Tag: how to add depth to characters

5 ways to find your voice…in 5 voices

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  1. Understand what voice is

Voice is the personality behind your writing, the thing that makes readers recognize your work even when they don’t recognize the byline. Many things contribute to voice: sentence structure, word choice, mood, tone, and more—so by definition, all books have voice. But not all of them have really standout voices; the writing may be clean, but it lacks personality. But a unique and strong voice is priceless; it can make a book un-put-down-able regardless of plot.

  1. Train yourself to recognize a strong voice

This is easy, like if you read a lot or whatever. I mean, anybody can tell the difference between Ray Bradbury and Doug Adams and Earny Heming-whats-it, even if you throw out the plots. You just gotta know how to listen. Like, Bradbury is real poetic and descriptive and stuff. He can take you right back to summer vacation even if you’re freezing your toes off in December. Adams just thinks the whole universe is a joke, which makes him kind of depressing and really funny at the same time. And Heming…the Old Man and the Sea guy? He cuts out all the fancy words and just tells a simple story, but it’s pretty deep and stuff. I’ll post some little word clippy things next week so you can see what I mean.

  1. Remember, your narrator is a character, too

If you are behooved to write in the first person—telling the tale through, for instance, the eyes of your protagonist—you have certainly delved into that character’s innermost thoughts. But have you skewed every line of narrative with a unique, stylistic flourish?

Worse, a third-person writer may not have dreamed there was another character waiting to be tended to. But even a narrator who never steps upon the threshold of a single scene, is as vital as your hero—nay, perhaps more so. He is the voice within the reader’s ear. The eye peeking over their shoulder. Wouldst thou really let him wallow in commonplace prose?

Naturally, he must come from within you, and thus must start out as a part of you. Mayhaps he is an uttermost extreme version of a one side of yourself. Or mayhaps he is the darkest corner of your mind. Mayhaps he is the wit you wish you were. Ask yourself why he is telling the story. To entertain? To teach? To confront? To rant? Why does he bother himself to write it all down?

You may write in his voice all the time, or you may change narrators, as you would shoes, for each story you write. But whatever you do, do not let him (or, as it may be, her) become a bore.

  1. Experiment

When write long piece, piece like novel, you maybe accidentally write different voices. Maybe you read this book when you write chapter one, make you write one way. Maybe you listen to this song when you write chapter two, make you write another way. Then you go back, you read different voices, you see one you like, you write again to make all sound like voice you like. But you should try do more.

Take paragraph, write five different ways. Like a different person write each one. Maybe one a scared little child. Maybe one a drama queen. Maybe one a angry man. Or a alien. Or Death.

Find voice you like? Write more. Write whole scene.

We go deeper in voice experimentation in two weeks.

  1. Rewrite!

Come on people. You should have guessed this one. Did you not read the title of this website? What is wrong with you? Finding your voice isn’t as easy as changing a word or two. Oh-ho, of course you wish it was. But we can’t all have what we wish for, now can we? You’re going to have to go over that baby a few times, maybe alotta times, before it sounds peachy-keen. You should already know this. Why are you still reading?

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Show, don’t tell: on hiding morals in stories

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If you’re like me, you believe that fiction – more precisely, the story – is one of the most powerful forces on earth. And if we don’t use that power to try to make the world a better place, we are wasting a gift.

Trouble is, if you have an agenda – whether political, religious, or moral – your readers will smell it from a mile away, and it will make them mad. Not in the “oh, this is controversial” kind of mad, but the “quit trying to sell me something” kind of mad. Because, no matter how worthy the cause, you are selling something; a point of view.

As a copywriter for an advertising agency, I have a full time job selling things through writing – before you get out your pitchforks, hear me out; I’m a novelist first and foremost  – and I’ve learned the difference between good advertising and bad, and how the same difference can make your novel a powerful message instead of a soapbox sermon. That difference is simple: a poorly-moralized novel just says “believe me” in the same way a bad advertisement just says “buy me.” It touts its own benefits, insults the competition, and ultimately cares for nothing but the message. Much like that closeout furniture salesman who waves his arms and yells “lowest prices ever!” at the camera.

On the other side, the message-in-a-novel done well cares about the story. That story is driven by the characters, not by an agenda. Take the eBay commercial above (click through if you’re reading in RSS or email). eBay didn’t just say “buy stuff from us!” – in fact, they didn’t say it once. Instead, they created a character and a story we could relate to. It’s simple, but it’s moving, and the message (buy stuff on eBay) is an organic part of that story, not just tacked on at the end. It is, in fact, a prime example of show-don’t-tell.

Do not, then, simply construct a story to serve your agenda. Instead, when you  write your novel, put aside your agenda for a moment. Focus on your characters and the story they create with their personalities, desires, and actions. Write as honestly as possible, and if you are truly pouring your soul into it, a deeper meaning will grow naturally out of the story.

Remember to make your villain – the character with the opposing viewpoint – as realistic as possible. Don’t become bigoted in your passion, making the villain stupid, heartless, or insane. Make them as smart, as human, as grounded as you are. Argue both sides of the question, and do it with conviction. Otherwise, your novel will be nothing but a 300-page commercial.

So the moral of this story is, focus on the story, not the moral.

What books that you’ve read seemed to be selling a certain point of view? Which ones delivered a message that seemed to spring forth naturally?

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Sex in writing: where do you draw the line?

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Parental Advisory: This subject is unavoidably adult, but I have included nothing gratuitous or obscene. I aim to be frank but discreet. Those old enough to benefit from the rest of this blog are old enough to read this post.

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Without it, none of us would be here. It causes people to do crazy things, like throw away huge amounts of money, make idiots of themselves, occasionally kill other people, and of course, get married and have children. So can writers completely ignore sex? Obviously, no. The subject is going to come up. Not always, but sometimes. And anyway, we’re writers! We’re daring! We’re edgy! We push the limits of polite society!

But you wouldn’t show up to a book signing in a bikini.

In fact, you would consider it beneath you to do so. Why? Because although sex sells, there are a variety of words for people who sell it, and none of them are complimentary. Think about that. At what point does it become nothing but literary pornography? It doesn’t take writing talent to “turn on” readers. The crudest sentence (both technically and socially crude) can arouse anyone.

But sex isn’t just physical; it’s emotional, psychological, spiritual even.

And therein lies the key. The emotional side—that sacred bond shared between two people—that’s what you want to capture. But despite the great power of fiction, it has its limitations: while it is extremely easy to arouse your readers, it is extremely difficult to forge an emotional connection with them. One is a mechanical, hormonal reaction. The other is spiritual. You can try to use the mechanical to access the spiritual, but in this case, (be honest) it will only serve as a distraction. The physical side takes off—and blinds all other feeling. The moment you arouse your reader is the moment you cease to be relevant to their soul.

So what are we supposed to do?

Focus on the emotion. If you have to mention something physical, start with a kiss, a caress here or there, but focus on what that kiss means to your characters. What are they saying to each other in that kiss? Is the kiss a lie, or the truest thing they have ever expressed? What does it mean? Why is it important?

There is no need to go into great detail about where hands and legs and whatever else is; you will only undercut your attempts to connect, just as a guy would undercut his attempts to get a girl’s phone number if he kept making lewd suggestions to her, no matter how poetic his conversation was in between.  It’s the difference between lust and love; both are powerful, but only one means anything. So write about it, if you insist (assuming, of course, you are not writing a children’s book). But treat it as the sacred, private thing it is.

After all, you want your readers to respect you in the morning.

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You may have noticed I didn’t even mention erotica; this is chiefly because I deny its legitimacy as literature. I doubt any erotica writers would be hanging around this blog, but in case one happens to come across this post, well, I’m not going to apologize. And if I did, the word would be dripping with sarcasm.

 I welcome discussion in the comments – but please be sure it conforms to the parental advisory above.

How to write with body language

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55% of human communication is nonverbal.

Which means more than half of what you say is nothing but expressions and gestures and eye contact.

Which means if you use nothing but “he said” and “she replied” to tag dialogue, your readers are missing half the message. Besides which, body language is also an effective way to show tone without “telling” tone. For instance:

“Hmmm,” she said unhappily/happily/thoughtfully. [All “telling”]

“Hmmm,” she frowned.

“Hmmm,” she smiled.

“Hmmm,” she tapped her lips with one finger.

We have the additional benefit of cutting the dialogue tag, “said,” which can get annoying in large doses.

Of course, use of body language isn’t limited to dialogue. You can say a lot without actually saying anything (useful if, like me, you are terrible at writing dialogue):

He hunched in his chair, elbows on knees, head in hands.

She bit the corner of her bottom lip, her gaze darting left and right.

He frowned, stroking his chin.

She leaned back and folded her arms, tapping her fingers against her skin.

He cocked one eyebrow, smirking.

There are countless other gestures to illustrate countless other emotions. Here are a few (in totally random order). Got any other good ones? Leave ‘em in the comments!

Grin

Smirk

Grimace

Furrow brow

Wrinkle forehead

Slap forehead

Twiddle thumbs

Twitch/tick

Bite nail

Suck thumb

Pick nose

Run hand through hair

Twirl hair

Skip

Amble

Stroll

Lumber

Swagger

Shuffle

Bob head

Flare nostrils

Wink

Nod

Shake head

Hug self/knees

Rub arms

Shudder

Shiver

Tremble

Scratch

Rub eye

Slouch

Tilt head to one side

Meet gaze

Look in the eye

Gaze slide to floor

Blink

Start

Shrug

Sigh

Sniff

Swallow

Wrinkle nose

Squint

Shift weight

Cross legs

Eyes glitter

Eyes glint

Clap

Snap fingers

Thread fingers

Fold hands

Nose in air

Look down nose

Look sideways

Peer

Glance

Stare

Glare

Purse lips

Push hair out of eyes

Farewell Tuesday

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Dear Rewriters,

In the interest of time management – such as getting more than six hours of sleep and posting Inspiration Monday prompts before the clock turns around to Tuesday – I have decided to cut Tuesday posts until further notice. I hope to be able to start them up again in the future, but in the meantime it should give me more time to: 1. Sleep; 2. Work on my book; 3. Get the Super Secret Project going.

InMon and Friday posts will go on as usual, so there’s no need to –

Wait. Super Secret Project?!?!?

Yes, yes. I can’t unveil anything yet (and don’t know when I will), because I haven’t got all the kinks worked out yet, but here are a few teaser clues:

I’ve been planning this since the institution of InMon, almost three whole months ago!

I want all of you to be involved

It will be a week-long event

There will be graphics! And a doorprize! And you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own home!

I’ve said too much already.

shhhhhhhhhhh