When Your Characters Take Over

What in the heck do we do when our characters take over the story? (Don't tell me they don't, because they do! LOL) This most often happens to me when I am in the flow, when I allow the story to tell itself. When I go back to reread and edit, sometimes it is as if I am reading it for the first time. I have no clue what I wrote, but it seems to work. This is the good side of my characters taking over the story.

The bad side comes when they stop me from writing, when they insist that their character needs to do something else, be somewhere else, interact differently with the other characters - and they are adament about getting their way! Sometimes I can do what they want, other times I have no clue how to create their version of life.

When I have no clue how to create their version of life, I generally end up going back to the beginning of the story, and editing it to fit the storyline that my characters want. 

Bottom line - we need to honor our characters, who they are, how they act, what makes them tick. If our characters are real, the story will be real ... and will more than likely sell!

(c) October 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the author. 

Beginning, Middle, & End

All stories need a beginning, middle, and end. Otherwise, we are wandering around aimlessly, gathering information but not necessarily having the knowhow to put that information together into a cohesive picture. 

So how do we take the story that we carry in our head and make it come alive on paper? We have to create a strong beginning, a middle that developes both the characters and the storyline, and an ending that pulls it all together and leaves the reader wanting to read more.

A strong beginning makes a promise to the reader. I write mysteries - my promise to my readers is that their time will be well spent reading my books, that they will relate to and enjoy the stories, and that they will have a great time intellectually trying to figure out who did what to whom before the end of the story.

The meat of the story is the middle - where characters are developed, clues are dropped (I write mysteries, remember!), conflict rears its ugly head, and the storyline begins taking twists and turns.    

The ending litrally pulls all of the twists and turns togther, and makes sense of them. What you promised your reader is taking form. It is a logical conclusion, in line with both the story, who the protagonist is, and what their beliefs are. 

How do you feel about your story?

(c) September 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the author.

It's All In The Details!

As writers, we want our stories to hold together well, and to make sense. Keeping track of all of the pertinent details about storyline, protagonist, and supporting characters for a stand alone book is one thing, doing the same for a series of books is even more difficult. We don't want something that we have a character say or do in book five be at odds with something they said or did in book one!

There is more to the details than we think. We not ony have to keep track of what our characters are saying and doing, we have to keep track of how we are presenting their environment, and how they are reacting to their environment. If we reference something from another era, we need to make sure that it reflects that era. Historical events need to be reflected as they happened, not as however we feel they fit into our storyline.

If we do something as simple as moving a paragraph, or an entire chapter, to another location in our story, we need to make sure the information fits, and makes sense. We also need to make sure that it is not repititious, and that the information we are moving is not needed in any of the chapters coming before it. (i.e. If we move Chapter Six to Chapter Ten, we need to make sure that Chapters Seven and Eight do not depend on any of the information from Chapter Six.)

The way that I track information in my writing is through the use of a Book Bible. Everything can be noted here - character history, storyline, what happens when - you name it, it can go into your Book Bible.

Writing is a joy, but if we want to sell our writing, and develop a following, we need to pay attention to the details!

September 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.

Continuity In A Book Series

How do we bring continuity to a book series? I really want to do my books in a series because if my readers like the characters in my first book, they will buy the books that follow. This is a question I am currently facing - my current WIP is the first of a series of three books, which will be followed by a series of cozy mysteries. That is another issue! My first mystery book was "supposed" to be a cozy mystery, and it took a very sharp turn right from the beginning into the land of metaphysics and distant viewing! 

I have no problem with having enough content and storyline to justify a series - I can take the same characters and put them in 1001 different situations. And I have defined what my series will be based on. My first series, based on my WIP, is a storyline that arcs over all three books. My second series, the cozy mysteries, will feature the same characters with storylines that resolve within each book. IOW - each book is a "stand-alone".

Here are some of the things that I am looking at that will help bring continuity to my book series:

•  Have a good foundation for my stories, and enough of a storyline to justify a series.
• Use recurring themes throughout the series.
• Portray my characters in the same manner in  each book in the series - they will grow, but they will also have the same background, likes/dislikes, and shadows that they did in the first book.
• Remember what you have presented in your previous books - life events, how a character speaks, what motivates each character, and what each character's perspective on life is.

My aim is to publish at least one book a year, so my readers don't get antsy and wander away! I also think that leaving a few loose ends might be a good thing - keep my readers wondering. My aim will also be to make each story different - if I keep telling the same story in different ways, that story will get old fast! 

Looking at all of the above, I realize that my character bible is going to be a very important tool in keeping my characters straight from book to book. What they say and how they react in one book has to pretty much stay the same in future books in the series. I don't want readers saying "So and so said this in book one, and this in book three. Which did they really mean?" That is a rabbit hole that I do not want to go down!

(c) June 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the author.

Creating A Character - Oh, My!

Whether I am creating a major character, or a minor character that moves the story along, I look at the storyline, and the setting, to see what type of character I want. Am I looking for a protagonist (the good guy), an antagonist the bad guy), a secondary character that will be recurring (as in a series), or a one time secondary character that is used to deliver information, or in some way move the story along. 

Then I think about the character's background - where do they live, what do they do for a living, what do they believe in. You want your character to be as specific s possible, so that they interact in a reasonable manner with other characters, an so that they serve a purpose in your story. They need to be fairly well defined - male or female, age, body type, eye and hair color, how they speak, how they dress, educational background. Are they calm by nature, do they have a temper, are they shy, are they aggressive? Your characters need to come across as vibrant and real - people that your readers can connect with!

We can also be very creative and make animals into characters. Rita Mae Brown does this very well in two of her series: "The Sneaky Pie Brown" and "Sister Jane". Her animals (cats, dogs, horses, birds, foxes etc) talk to each other and to the humans. It is all very real, and each animal is kept in character. We don't have to go that far - in most books we have humans talking to their pets, and the pets reacting. This can be a very strong component for any story. 

Once you have created your character, document the information in your book's bible, so that you can refer back to it as you write. Readers will note characters that don't always follow who they "should" be. And they will put that info in their review of your book!  

In my next blog, I will be discussing how to develope a character.

(c) June 2018 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited with out written consent of the author.

Questions To Be Covered By Beta Readers

Before you even get your Beta readers lined up, you might want to think about what questions you want them to respond to. What is important for you to get feedback on? What will help you firm up your book so that it will sell? The following questions cover some areas that you might want to consider. Reword them to fit your tone, and exactly what you want covered. Add questions that might not be here, but that you want covered. Take out questions that do not really interest you.

Storyline:

Does the story engage you? If not, why not?

Does the storyline flow well? If not, why not?

Are there certain sections of the book that drag a bit, or are bogged down? If so, which sections, and why.

Were there enough false clues to make the story interesting? If so, why.

Was it too easy to guess the ending? If so, why.

Was the ending interesting? If not, why not.

Was there enough conflict/tension to keep things moving? If not, why not? 

Characters:

Do the characters show depth? If not, why not?

Do the characters interact well with each other? If not why not?

Are the characters consistent? If not, why not?

Do the characters have enough "back story" that you feel that you know them? If not, why not?

Background:

Were there any discrepencies in the timeline, the environment, or in character detail? If so, where and why specifically.

Was the locale believable? If not, why not.

Did the dialogue flow, and was it intresting? If not, why not.

Were there a signficant amount of grammer, punction, or spelling errors?

Do you feel that this book represents its genre well? If not, why not?

(c) April 2018 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission.