into action. Mary wants to have a child. John wants to control his spouse. Laura wants to escape the flood and fears for her safety.

Motivation can be shown in a number of ways. By the character's actions. By their speech. By the speech of other characters. By a character's thoughts. By the writer's statement.

Writer's Tip - Scenes

Scenes are vital to telling a story. When making sure all your scenes need to be in your story, there are points to remember. When Jane and I wrote Becoming Your Own Critique Partner, we called the chapter Is This Scene Necessary? Now I know I've written scenes that read well and may even be funny but they aren't necessary to the story. When developing a scene, one has to know the purpose of the scene. PURPOSE is the key word.

Scenes do one or more of four things. The more of these elements in a scene the more interest it gives to the story. They give life to a character, they advance the plot or they give the reader information. Now this doesn't mean setting up a scene that's a lecture. Writers have to be sneaky and get the information to the reader in ways that the reader might not immediately recognize. A scene also locates the character in time and place. Another time when the writer can get carried away. Remember writing stories is like painting pictures.

When writing a scene, the writer has to develop it. Summary is good for making quick changes but if what's happening in the scene it needs to be played out.

A scene is built by using some blocks. Description, dialogue both outer and inner and by physical action. All of these can be used in several ways such as characterization, in foreshadowing and setting up a problem to be solved.

One thing to be sure of is to have your major characters run the scene rather than minor ones. Minor characters can contribute to the situation but this isn't their story. The story belongs to the major characters.

So remember Purpose and direction. advancing the plot

Characterization -- Beyond Astrology

There are some other things that help define a character. Names are one thing. Choosing how to name your characters can be sometimes harder than writing the synopsis. Well, maybe not. I spend a lot of time naming characters and looking through books of names including those like New Age Books. Once I had a computer program to help with this but that was many computers ago and the program came on one of those large floppy discs. Sometimes the name comes easy. When I was writing The Warrior of Bast, I needed names that sounded like they could be coming from Egypt and so I sat with books on Egypt and looked at the names of the pharaohs and queens and then did variations. The characters in The Henge Betrayed series are plays on my grandchildren's names. mostly with new endings added to their names, thus Brandon became Brandien, Kyla became Kylandra and so forth. Sometimes when I'm reading books particularly those set in historical periods one sees names that don't fit what we think of as being pleasant names today but in the time period of the historical the names are perfectly fine. Or names that once were men's names are now used for women. So one has to decide to be true to the period or true to today.

Another way of defining a character is posture -- How does a person stand. Do they slouch or stand like there's a rod in their spine. Are their shoulders hunched or straightened. I once read a description that was sort of like this. He walked as though he had no bones. Does that mean graceful or did he ooze across the stage. Posture can also show a person's mood. Ways of moving also do this. Does your heroine always strice or does she mince. Does he walk with a heavy tread? A lot about a person's nature can be shown by the way they walk or stand.

What about expressions. What does this statement make you think. He wore his perpetual sneer. Doesn't make me what to like this person. She was never without a smile. Eyes danced with laughter. Just seeing how another person views the expressions a character wears can give a picture in an instant.

There are more ways that I'll get to another time. Just remember when you're showing your characters try to show more than a static description. If possible avoid having them look into a mirror.

Writer's Tip More on Characterization.

When writing a fiction piece, there are many ways to show characterization and bring the people in the stories to life.

Conflict is one of the ways characters are shown. A character can be in conflict with his environment, with himself or with another character. The character's actions and reactions to a conflict situation will reveal his true nature.

Action is another way to reveal a character's nature, how does he walk, what are his mental and emotional reactions to a situation calling for action? Knowing these things before describing the character in motion can add to the picture of who he or she is.

There are a number of types of tags that will characterize a story person. These include physical tags, such as the blond hunk or the skinny geek, appearance tags. Does the character wear what for them has become a uniform. He'd never seen her in a dress. Didn't he have anything to wear other than those ragged cutoffs. Mannerism tags. Does the character have a definite mannerism, such as running his hands through her hair or her twisting a strand of hair around her finger when she's nervous. Facial expression tags, Arching the eyebrow, a permanent scowl.

These are a few ways to show characters to the reader. Next week, I'll add more.

Writer's Tip - Characterization

Without characters there would be no stories. I suppose one could use an object to tell a story. Tried that once with a park bench but those were in the days when I was finding my way as a writer.

Often rejections speak of the poorly developed characters, or that they are cardboard. How does one solve this. There are four areas to help in developing a character.

Social - There are universal traits. Is the character male or female, child or adult. There are certain things common to each of these areas. Where was the character born? This country, another country, in the city, a small town, a rural area. There's a difference between characters who were born in NYC, in the Kentucky mountains, or a Texas ranch.

Intellectual traits - What kind of education did the character have? Are they curious or not? Where did they go to school? Did they drop out, have a dozen degrees. Do they have a profession and how did they choose it?

Emotional traits -- How does the character react to a situation. Wgat are their feelings about where they live, about their looks. How do they react to pain, to pleasure, to friends and enemies. These traits are sparked by the emotions.