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April 26, 2006

Character Education

Ann Lamott (Bird by Bird) says plot is character and I agree. The most intricate story machinations don't mean much if the characters are duds. Flat characters are generally the result of lazy writing. Do you know what your character is afraid of? Whether she cheats at board games or collects ceramic hippos? Does he tattle on his big sister or help little old ladies learn to skateboard?

One way I got to know Hattie was to have her write letters to every other character in the book. Through those letters, I learned she was jealous of Mildred Powell, that she knew her teacher didn't think much of her and that what she really wanted more than anything was a place to belong. Very few of these letters actually ended up in the novel, but without having written them, I wouldn't have known where Hattie's story was headed.

You say your character wouldn't write letters? Would she send emails, text messages, keep a ship's log or field journal, compose an opera, create a recipe or a comic strip or a blog? Pick one and go for it! You'll be amazed at what your character reveals to you about himself.

Posted by kirby at 04:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 06, 2006

The Day After

I started preparing months ago for my talk, Voice Lessons: Finding Your Character's Perfect Pitch, for the Seattle chapter of the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). As if speaking on that topic to my colleagues wasn't stressful enough, I had also decided to take my Power Point skills public for the first time.

All went well. I remained upright, there were no technical glitches, people laughed where I had hoped they would, there was great audience participation and great questions afterwards. Two strategies I shared that seemed to be really helpful to people were writing letters as your character to other characters in the story (even if these letters won't appear in the book itself) and generating lists of words that are organic to your character. To do this, you have to know how your character experiences and understands the world. For example, Hattie is a bad baker. So she knows about cakes that get flat or lumpy. That's why, when she describes the Montana landscape in a letter to Charlie, she writes: "Remember that sheet cake I baked last year for your birthday? Montana is a bit smoother of surface but not much." And she also plays baseball which is why I had her describe the hailstorm that ruined her crops like this: "Like a pitcher on fire, throwing fastball after fastball, heaven struck me out and good."

If you want to read one person's take on my talk, check out Jaime Temairik's chompoblog. Jaime is the marketing genius behind the first chapter sampler we've created. If you want one, email me.

Posted by kirby at 05:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack