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Mary Rosenblum
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Hello all!
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Mary Rosenblum
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Welcome to our Friday After
Hours forum.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I hope you've all had a very
good week.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I thought I'd talk about
characters and characterization yet again, since real, three dimensional
characters are the foundation of strong writing
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Mary Rosenblum
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whether you're writing
fiction, personal memoir, autobiography, or personal narratives.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Every book on writing will
tell you that you need strong characters but the 'how' of that is very
complex.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What you are doing when you
create a character is introducing a stranger to your readers.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Think about how you get to
know a stranger, how you decide if this newcomer is someone you like or
whether you think you'll avoid him or her.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Appearance is usually our
first evaluation.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Clothing, personal
cleanliness, skin color -- they all tell us things about this stranger.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Then --at the same time,
really -- we notice the body posture.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Does this person swagger,
stand up straight and proud, lean forward agressively?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Does this stranger look you
squarely in the eyes, or does that glance want to shift away from yours?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Are the gestures choppy and
angry or relaxed, mellow, or is the person slow and sleepy, not really
paying much attention to the surroundings?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now our stranger says hello!
We chat. What kind of grammar and local idiom does this person use?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Does the stranger sound
educated? Uneducated? Strong accent?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now what do his/her words
suggest? Intolerance? Is this someone who seems tolerant of everybody?
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Mary Rosenblum
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The more we talk the more the
word choices fill in the blanks.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Kids are brats. Or they're
kids. Or little sweethearts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Dogs are mutts, or Beagles or
German Shepherd mixes or just dogs.
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Mary Rosenblum
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By the time we've chatted for
a half hour, we know a lot about this person.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You want to do the same thing
with your characters on the page.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Your readers meet this
stranger. They see his/her appearance and clothing.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They notice the body language.
Wimp? Bully? Someone with authority?
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Mary Rosenblum
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They hear the language. High
school education? College professor? Dropped out at eighth grade?
Gang-banger?
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Mary Rosenblum
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They listen to the
conversation... doesn't care much about anybody else, has a huge sense of
responsibility, hates women, is afraid of men...
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Mary Rosenblum
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Voila. You have a nice, solid,
three dimensional character.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Appearance. Body-language.
Language. Conversation. And of course we have that person's actions as they
participate in the plot.
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reece
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If I decided to use an accent
for one of my characters should I write the dialogue with the accent or
have the readers infer that there is a accent? Especially if it is amade up
language?
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's hard to 'write' an accent
without a lot of phonetic spelling which is really kind of annoying to
readers
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Mary Rosenblum
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who want to get lost in your
story and start living it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can infer that accent.
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Mary Rosenblum
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When you first introduce the
character, use phonetic spelling and really try to write the accent so that
if the scene is read aloud, you'll hear it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Then fade it out.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Use the construction of the
language or regional dialect with the occasional phonetic rendering, but
don't try to get every word right phonetically.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That first 'immersion' into
the dialect or accent will imprint it on the readersand then the occasional
phonetic spellings will remind them.
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reece
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what if the person has a lisp or
is a small child that says things incorrectly? then can I continue to use
it in dialogue?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sure Reece. You want the
character to sound like that person NOT like you.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So a kid will talk like a kid
not like an adult.
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cls68
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Do you create character outlines
before writing your story?
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Mary Rosenblum
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More than outlines, cls. Even
for short fiction, I know my character's entire life, hopes, dreams, fears,
regrets, life goals before I ever start the story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You really need to know your character
in depth or he/she will simply be a plot puppet and mindlessly do whatever
the plot demands.
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dim writer
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Mary,sss1208 is asking for an
example. Thank-you
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Mary Rosenblum
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an example of what, sss?
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Mary Rosenblum
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try typing /ask in front of
your question in the regular send bar.
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geezer
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How often should you refresh the
reader's memory that the character has a dialect? Every scene? Every few
paragraphs?
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Mary Rosenblum
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You have to kind of play it by
ear, geeze.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you listen to your
character until you can hear his/her voice in your head, you'll
automatically use the contractions, idiom, or what have you
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Mary Rosenblum
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where that person would use
them in his/her speech.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you use /ask in the regular
send bar (not the ask a question bar) you can type a LONG question!
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sss1208
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the question you answered about
construction of the language and using phonetics sparingly
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, y'know, I didn't get a
lot a education when I was a kid but I just say what's on my mind, you
know? Ya either get it or ya don't get it. I ain't gonna mess with folk
that gotta have fancy book talk.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I could make that REALLY
phonetic and it would be much harder to read.
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reece
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some witers vividly detail a charactors
dress while other barely give any decription at all. Do you think it is
more effective to give that vivid decription or is it a bit superfulous
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Mary Rosenblum
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It entirely depends on the POV
character Reece, as well as the nature of the scene.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you're using first or
limited third POV, the main character will notice only those details that
he/she notices.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If the main character is a
wedding planner, she's going to notice a LOT of details as the bride steps into the church.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If the main character is a
male cousin, he might not notice a whole lot about the dress.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If the main character is the
gardener who's secretly in love with the bride, he might not notice dress
details but he'll notice her face, figure, and expression.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you are in the POV of the
male cousin who is only here because his mom made him attend and you
describe the dress in excessive detail it will sound SO phony.
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cls68
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How do you develop personality
profiles?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Think about that person a lot.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What is this person like?
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Mary Rosenblum
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What events shaped him? What
was his childhood like? What is he afraid of? What does he want from life,
what is success to him?
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Mary Rosenblum
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What did he do from the time
he was born until now?
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Mary Rosenblum
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The more you know about this
person, the more his/her reactions to events will be consistent.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Believe me, we're all experts
on consistent human behavior. We study it every waking moment, even if
we're not conscious of it.
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jjj
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If I am writing a personal
experience on illness, can I use the real names of Doctors and Hospitals?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sure, jjj.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Real names are fine as long as
you do not libel someone.
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cbert
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can I go back to knowing your
characters please? If you know so much about your characters before
writing, how long does it take before you actually start writing?
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Mary Rosenblum
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It depends cbert. Often I know
a character pretty quickly. I might wander around for a couple of days to a
week thinking about him/her at odd moments
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Mary Rosenblum
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and making notes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I tend to spend more time on
novel characters, but it's something I do nonstop from the time I conceive
of the story and decide on the MC to
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Mary Rosenblum
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the time I start writing. I
constantly come back to this person while I'm doing other things and think
about him/her, the past, his/her reactions to situations
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Mary Rosenblum
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that might occur in the story.
That character's history, and so forth
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dim writer
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Mary, What if your character is
a ghost?
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Mary Rosenblum
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No different than any other character.
You decide who he is, what motivates him, what has shaped him in this stage
of life. You get to make all your own rules of course. :-)
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charie'
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Do you picture the obstacles
your character will face in your story and develop their personality
accordingly?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I sure do, charie. I tossed
out an entire novel draft and deleted if from my hard drive because I had
tried to use a character who did not work as a MC for the novel.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That HURT.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now I spend a lot of time
twisting and tugging on my new character to see if he or she will bend the
way he/she will need to bend in the plot.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If I don't have the right
character for the story, I drop that one and come up with a new one who
will work.
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info
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Maybe a bit off subject, but I
got a little confused about usage of 's'. If mc uses the word family in a
sentence in regards to belonging to them, do you end the word ies or y's?
Ex: I don't know where the family's dog is.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The Y apostrophe S is the
possessive singular, info. :-) A particular family's dog.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The ...ies ending is plural.
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charie'
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Do you have any characters
waiting in the wings for plots they can star in?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sometimes, charie. They're all
well placed in stories right now. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Usually if a cool character
occurs to me I'll find a story for that person. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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If I come up with a good story
idea, I'll find cool characters to do it.
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reece
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if you have a lot of central
characters do you do you do indepth character outlines on each of them or
will a small summary of each work well enough?
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Mary Rosenblum
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oops...an extra do you in
there, reece. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Because I write character
driven rather than plot driven fiction, I tend to have most of the time a
fairly small cast of central characters.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I have four in the novel I
just finished.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I know them all with equal
intimacy.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you're going to have a HUGE
cast of characters, yes, you are likely to run into trouble with reader
overload.
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dim writer
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What comes first the character
or the idea?
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Mary Rosenblum
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It varies, dim. Lately I have
been starting with ideas first just because I've been invited into a bunch
of anthologies with themes, and because I've run
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Mary Rosenblum
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into a lot of cool science
stuff I wanted to incorporate into stories.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sometimes it's the other way
around.
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charie'
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Is there a big difference in how
much detail you know about the mc versus the secondary characters and the
background characters?
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Mary Rosenblum
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YES! I know tons more about
the MC. You need to be cautious about investing too heavily in your
supporting characters.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I have had students who put
too much into their secondary characters to the point where readers really
couldn't tell who was important to the story and who was a secondary.
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charie'
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Has a supporting character ever
taken over the leading role?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I give them their own story
when they want to do that. :-)
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janecj333
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I tried reading The Poisonwood
Bible recently, in which the mother and children are all pov characters. It
was the dad, however, who was the interesting one...and they never let us
see into his soul. It was a disappointment.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sometimes writers make good
POV choices, sometimes they don't Jane!
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lore alley
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Mary, I've been trying to tweak
a story's MCs so they respond appropriately for over a year and yet I still
can't seem to get them right. Am I a misfit? Or do these things sometimes
just take a LONG time till you get that "aha" moment? And is
there anything I can do to speed it along?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Ah, I think I'd have lost
patience a long time ago, lore, and replaced the ingrate with a new and
different character. Sometimes that's your hind-brain whispering 'you've go
the wrong person'.
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janecj333
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Do your four mc's trade off pov?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Three of them.
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cbert
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What does POV mean?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Point of View cbert.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The point of view character is
the character through whose eyes we see the action.
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reece
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I have many key characters in a
book I'm writing do you have any tips on how to keep them unique and distictive
without putting to much personality that there is overload.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well reece, even in a Big
Fantasy with lots of characters, usually only a small number are central
characters and they are the most deeply drawn.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you have too many
characters who are equally strong to the readers, you divide reader
attention up to the point where no character really matters much.
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janecj333
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What would you say are the main
reasons to use multiple pov in a novel?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oh, you have good reasons. :-)
You can give your readers different perspectives on the same problem, you
can take your readers to places where the other
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Mary Rosenblum
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charaters might not go, you
can show the readers things that they would not see otherwise.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I started out writing pretty
much single POV novels, but a I gained skill in the craft and in
characterization I found that more than one strong POV character gave my
novels a lot more breadth.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now too many can be a
disaster.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And there's nothing wrong with
a single POV novel.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Mystery is nearly always
single POV.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It just depends on what you
are trying to achieve. There is no one-size-fits-all in writing ever.
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sss1208
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off subject, how do we find your
novels? are they under your name?
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Mary Rosenblum
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SF is Mary Rosenblum , mystery
is Mary Freeman. If you go to my website www.maryrosenblum.com they are up
there with amazon.com links.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So think about how you meet a
stranger, and what that stranger does that makes you decide whether you
like him or not.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You use those same steps to
let your readers decide whether they like your character or not. (And of
course you work hard at making the readers do what you want them to)
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cls68
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Why did you choose to use
different last names?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oh, when I started writing
mystery, I thought it would keep my SF readers from getting a mystery when
they expected SF. Turns out I shouldn't have bothered but
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Mary Rosenblum
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it's too late to undo it now.
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reece
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if i write a book with a sequel
should i write a indepth prologue so the readers can get to know my
characters if they didn't read the last one or should I just expect that
most readers wiil be readers of the first?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Goodness don't do that
prologue, reece! Your loyal readers who read book one will boycott you!
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Mary Rosenblum
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No, your job as author is to
manage to allow your new readers to get to know all your characters without
boring your loyal readers who already know them.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sound like a challenge? It is!
:-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Whoever said writing is easy?
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charie'
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Is using the thoughts/emotional
reaction of your mc to new characters a good way to demonstrate whether the
new character is good or bad?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Yes. Internal narrative,
either a first person POV's asides or the thoughts of the third person POV,
are a great way to give the readers
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Mary Rosenblum
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insights. Just don't overdo
it. A little thought goes a long way.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, I have to bolt off to
tutor tonight. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'll post the transcript of
the Forum in the usual place:
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Mary Rosenblum
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Writing Craft forum
transcripts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Do join me Sunday for our
casual chat right here.
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Mary Rosenblum
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No topic, we just hang out and
chat.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And wow am I getting
submissions from last week's newsletter prompt!
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Mary Rosenblum
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Nice scenes. I am going to
have to work hard!
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Mary Rosenblum
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Have a good weekend, all, and
I'll see you Sunday!
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