Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Writers' block

16 ways for writers to create a rounded character

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Character research

One thing I’ve come to accept with writing is the absolute need for character research. And by this, I don’t mean heading over to Google to find out about the town in which you plan to set your story, or looking up how likely it might be to die from a well-aimed gun shot. The single most vital bit of research any writer does relates to the people who populate their pages. Not knowing enough about the characters in your story is the biggest cause of writer’s block.

The obvious objection here is to say: How can I research a character I made up?

Soap writers access huge detailed fact files built up on each and every on-screen face so nobody acts out of character. As a writer, you need to do the same.

Each time I get an idea for a new project, I write the first few chapters (secure in the knowledge not one sentence will make the final draft). This is where I stop.

By then, I’ve created a handful of characters – or in my case, it’s more like twenty or thirty. This is where the initial character cull needs to happen. At least half need to go (or find themselves relegated to bit part roles – often without names).

What you’re aiming for is one or two lead characters and perhaps two (or three at most) supporting ones.

Character 16-point checklist

When you’ve agreed with yourself who gets to live, this is where research starts. My target is to write 2-4 pages on each. This is where you dig into your imagination, but also Google to understand who the character is, what drives them and what has happened to them in their life, where they come from and what sights, sounds and smells they recall and carry with them.

For each character, think about:

  • Their age
  • Where they live when the story starts
  • Background
  • Physical description
  • Typical clothing (here I like to create 5-10 outfits to copy and paste later)
  • Current and former occupation
  • Key relationships
  • What motivates them?
  • Describe their personality
  • Do they follow any hobbies?
  • Do they have habits or twitches/tics?
  • Why is their role in the story?
  • Does anything scare them?
  • What drives them on?
  • Describe their biggest secret
  • What do other people see when they look at this character?

I’m not going to say you must complete every single one of these for each character. Lesser ones don’t merit this level of depth, but having a place to check back and make sure you gave them the correct eye colour or the right hairstyle will save you hours of flicking through chapters. And avoids that horrible day when an editor (or worse a reader posting an Amazon review) points out your glaring error.

As a bonus, nine times out of ten, doing this exercise prompts storyline twists; knowing I’ve created something to reveal about any character is a brilliant motivator.

How do you build your characters? Share your tips.

Photo by Russ Ward on Unsplash

Planner or pantser – what sort of writer are you?

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Writer who plans

There are two schools of thought for a writer working on a story – you either plan – and work out in advance what happens when. Or you don’t. You pants your writing – derived from the phrase ‘flying by the seat of your pants’.

After years of trying to be a don’t care writer, I’ve realised the only way I can ever finish a book is to plan. If I write and see where the characters take me – usually into a deserted parking lot where one of them pulls a gun and tells me to stop bothering them with my adverb-free prose.

That’s not to say there isn’t room for freestyling – especially when you first work on something fresh. In fact, playing things by ear is essential.

Brick walls

My creative process tends towards the same pattern each time I try to work on a new novel. I start off fine, loving everything about what’s clearly the best thing I’ve ever written. And then I run smack into a wall – usually around 15,000 words. The dreaded ‘writers’ block‘. If I climb over, I carry on, only to hit another somewhere between 30 and 35,000 words. It’s only when I’m safely past the 50,000 word mark that I feel sure the story will reach a logical conclusion and stand a chance of making it to a full first draft.

Why do these brick walls appear?

Often, this happens because I’ve taken the current characters as far as I can. Even if I’ve worked out roughly where the narrative should go next, I can’t find a road through. Sometimes, I realise I’ve grown bored with the story or the people telling it. Some might consider 15,000 words a lot to throw away, but I do this often. As a writer, I treat these initial meanderings as a passageway into writing. A chance to get familiar with my characters and their situation and work out who they need around them. Just like when you make a new acquaintance. You don’t know enough about them to determine if you want to spend six months of your life with them, or if they’ll fit with your other friends, or what to buy them on their birthday. Or even if they’re the kind of friend who makes your birthday present list. 15,000 words are usually ample for me to decide.

The same, but better

Even if every single word ends up in the trash, often the people who lived in those words survive. They might say different things or dress better (or worse) or have new homes and jobs and husbands or secret lovers, but when I start again, I understand them enough to clamber over that first brick wall. I’d say it makes me a better writer.

Next time I’ll talk about the second brick wall – because that’s where planning really counts.

Coming soon ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ and if you’re up for reading advance chapters and special offers, please join my mailing list.

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Rebuilding Alexandra Small will be published in 2021. The Armchair Bride is now available now from all good websites and bookstores. If you’d like to support my work (and bag a FREE signed copy of any of my books), consider using Patreon.

Writer’s block – yet another writer with yet another tip

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Dealing with writer's block

Writer’s block is painful. Everyone gets a form of it at some point, and most writers have ways of dealing with it. A frequent fix is to ‘just write anything’ until the feeling of being blocked passes.

I recently stumbled upon a new tip for dealing with writer’s block, and it’s working like magic; not just to free up a brain jam, but also as a way to build an effective and engaging narrative dripping with that magic ingredient, conflict.

Write the last line first.

I’ll give that a moment to sink in.

When you start a new story or chapter or scene, write the final line of dialogue before you get going (or when the block sets in). This means you spend the rest of your writing time working towards that outcome, shaping actions and words around creating this natural outcome.

The last line should either tie everything up in a nice bow or deliver a cliff-hanging incentive to read on.

‘And that’s why we should never have done it’ was the example handed down in a recent script-writing workshop. We set off writing dialogue, not knowing our characters, but knowing where we needed to end up. Keeping the outcome in our heads and having it so clearly defined influenced so much of what came before. Lo and behold, the writer’s block lifts.

Choosing something that would make the reader want to turn the page when creating your final line chapter ends helps give your narrative force.  Think how you might write a scene or chapter in your work in progress that ends on any of the following:

  • ‘What now?’ she said. ‘How the hell do we make this right?’
  • ‘This is all your fault. I never want to see you again.’
  • ‘She’s going to hit the roof when she sees it.’

 

 

 

Why I don’t write every day

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‘Experts’ tell anybody who calls themselves an author they must ‘write something every day’. It need not be their finest work. The words might be something to delete the next day. They might not relate to any work in progress. But we must write. Every day.

I want to say I follow this rule. I don’t.

Some days, I can’t find the time. On other days I find the time, but the internet finds cat memes. I’ve tried making myself write when my so-called muse is outside vaping, but the results are lamentable. Writing  something I wouldn’t read seems absurd.

I tell myself I’m writing. Even when I’m not.

I lie in the bath and ponder story-lines. It’s the same when walking the dog, or cursing as some random slowly unloads the contents of a shopping trolly at the basket-only check-out. I try to storyline what might happen next and what absolutely won’t. I put scenes in order. Some would maintain this is writing. I think of it as planning. But it leads to writing, so I guess it counts.

I also tell myself not writing works.

Often if I miss one day, I’ll miss more. I don’t do guilt by half. I’d rather shower myself in shame when the gap between chapters stretches to a month. But when I go back to the story, I find myself recharged. What flows from me reads better than what was already there. I cherish the latest chunk of the story. So much more than the last one … and I was certain what I previously wrote would see me win the Man Booker.

There’s a private fear that not writing every day means I’ve run out of words. A few years back I stopped work completely. For three years I left behind the business of building worlds, convinced it was no longer in me. This week I found myself well past the half-way point of what I hope to be a final edit on my next book.

What I’m struggling to say is, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t write some days. Everyone gets to where they want to be.

The Armchair Bride

Getting off the writer’s block

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Help with writer's blockWriter’s block. Now and then everyone who dares call themselves a writer will hit blocks. Times when you can’t get anything to work. Some write through it, sure that if they get something, anything down, it will help work things out. I’ve tried this and all it usually achieves is a page of stilted nonsense where the story jogs on the spot and characters talk rubbish. It gets deleted a few days later and achieves nothing.

The biggest cause of writer’s block for me is not knowing the characters well enough. I can have the storyline planned to the finest detail, but if I don’t know the people well enough, it won’t work.

So often I’ll get to know them as I write and this is why I’d never dream of sharing a first draft. Inevitably by the time I’ve reached the end of my first draft, I go back to the start and realise the character at the start isn’t the one at the end. And it isn’t due to their growing as the story progresses, it is because I was feeling my way at the start and by the end, I’d worked them out.

The first draft chapters have the people that populate their paragraphs saying ridiculous things that contrast with the people they become by the end.

That’s why I think the best advice out there is to just get the draft written and not get hung up on making those opening chapters the best they can be.

Sure, every editor, agent and peer reviewer will focus on the opening three chapters or the first 10,000 words, but getting those perfect isn’t worth a thing if later they have to be brutally carved up.

So often I’ve scrapped the first ten thousand words or started over.

My message is this. First drafts should never see the light of day. Second drafts should be shared only with those you trust and who will continue to love you despite everything. Third drafts, maybe a few less obliging friends. But it’s only the fourth. fifth or sixth that should ever really be shared with a  stranger.

You have one pop with a story and character, don’t send it out into the world too soon.