Do Be Cruel – Create Characters that Intensify Your Plot

Storytelling, ,

Do Be Cruel. Put your character in hot water from the start. In the most powerful stories, an intensely conflicted situation starts on page one, or even before page one. Your main character is smack dab at the center of that situation, in hot water that will become hotter and hotter, then hotter still. But first, you must set up this situation and second, you must set her up to be smacked down hard by the consequences that follow.

Do Be Cruel. A story that shows you how. Please forgive me for taking you back to Tara when we all know it’s a politically incorrect place to be. But Scarlett O’Hara’s doings and undoings will never be Gone with the Wind when it comes to great storytelling technique and that’s what we’re focusing on here.

Do Be Cruel. Margaret Mitchell knew how to twist and turn a yarn. She tangled us into her plot, tying us more tightly to her main character with every scene. Scarlett herself adds knots to that tangle by making choices that raise the temperature of the hot water she’s in to boiling and beyond.

Do Be Cruel. Set your character up for a long fall. For your character’s downfall to be significant, we must see and, more important, we must feel her topple from a great height. Scarlett is the perfect protagonist for such a plummet. She’s the southern belle of the southern ball at the start of her story, confident to the point of unabashed arrogance. “Fiddledy-dee,” she says to any suggestion that life could go anywhere but her own totally self-centered way. She and her hooped skirt are bouncing toward a precipice for sure.

Do Be Cruel. Set your reader up for a fall also. In order to “give a damn,” a phrase that will figure in Scarlett’s downfall, your readers must sympathize with your character’s motivation. We must understand what she wants and why she wants it. We must want it for her too. No matter how ruthless and manipulative Scarlett may become, we must be on her side, at least in the beginning. We are on her side because what she cares most about is Tara. What she wants more than anything is to preserve her home and, deep down at heart level, we get that.

Do Be Cruel. Create a catastrophic story environment in general. What could fit that bill better than a war? Not just any war, but the war that split a country in two and sent Scarlett’s future fantasy crashing to smithereens at her satin-clad feet. Your story may not involve a civil war, but it needs a bloody battleground all the same. A catastrophe that embroils your characters in fiery controversy, the more fire, the better. A cataclysm that leaves casualties in its wake, with your character only barely escaping the flames.

Do Be Cruel. Create a catastrophic personal obstacle as well. What could fit that bill better than doomed love? It worked for Romeo and Juliet. It works for Scarlett and Ashley Wilkes too. She makes a bad choice while he, being a fairly weak fellow, makes it worse. Can you think of a couple less temperamentally suited for one another? Not to mention Melanie and the whole aristocratic arranged marriage thing. Plus some additional disastrous choices on Scarlett’s part, with a bit of Rhett Butler in the mix. Catastrophe, here she comes.

Do Be Cruel. Don’t forget that romance is a battleground. If you’ve read my previous posts on character creation and taken them to heart, your main character already has way too much trouble on her plate. The last thing she needs is to fall in love, either wisely or unwisely, at this point in her story. But your author job is to hot the pot under this person you want us to care about, even love. The heat of a relationship she doesn’t need but can’t resist is kindling waiting for a spark. So light that match and let it flare.

Do Be Kind to your storytelling career. The name of this game is Hook the Reader, and your most powerful playing piece is a powerful protagonist. The heroine we love from beginning to end. Or, if you make it work the way Margaret Mitchell does, the character we simply can’t let go of, even when the deluge she wades us into burns our own satin slippers straight off our toes. Either way, she makes us say, “Frankly, Scarlett, we can’t help but give a damn.”  Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

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A Time of Fear & LovingAmanda Miller is in steamy hot water and just might drown. Join her there for a great read in Alice’s latest novel, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

 What readers say about A Time of Fear & Loving. “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

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Peeps and Predicaments – What’s Happened to Your Character with Whom

Storytelling, ,

Peeps and Predicaments. What’s happened to Your Character with Whom. A couple of posts ago, I wrote “Create Captivating Characters.” The post before that was about how to write a great main character. I keep harping on character creation because characters are the heart of strong storytelling. If you make your characters come to life on the page, they will make that heart beat with a rhythm that captivates your reader.First, we discovered why your main character is so important.  Your main character’s story is what connects you with the reader, the avenue by which you draw her in and make her care. Once you have made her care, she is hooked, and that narrative hook is essential to writing a successful story. The reader must become emotionally involved with your character, not just a little, but intensely.

Next, we examined how to make your readers care so much about your character. Then, we dug deeper to make your reader care even more. How to tie us emotionally to her fate, until we long for only good things to happen to her. Which means that you, as a storyteller, must frustrate our hopes for her by making bad things happen to this character you’ve seduced us into loving. I never said your job as a writer was to be kind to your characters, or to your readers either.

Now, we move not only deep, but closer in to the individual person your character will be. You accomplish that by conjuring a context for your character. Peeps and Predicaments. What has happened to your character in her life, especially her Predicaments, physical, emotional, psychological. Plus, the people who had the first, huge effect on her life, her most pivotal Peeps, those who loved her and wished her well, as we do, or may have failed to do so.You need a single, specific main character to do this work, and you must give her a name. Naming your character gives her substance and reality, especially in your own consciousness as her creator. Crafting the very specific substance and reality of your character’s context is your goal at this stage of character creation. The context of your character as a person, the details of which may or may not appear in your story but will immerse you in her humanity.

You must delve into the central self of your character by becoming her. Here’s how. Respond to each of the following questions in the first person, using “I.” Respond as your character, not telling us about her but being her and speaking in her voice. Concentrate on how you, your character, feel about each question. Answer more from your character’s gut than from her head. Be specific, avoiding theories and abstractions altoge­ther if possible.

This is where the fun happens, the magical mystery tour of yourself as your character.

  • What family member do you consider yourself closest to, and what would you say is the deepest, most true reason for that closeness?
  • What member of your family are you most distant from? How did this distance begin, and why does it persist to this day?
  • What was the most memorable experience of your childhood? Recreate the scene if you can.
  • What is the most important memento you have saved from your growing-up years? Why have you saved it for so long, and where do you keep it?
  • What incident in your life made you most angry?
  • When in your life were you most frightened?
  • What is the single thing you most yearn for in life?
  • What is the saddest thing that has ever happened to you?
  • When in your life were you most happy?

Please, respond at length, in writing, of course. Once you have done so, you will find yourself somewhere very special, under the skin and among some of the most inner secrets of your character. Your character has opened herself to you. She has done so because you cared enough about her to become her and ask her most crucial questions. She has spoken from the deepest part of her heart into the deepest part of yours, and you have listened.You and your character have become one being. Your souls have melded to become the place from which you will share her secrets, speak her truth, and write the very best story of her you have in you, perhaps the very best story you have ever told. I, for one, can’t wait to read it.

Bonus Exercise. Become one with the famous characters in the above pictures. Ask yourself, as each character, “What do I want?” Celie in The Color Purple? Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby? Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird?
Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

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Amanda Miller’s life is full of Peeps and Predicaments. Experience them yourself in Alice’s latest novel, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

 What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving: “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet, Alice!”

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Conference Connection – How We Bond with Our Writers’ Tribe

Writers Life, ,

Alice Orr Books at Liberty States Conference Conference Connection. How We Bond with Our Writers’ Tribe. I am just now emerging from the fog of a writers’ conference. Why a fog? Because that’s what the misty airlock feels like between conference world and my daily world. A sweet fog of adjustment before re-entry. Why sweet? That is a more complicated question. The sweetness of the fog is a carryover from the sweetness of the experience and the many nectars of its ingredients.

We leave our daily world behind. This is the essential first step toward making the Conference Connection. My personal sweetness recipe begins with the hotel stay. I’ve long maintained that room service and maid service are among the supreme triumphs of this or any culture, with the twenty-four-hour lobby snack corner running a close third.

We open up from our solitary selves. Writing is a self-on-self pursuit. We sit in a room and commune with our muse. As fiction writers, we converse with folks who only exist inside our heads. Sometimes we stare at the wall, and we do it all alone. Thus, we can become a bit in-grown. Like musty bedding, we require occasional airing to remain fresh. There are few more refreshing opportunities for a writer than making a Conference Connection.

We fall in among our Tribe. Which brings us to the sweetest ingredient of conference ambrosia. Writers, writers, and more writers. In corridors and workshops. At informal get-togethers and more formal ones. Talking, laughing, debating, sharing. Writers everywhere, on furlough from the trenches, encouraging one another to fight through the obstacles we all inevitably encounter. This is the beating heart of the Conference Connection, and it is Us.

We celebrate ourselves and one another. My entrée into Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference 2018 was an impromptu gathering in the hotel lounge. I had been invited to join by my old friend, Sandra Barone. She introduced me to Christine Akins Clemetson, who immediately became my new friend, as often happens at writers’ gatherings. Christine had huge news to share. She’d just signed with a literary agent. Joy and wonder shone from her slightly dazed smile, encouraging and inspiring us all with a magical Conference Connection.

We learn. We learn. We learn. From workshops, keynote talks, forums and, most of all, each other. Author, teacher, maven Chris Redding took time from her busy day to share her marketing expertise. Amazon algorithms are incomprehensible to me, but Chris pierced that darkness with enough light to set me on a more fruitful track. She also reminded me of my own mantra, Do It Anyway! She didn’t have to bother with any of that, but she did it anyway. Such generosity is the gold which is mined for each of us when we make a Conference Connection.

We Book Fair. Book signings can be humiliation hell. I once signed next to Nora Roberts. R for Roberts, O for Orr and OMG. The Ps and Qs knew enough to stay away. But at Liberty States, the O section sat me with long-time author friend L.G. O’Connor. Sweet indeed. Because book signings can be heaven.

We know that these events aren’t about selling books. These book signings are about being there, showing up, sitting behind a propped-up copy of your latest publication. Or dreaming of the day when you’ll have a propped-up copy of your own to flaunt. Either way, we smile ear-to-ear and heart-to-heart amidst our tribe, linked to one another by our Conference Connection.

Is there a downside? Maybe the case of Crammed-Brain Syndrome many of us take with us from hours and days of workshops and panels. Or the soft brace you wear on your wrist after scribbling like crazy in your notebook to capture every morsel of information. But we can handle that and then some, in return for establishing a Conference Connection.

We re-enter our individual writers’ lives better off for the experience. We have shown our shining faces to the writing world. We have hugged old friends and discovered new ones. We have been embraced by the spirit of our community and participated in a powerful ritual of our tribe. Plus, last but far from least, we’ve had fun.

So, here I am, post-fog. I made another solid Conference Connection, and, best of all, I bonded yet again with how blessed I am to do this writer thing.                                                 Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

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A Time of Fear & LovingConference Connection and her writers’ tribe have a lot to do with Alice’s joyful experience of her career and her novels. Don’t miss her latest, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

 What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/