For this last
Monday in April, we have a special guest post from our former President, Jan
Christensen. This is the first of what will be quite a number of informative posts
from Jan about writing and tips she has come up with over the years.
(SOME) OF MY
WRITING SECRETS by Jan Christensen
I write "by the seat of my pants." If I outline,
which I dislike doing in the first place, I lose interest in writing the
story--it's like reading a book for the second time immediately after you just
read it for the first time.
Boring!
But I've found out after writing several novels and lots of
short stories, that there are some tricks that can help me with both character
AND plot.
So, what I do now is think of several characters and start
writing. After a while, I probably know what they do for a living, what they
look like and some tiny bit about their personalities.
But I need more. I need to know their secrets. The sooner I
know their secrets, the more I can ratchet up the conflict and tension for
them. Because of course, they don't want anyone else to know their secrets, so
they'll often do things than are unreasonable to keep them.
Each character also needs to be motivated by something. And
then I have the fun of putting obstacles in her way to creative tension and
conflict there, too.
So, two important ways to help yourself have interesting
characters your readers will care about is to give each one (even many of the
minor characters) a secret or two, and something they want badly. It could be that what they want badly is to
hide their secret.
It's up to you when to divulge the secrets. Often it's best
to wait a while to do that, but other times it's good for the reader to know
almost right away because it explains why the character acts as she does. And
it's always delicious, isn't it, to be in on other people's secrets?
Jan
Christensen ©2017
Jan
Christensen lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, and has had nine novels and over
seventy short stories published. www.janchristensen.com
10 comments:
Great seeing you here, Jan--and good points here too! I particularly like the idea of giving attention to even the minor characters, giving them a secret or two. Helps build the overall conflict and deepen the story indeed!
Thanks for the ideas, Jan. Secrets make engaging mysteries -- the more the better. Interesting to use them for both character and plot development.
This was interesting. I'm a pantser too, but I do depend on a calendar to keep the dates of what's going on correct in my head and in a very general way, that calendar serves as a type of outline for me. I've found myself moving scenes up soon and delaying some because of how they flow on that calendar.
I need to work from a flexible, rough outline to keep the writing plot organized and avoid errors. But I agree the characters should have intriguing personal mysteries that are revealed with small bits of info as the story progresses.
Even those who won't admit it, love to delve into the secrets of others. Great suggestion, Jan.
I find outlining the whole thing can take some of the excitement out of the project, too. But, for a novel, I like to have a roadmap. I focus on the major plot points and leave the rest to "pantsing".
Excellent suggestions, Jan. I'll go back and look at the characters I'm working with now to see if I've given them strong enough secrets and motivations. I also can't outline--it seems to take the life out of writing. When I start on a story or novel, I usually have a general idea of where I'm going but no plan or road map. The process of discovery opens up the story possibilities.
Thanks for sharing these secrets, Jan. I already see where I can apply them in stories I'm working on.
Secrets! Ah! Always interesting and often fun. Thanks Jan.
Wow, thanks everyone, for commenting. I was off-line today until now, and decided to see if there were any comments. I'm wonderfully surprised, and hope you all can come up with some great secrets in your current stories. Onward!
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