“Somehow, Mary managed to remain calm,” I read with confidence. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Read it again.”

I read with more feeling. “Somehow, Mary managed to remain calm.”

“Again.”

“Somehow, Mary managed to remain calm.” I no longer identified with Mary.

“Really read it.” My husband seemed to lose his calm as well.

“Somehow, Mary managed to remain…” My dyslexic brain caught on. “…clam.” So much for trusting my word processing program to catch all my errors. And oh, the mistakes abounded—in direct proportion to my embarrassment.

I edit a lot of other people’s work and hear it over and over, it’s virtually impossible to catch all of our own mistakes. That’s why I have a new first reader. My Kindle.

I email my work to him (I prefer the male voice) and he reads it back to me—flaws and all. I take notes of words I’ve misspelled, left out or repeated. He’s great at helping me find redundancies and letting me know if my dialogue is strong enough to carry the emotion I’m intending.

How, you might ask?

1. Create and save your document in Microsoft Word.
2. Attach your document to an email addressed to username@free.kindle.com (make sure you replace username with the user name you have on file at amazon). Type the word “convert” in the subject line (without the quotation marks). Leave the body of the email blank.
3. When you are connected by wifi, it will automatically download your document to your Kindle. Note: not all Kindles have a text to speech function.

Ever just want to grab your protagonist by the shoulders and scream, “Who are you?”

It happened recently, one of those fabulously brutal critiques in which a friend labeled the darling of my story a cardboard cutout. The advice from my writing group, “Find out who she is before editing further.”

So I asked Hannah. Several times.

She hid in the shadows of my imagination and refused to speak.

I cried out to God, “Help me understand my character.”

In the quiet echo that followed, I knew God intended something deeper. Yeah, that’s what happens when you throw up double-meaning requests.

After several months of writer’s block, a friend suggested a great book on temperament traits, Please Understand Me II, by David Keirsey. I started by taking the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. I’m a Guardian. I took it again, on behalf of Hannah, and discovered she’s an Artisan.

No wonder she didn’t possess the depth of character she deserved, our opposing behaviors vied for plot reactions. With a bit of study on my part, Hannah came into focus. To the point that she now objects when I try to force her to respond in a way contrary to her personality. Blessed freedom–for both of us!

One by one, my other characters demanded emancipation. With a virtual revolution on my hands, I delved back into the book to discover more personalities, and their interplay.

I retook the test for our Character Development Workshop, quickly, without thinking. It registered Artisan. Am I spending too much time in Hannah’s head? Or could it be God, setting me free to experience the character He’s designed in me?

For more ideas on how to know your characters–and know yourself, check out the Discovering the Character Within page. ]]> http://wherefreedomlies.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=35 0 http://wherefreedomlies.com/blog/?p=26 http://wherefreedomlies.com/blog/?p=26#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:10:50 +0000 Julie Williams http://wherefreedomlies.com/blog/?p=26 Invite the characters of your present work into a room and ask them who the most important person in your novel is.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

If all their hands shot up at once, if some bounced off their seats, if you heard someone shout, “It’s me! It’s me!” You’re on the right track with character development.

I knew I was in trouble the first time I tried this. One viewpoint character tentatively raised her hand. The other two looked around, shrugged, and half-heartedly nodded assent. The rest of the characters grumbled about why I wasted their time calling a meeting. For a moment, my novel teetered on the brink of plot without substance. Then from way in the back, came a spark of hope. One little boy from a distant chapter—whose only job was to get the main characters from point P to point Q—sprang onto his chair, with hand bobbing up and down, he hopped and bellowed, “Pick me! Pick me!”

So, how do you get all your characters to show that kind of enthusiasm?

That question drove me to buy a book—okay, several books—and go on a character study binge. Within a few months, the cast of my novel breathed distinct, vibrant personalities. And I discovered quite a lot about my own temperament in the process.

The one that’s revolutionized my writing most has to be Getting into Character.

In this unique book, Brandilyn Collins shares seven secrets used by method actors to steal the show. For each of the actor’s techniques, she provides a practical adaptation for writers, and plenty of examples from classic and contemporary fiction.

Following the lessons in her book will not only grow your writing as a novelist, it will bring life to your non-fiction work as well.

Are you ready for your characters to take on a life of their own?

Ah-ha! That’s what I need to get my novel noticed. I’ve been pitching it all wrong to agents and editors. How’s this . . .

When Hannah loses her brother in the Battle of Lexington, against a red-coated zombie army, she vows not to let his death be in vain by capturing one of their horde. Can her love restore Drew, one of the hapless walking-dead, and turn the tide of war?

Of course, this might explain how the British army defeated the colonials at Lexington—why the militia panicked and ran from the redcoats. It could also explain why thousands of locals flooded the Bay Road, hid behind trees and rock walls to fire at the army as they returned from the battle of Concord. Perhaps if I dig further, I might find a deposition that describes the British Regulars as “. . . a mindless marching mass come to devour our souls.”

Now all I need to do is add a few vampires, some angels, and an Amish community. A guaranteed bestseller!

I take a deep breath. Align my fingers to my keyboard, and let reality sink in. “Write what you know” is the standard for writing great fiction. I may feel like a zombie sometimes—even look like the living-dead, but for today, I’ll work on developing my character’s emotions instead of creating Zomish Fiction.

Julie as a Zombie

[/caption]Want to Zombify yourself?

Go to http://www.picnik.com/app#/home/welcome
Upload a photo
Click on the Create tab
Click on the Seasonal tab
Click on the Halloween tab
Zombify yourself!

Scotts Bluff: day 33 of a 38 day road trip.

It started when Ed and I took our first vacation without the boys. I felt it again when Kevin started screening the movies I watch and Brian got his driver’s license. I’d spent nearly half my life as a stay at home mom. What does a woman do with herself once her children don’t need her constant attention?

Fear of empty nest syndrome drove me to search for a new career. I tried my hand as a seamstress, like my mother and grandmother before me. Mending and alterations robbed the joy I felt creating clothes and costumes for my family. I took on the role of children’s ministry coordinator, then church secretary. Both rewarding— neither fulfilling.

One day Pastor Brant challenged the staff to write a list of all the things we’d do if we knew we couldn’t fail. My imagination ran wild. Everything I ever considered doing made it on the list, even things I was too afraid to try–like hiking Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park.

Against my practical judgment, I began taking the list seriously.

Charging Nottingham Castle

I made it to the top of Angel’s Landing and learned that my fear of being left behind on the side of the trail was greater than my fear of heights. I secretly wrote the first chapter for a contemporary romance novel, and discovered the writer inside of me. Not more than a week later, my friend Michelle asked what I’d like to do when my boys moved out. “Be an author.” The words came out before my logical self could stop them. When she pressed to see the chapter I’d written, I sent it to her.

Her encouragement opened up a whole new life for me–reading editing books, studying human nature, learning web design, attending critique groups, and of course, writing, writing, and more writing!

I went through several boxes of tissues when each boy moved out. But God, in His providence gave me a new purpose and passion to lessen the impact of an empty nest. And, life is far from boring–to me anyway.