Does the Rose Still Smell as Sweet?

by

Carla Lee Suson

“My name is Ishmael…”

“Bond, James Bond.”

“They call me Mister Tibbs!”

In creating great fiction, you should never make up names on the spot or pull them from the phone book. The author should understand on an intimate level how well any specific name fits their character. After all, the writer, in forming a fictional world, creates a powerful bond and potentially lasting history with each member of that story. Therefore, the character’s name should tell the reader not just obvious facts, such as gender and ethnicity, but also much more. The moniker can indicate the importance of the character, their special place in the world, their possible personality quirks, masculinity/feminine qualities, and so on.

Figuring out the sex and ethnic background of your person first helps reduce the choices from thousands of possibilities down to a few hundred, but don’t stop there. The perfect name resonates and rolls through the mind, setting up impressions from the beginning and creating a form of poetic beauty.

A Special or Ordinary Person?

First ask yourself this: is my character particularly gifted or more of an every-man? Particularly gifted or notable individuals tend to have names that really make them stand out. For instance, Jack Reacher, John Rambo, and Luke Skywalker all stand out as memorable. The same is true for Granny Weatherwax or Albus Dumbledore. The reader knows intuitively that these people are distinctive in the story simply because their names rise above the John Smiths and Jack Browns of the world.

On the other hand, sometimes the writer wants an every-man, a person that the reader identifies with because they are so normal. The individual goes through some kind of adventure, sorrow, or life-changing event and the readers come along for the ride by picturing themselves in the character’s shoes. Harry Potter is a great example of this concept. He was a seemingly normal kid growing up in an English suburb when he found out about being a wizard. When Rowling gave him such a commonplace name, she created an idea that any kid might get that surprise letter from Hogwarts and actually have magical talent. The same is true for the Weasley family, who had common monikers such as George, Arthur, and Ginny, although they were a magical family. The familiar aspect about their names actually stands out as a touchstone of reality in the magical world.

Magical or Mundane?

Speaking of Rowling, she also did another amazing thing with her names. She divided her universe. For the most part, if the names were unusual then the person was deeply entrenched in the magical world. If you are not sure about this, think about how many boys/men named Draco that you know, much less Rubeus (Hagrid), Filius (Flitwick), and Sirius (Black). If the name was more common, then the people lived in or closely allied themselves to the Muggle world. Even plain, ordinary Tom Riddle thought his name was too mundane and changed it in order to rise in the wizarding world.

Outside of Rowling’s world, other authors use the power of names to indicate alien origination (Spock), magical touch (Rowen, Esmerelda), youth (Bobby or Tommy), and mythic orientation (Tinkerbell). You can hint at other aspects such as evilness or high intelligence as well. After all, a person with the name Hannibal Lecter sounds intelligent even before you realize how evil he is. Severus Snape: the hissing sound of the name immediately sets the reader in a position to accept him as a villain.

Masculine or Feminine Aspects?

Ask yourself if the name of your character should reflect their personality or hide it. Some names (first and last) have more gender emphasis. Often sharper consonants indicate a studlier male. For instance, James, Kurt, Drake, Lex, and Jared have more umph than Barry, Wade, George (similar to Jared, yes but softer), or Henry. After all, one doesn’t think of a strong male hero when considering Henry Higgins of My Fair Lady, but Clark Kent does come across as more manly, even when the hero tries to hide his nature. Keep in mind, it is both first and last name. Henry Higgins does sound soft as compared to Henry Storm, who people later might call "Hank." In terms of women, softer sounds often represent a gentler, perhaps even frail individual. Anna, Else, Lisa, Leia, and Helen have smoother sounds than Patricia, Rachel, Jill, or Kate. Girls with harder consonants are not wilting flowers. They are the hardy stock, the challengers, the wild best friends, or the tough old broads. They somehow seem more capable to take on harder jobs, obnoxious suitors, or even crushing heartache and still emerge from the fracas victorious or at least surviving.

Of course, this aspect of naming is not necessary for every character but it adds to the mental impression that the reader forms on a barely conscious level. It can also trick the reader. The writer can create a Liza Doolittle who seems yielding and easily overrun only to discover that this particular daisy comes with steel core. Certainly Leia Organa of Star Wars fame was not soft. The name implied beauty and grace, hiding the single-minded determination and courage within.

Stickiness of the Brain

Finally, the name should have some bounce or poetry to fuse it into the reader’s mind. The syllables should blend from first to last for a cohesive wholeness, such as Han Solo, Peter Parker, Philip Marlow, or Atticus Finch. It should resonate and, if belonging to the main character, envelope the mind in an utterly unforgettable way. After all, everyone knows the name "Sherlock Holmes" more than the titles of Doyle's books. Comic books often create this poetry with alliteration (Lois Lane, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts) but it becomes irritating if done too much in the same book. For instance, if the family’s last name is Crawford, don’t make the children’s names Kent, Corinne, Kelly, Cooper, and Katie. This leads to the reader having trouble separating the personalities, and it simply is bad writing.

Keep in mind that, like all the “rules” above, there are exceptions. If you go for unbalanced and awkward names, do it intentionally. If the first and last are in conflict, such as Chuck Higginbotham, then the character becomes comic or even unrealistic unless the unbalance comes from an ethnic reason. Usually writers have another person in the book alter the odd long first or last name by adopting a nickname that accurately reflects the person. After all, Jedidiah Krump may seem a bit unbalanced but then Jed Krump works just fine.

In short, to find the best monikers you must have a full and complete idea of your heroes’ and villains’ outer personalities and inner cores as well. The final label should be amazing, insightful, and perfect for only that person. If almost any name will do, then you haven’t developed your character far enough. Dig deeper. Delve into their soul; live an hour in their skin; embrace their motivation, phobias, loves, and hates; and then perhaps they will whisper their secrets in your ear, starting with their name. That's when the real magic of writing begins.

__________

A Texas chick at heart, Carla Lee Suson started writing after spending a few years in medical research at a Dallas medical school. She then moved to South Texas and developed short stories and articles on travel destinations, parenting advice, and science work while raising three kids and a pack of dogs. After relocating to Northwest Indiana, she obtained a Master's degree in professional writing. Her first novel is Independence Day Plague and she has stories in the Gods of Justice, Holiday Tales, and Night Light anthologies. When not sculpting scenes of ghosts, murder, and mayhem, she dives into one of her many hobbies such as woodworking, leather craft, or photography. For more information about Carla, her blog, or her books, check out carlaleesuson.com.A Texas chick at heart, Carla Lee Suson started writing after spending a few years in medical research at a Dallas medical school. She then moved to South Texas and developed short stories and articles on travel destinations, parenting advice, and science work while raising three kids and a pack of dogs. After relocating to Northwest Indiana, she obtained a Master's degree in professional writing. Her first novel is Independence Day Plague and she has stories in the Gods of Justice, Holiday Tales, and Night Light anthologies. When not sculpting scenes of ghosts, murder, and mayhem, she dives into one of her many hobbies such as woodworking, leather craft, or photography. For more information about Carla, her blog, or her books, check out carlaleesuson.com.A Texas chick at heart, Carla Lee Suson started writing after spending a few years in medical research at a Dallas medical school. She then moved to South Texas and developed short stories and articles on travel destinations, parenting advice, and science work while raising three kids and a pack of dogs. After relocating to Northwest Indiana, she obtained a Master's degree in professional writing. Her first novel is Independence Day Plague and she has stories in the Gods of Justice, Holiday Tales, and Night Light anthologies. When not sculpting scenes of ghosts, murder, and mayhem, she dives into one of her many hobbies such as woodworking, leather craft, or photography. For more information about Carla, her blog, or her books, check out carlaleesuson.com.A Texas chick at heart, Carla Lee Suson started writing after spending a few years in medical research at a Dallas medical school. She then moved to South Texas and developed short stories and articles on travel destinations, parenting advice, and science work while raising three kids and a pack of dogs. After relocating to Northwest Indiana, she obtained a Master’s degree in professional writing. Her first novel is Independence Day Plague and she has stories in Gods of Justice, Holiday Tales, and Night Light anthologies. When not sculpting scenes of ghosts, murder, and mayhem, she dives into one of her many hobbies such as woodworking, leather craft, or photography. For more information about Carla, her blog, or her books, check out www.carlaleesuson.com.



Pop or Soda? Using Dialogue to Create Regional Characters

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

Writers often create characters who aren’t native to the story setting. Giving these individuals particular dialogue traits makes it easy for readers to identify them during a conversation, but it can also provide hazards for the writer. Then there are those stories where all the characters come from the same region but the region itself has a distinctive dialect.

 

We can create regional characters by using regional speech patterns. Those patterns contain three components: pronunciation, grammar, and word usage. All affect dialect.

 

And each component has its own pitfalls.

 

Pronunciation

 

Some writers (e.g., Mark Twain) portray dialect sounds very well, but most don’t. You’ve probably read at least one book where you had to stop and try to figure out what the character was saying. That takes the reader out of the story, which is a cardinal sin.

 

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott ends her chapter on dialogue this way:

 

One last thing: dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny. We are, as you know, a tense people, and we have a lot of problems of our own without you adding to them.

 

But even doing it brilliantly is not enough. You also need to do it right.

 

Dialects have their own pronunciation rules, and if you choose to write a dialect as it sounds, you had better be aware of those rules. Take Bostonian English, which is considered “r-less.” According to linguist Natalie Schilling, Bostonians tend to drop final Rs and Rs that come between a vowel and a consonant, but they never drop initial Rs, Rs that follow a consonant, and those that are inserted between vowels. For example:

 

·         THIS: He missed the pa’ty because he blew a tire when driving around a pa’ked ca’ blocking the road.

·         BUT NOT THIS: He missed the pa’ty because he blew a ti’e when d’iving a’ound a pa’ked ca’ blocking the ‘oad.

 

If you ignore those rules, expect an onslaught of complaints from the Boston area.

 

So how can a writer indicate a character’s regional origins without risking the hazards of bad dialect usage? Try this:

 

Hearing a familiar Southern drawl, I froze. Had Candice returned from vacation already?

 

From now on, we can identify Candice as the speaker by throwing in an occasional “y’all” without attempting to replicate the rest of her speech patterns—at least if she is from Georgia. People from Kentucky have less of a drawl and are more likely to say “you all” than “y’all.” (See https://www.quora.com/How-can-you-tell-apart-the-different-Southern-accents and the Kentucky results from the Harvard Dialect Survey, mentioned below.)

 

Grammar

 

Pronunciation and grammar are the ends of a sliding scale. Is using “git” for “get” primarily pronunciation or primarily grammar? I’d argue that it can be easily identified as either, putting it in the middle of the scale.

 

Most people don’t consider the use of pa’ty as a grammatical issue, so it fits on the pronunciation end. Then there are those practices that come down clearly on the grammar side. Take a-prefixing in Appalachian English, which is the practice of adding “a” before an “ing” verb (and dropping the “g” at the end)—think “a-goin’ a-fishin’.” As with Bostonian r-lessness, however, a-prefixing also has rules. An a-prefix can be attached to “ing” verbs but not to gerunds, adjectives, or objects of prepositions, even if those words also end with “ing.” (See http://theweek.com/articles/461642/grammar-rules-behind-3-commonly-disparaged-dialects.)

 

So if you are going to use either pronunciation or grammar to create a regional character, make sure you know the rules.  

 

Word Usage

 

When we talk about dialect, we usually mean pronunciation and sometimes grammar, but word usage is also important. Do you say “pop” or “soda?” If your character grew up in Michigan and calls it “soda,” be prepared for another onslaught of complaints from all those Michiganders who know better.

 

Using data from the Harvard Dialect Survey, the graphic at the head of this post shows word differences between people from Illinois or Michigan (on the left side) and people from Pennsylvania (on the right side). I didn’t include Indiana because those of us who live in the northern part of the state talk more like people from Illinois or Michigan rather than people from the rest of Indiana.*

 

It’s usually easy to get our own region’s dialogue right because we know it when we hear it, but other regions can be filled with booby-traps. So where can a writer go to keep from making regional errors?

 

Here are a few resources.

·         Use this link from the Harvard Dialect Survey to discover usages in the various states. https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/states.html. Just click on the state you want for a breakdown.

·         This link is for the Atlas of North American English: http://www.atlas.mouton-content.com/

·         And here is a link to the Dictionary of American Regional English: http://dare.wisc.edu/.

 

Finally, and just for fun, take the Harvard Dialect Survey to see how well your speech reflects your roots. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0

__________

 

* Southern Illinois might align more with southern Indiana, but the Illinois figures are heavily influenced by the Chicago results.

__________

 

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.



 

Making Your Characters Say the Right Things: Tips on Writing Effective Dialogue

by

Dr. Anastasia Trekles

 

You may have heard lots of advice on the subject of dialogue-writing. Indeed, you may have sought out all of that advice because it’s just so darn tricky sometimes to capture your characters’ voices in text. After all, it’s tough to capture the subtleties of language through the written word alone, so as writers, we often compensate by throwing in little tidbits to help the reader see the nuances of tone, inflection, and diction along with the words the characters say. There are lots of ways to do this well, and some ways to . . . well, overdo it. Let’s look at three basic tips you might try to practice.

 

1.      We don’t always speak grammatically.

 

Have you ever noticed the way people actually talk to each other? Our sentences run on and on, and sometimes they simply don’t end at all. We string phrases together in odd ways, and unless you’re the Queen Mum, you have probably thrown in some outright grammatically incorrect colloquialisms when talking to your friends from time to time. This is normal in today’s American English-speaking, Facebook-using, 140-character Tweeting society (and it holds true in lots of other languages, too).

 

However, many times when we write, we feel we must adhere to standard grammatical conventions, even in dialogue. This isn’t wrong, of course, but, your characters definitely don’t need to sound like the Queen Mum, and in fact, you can build a lot of characterization into the way they speak.

 

Consider these two lines:

 

·         “I’m going to the store. I need to get out of here for a while.”

·         “I’m going to the store . . . got to get out of this place.”

 

They both convey the same essential idea. But the second item arguably has more punch just based on word choice and the use of ellipsis to hold the phrases together. Often in writing dialogue, an ellipsis can emphasize speech that is trailing off, indicating the person may be “daydreaming,” feeling out of sorts, sad, or searching for the right words in a difficult situation. Other helpful punctuation you might not use that often includes the em-dash and the semicolon, such as:

 

·         “They didn’t state the reason – at least, not to me.”

·         “I miss my kids so much; they were my whole life.”

 

Note that while these tools are available, don't feel like you have to use them all the time. Too many dashes, ellipses, and semicolons can make for a difficult read.

 

2.      You don’t always have to announce the speaker.

 

As mentioned in last week’s blog post, dialogue tags aren’t always necessary. Many writers feel obliged to ensure we know who is speaking, each time they say something, but typically, as long as we have context, you don’t have to tell the reader over and over again. For example, when you have only two speakers in an exchange, once the order of their speaking is established, there’s no point in continuing to say that he said this and she said that. Instead, you can get straight to it, and the reader is unlikely to be confused.

 

            David and Martha looked at each other as David put Martha’s hand in his.

            “Look, I’m really sorry,” he told her, trying hard to maintain eye contact.

            “Well, you really hurt my feelings. Why would you do that?”

            “I just . . .  I wasn’t thinking. Can you forgive me?”

            “I don’t know – let me think about it for a while.” She snagged her hand back and rested it into her lap.

 

Note the avoidance of adverbs in this exchange as well. Sometimes we use them to help emphasize how a speaker says something (i.e., “he said passionately”). This is all well and good but again, there is such a thing as too much.

 

3.      Pay attention to diction – but don’t go off the deep end.

 

Word choice, slang usage, and dialect can help place your characters within a historical or geographic context. However, a character’s use of diction doesn’t have to be relegated to whether he or she says “ain’t” or “isn’t,” and in fact, you can make a character’s voice very difficult (or even offensive) to read if you try too hard. Something as simple as using shorter sentences or simpler vocabulary for a more direct, rude, or less educated speaker might be just as effective as trying to convey an accent or heap on the slang.

 

Consider To Kill a Mockingbird. American Southern diction is found in much of the dialogue, such as this early statement from Jem:

 

"Shoot no wonder, then," said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. "Scout yonder's been readin' ever since she was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven."

 

For those of us not used to this speaking style, it can be difficult to fully understand in one read. On the other hand, we also get an instant and vibrant picture of young Jem based on his words alone. You don’t even have to have read the book to get something more than just what was said from that one line of dialogue. So, in this case, Harper Lee’s use of diction is very effective. Yours can be, too; just be mindful that your word choice is not so alien to the reader that they need a slang dictionary to understand your work.

 

There are many other ways to refine your dialogue, of course, and there is no perfect science to it. As long as the moods and personalities of your characters shine through when they speak, you can play with language and structure as much as you like. Practice. Have fun with it. In fact, the best advice that anyone ever gave me was very simple: read it out loud to yourself. If you can hear your characters leaping out of the page, and they don’t sound like they’re in a bad B-movie, then you’re on the right track.

__________

Dr. Anastasia Trekles is a clinical professor of education and English at Purdue University Northwest. Somewhere amongst the various academic works she has published, she also has a few works of fiction available, including her recently released novel, Core, available at http://www.zelda23publishing.com.



Who Said That?

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 

 

Dialogue can be tricky. First, there is the problem of how much or how little to use, which may depend on genre. An action novel usually has less dialogue than a love story. But in neither case should the conversation be true-to-life. The reader doesn’t want to hear the small talk that occurs around the breakfast table—unless that small talk betrays the protagonist’s anxiety or has some other link to the story. The same is true for the uhs and ahs of normal conversation—leave them out unless they show the speaker’s hesitancy to answer a key question.

 

But this blog post isn’t about those issues. Instead, it will concentrate on the question that troubles most writers much of the time: How do I make sure my readers know who is talking without interrupting the story’s flow?

 

Most writers default to using dialogue tags. Some writers are horrified at the very idea. Oh no, never! In their view, dialogue tags were created by the devil. But if you read their own works, you’ll be surprised at the number of dialogue tags that creep in. Still, since dialogue tags should be the last resort, I’ll address them at the end.

 

Action

 

Action can be a good way to show who is speaking, although that should never be its sole purpose. When used correctly, action has the added benefit of providing information about the speaker or the setting. Consider these two examples:

 

Bob slammed his fist on the table. “He’s a liar.” (Showing that Bob is angry as well as attributing the statement to him.)

 

“I can’t lend you any money.” Mavis flung her mink stole across a Chippendale chair, barely missing the Ming vase on the stand next to it. “I’ll be going to the poor house soon, myself.” (Showing that Mavis lives a life contrary to her words.)—Okay, that one is probably over the top, but you get the picture.

 

The action must fit, however. Characters can only drink so many cups of coffee during a five-minute conversation, and even one may be too many. I’m guilty of this, but at least I know it. Some writers seem to think that any action is fine as long as the speaker is doing it. For example:

 

Tom buttered his toast. “I got fired from my job yesterday.”

 

If the only reason an action is inserted is to identify the speaker, it will sound that way. Find another way to show who is speaking.

 

Using Names

 

The use of names in dialogue can identify the speaker by process of elimination. If John and Mary meet on the street, which character is talking here?

 

“How did the meeting go, John?”

 

Obviously, Mary must be speaking. But this technique can be misused, too. In real life, we seldom say another person’s name when talking directly to them. Once she had John’s attention, Mary would simply ask, “How did the meeting go?” So don’t use the name of the person being addressed unless it sounds natural.

 

Two-People Conversations

 

If you have only two people in a conversation, you may not need attributions once you have identified the first speaker. Consider this:

 

Mary took Dan’s coat and hung it in the closet. “How was your day?”

 

“Boring, as usual. I wish I could quit, but we need the money.”

 

“Well, dinner should cheer you up. I made your favorite meal.”

 

“Spaghetti?”

 

“Yes.”

 

This conversation is as boring as Dan’s job, but at least the reader can follow it. If it went on for any longer, however, we would need an occasional attribution to remind readers who is speaking. Action works well for attribution here because it also adds more life to the scene. (In this particular example, you might also want to ask whether you need it at all, but it gets my point across.)

 

Unique Voices

Sometimes you can tell who is speaking just by how they speak or what they say. Teenagers talk differently than their parents, so in a three-way conversation you may only need to include attributions for the parents. Or if Karl has recently emigrated from Germany, we know that he is the one talking when we hear this:

 

“I can the question not answer.”

 

No attribution is necessary.

 

Dialogue Tags

 

Although writers should avoid dialogue tags when we can, sometimes we do need them. Even so, they shouldn’t be too obvious. “Karen articulated,” “David exclaimed,” and “she cautioned” all make the reader stumble over the story. With rare exceptions, stick to “said” and “asked,” which tend to disappear on the page. (Unless you are looking for them because you are counting up the number of times they are used by a writer who disparages dialogue tags.)

 

The rare exception I recognize is where a particular dialogue tag is the most effective way of conveying a message, such as using “she whispered” to show that the character doesn’t want to be heard. Even so, it is better to have your character simply gasp than to have her gasp out her words. And if your character is lying, let the reader figure it out from the context rather than saying “she lied.”

 

Experiment with different ways to attribute dialogue to your characters. But if nothing else feels natural, there is nothing wrong with “said” and “asked.” Even the best writers use those words at time.

 

Just count them up.

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.





Inflatable Characters

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 

As a general rule, readers engage best with a story when the main characters are round rather than flat. E. M. Forster describes these terms in Chapter 4 of Aspects of the Novel.

In their purest form, [flat characters] are constructed round a single idea or quality: when there is more than one factor in them, we get the beginning of the curve towards the round. The really flat character can be expressed in one sentence such as “I never will desert Mr. Micawber.” There is Mrs. Micawber—she says she won’t desert Mr. Micawber, she doesn’t, and there she is. Or: “I must conceal, even by subterfuges, the poverty of my master’s house.” There is Caleb Balderstone in The Bride of Lammormoor. He does not use the actual phrase, but it completely describes him; he has no existence outside it, no pleasures, none of the private lusts and aches that must complicate the most consistent of servitors. Whatever he does, wherever he goes, whatever lies he tells or plates he breaks, it is to conceal the poverty of his master’s house.

 * * *

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way.

Elsewhere in the discussion, Forster says that both types of character have their place in a novel. It’s okay if some of your characters are flat. The reader doesn’t care about the maid who opens the door and then fades into the background. Major characters should be round, those with bit parts can be flat, and secondary characters may have varying degrees of roundness depending on their role in the story. Mrs. Micawber is more than a bit player in David Copperfield, but her sole purpose is to stand by her man. In that role, her flatness works fine.

If you think about your characters as balloons, they are flat until you inflate them with multiple emotions, motivations, and faults. But how do you know when you have added just enough air for their role in the story (and to keep them from exploding because you were too ambitious)?

That’s too complex a subject for a blog post. Instead, I suggest finding some good craft books on the subject, such as Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress and Plot versus Character by Jeff Gerke. To learn about the different personality types, you can read Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey.

Then there are all those character profile sheets. Writers don’t agree on how much advance work should go into developing characters. Plotters generally fill out a long form of characteristics before starting to write, while pantsers let the characters reveal themselves to the writer as the story develops, much like we learn about new friend (and enemies) in real life.* You should do what works for you.

Still, every writer should have at least a skeletal list to refer to. Otherwise, the protagonist’s green eyes in Chapter 2 may suddenly become brown in Chapter 22.

Here are some websites that include character development sheets or lists:

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jun98/how-to-create-a-character-profile-6986

http://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html

http://www.the-writers-craft.com/support-files/character.pdf

http://nanowrimo.org/forums/character-cafe/threads/249614—this is a list of character development websites

So blow up that balloon and inflate your characters.

__________

* See 3/9/16 post on “Plotters v. Pantsers.” 

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.