Kathryn Said Versus I Said: Point of View in Fiction

One of the first questions that you will have to ask yourself when starting a new piece of fiction regardless of whether it is a drabble, short story or a 400 page epic novel (and all the variations in between), is what point of view you want to use. My personal choice is either to go with third person limited, although I have wrote a fewer smaller pieces in first person. My reason for this choice is because I like writing characters internal dialogues and both of these points of view let you really get inside the character(s) head(s) for long periods of time. I will not dwell on the merits and problems with my choice here, that is for another post at a later date, instead for this post I will give you an overview of all the different choices you can pick when going with point of view.

 

First Person

Is where a character narrates the story in his/her voice. The type of story will often use me, my, mine, I etc. You will see the story entirely through this character view with their thoughts and opinions forming as much of the story as the action taking place within a scene.

Advantages to this view point are:

·         It creates an immediacy and connection with the protagonist. You are inside that character’s head and there is no filter from their emotions, thoughts, feelings, secrets.

·         Due to the close connection to the protagonist and the reader, it creates a level of believability. You see the story through that character view point and understand their feelings and with no other characters to follow, you  believe what that character is telling you.

·         It can help develop the character. As you are in that character’s head you will see their personality more as they view events. People always put some type of interpretation on events and if you stay in a character’s voice you will get a slant on that character be it funny, philosophical, laid back, hyper etc.

·         “Easy to write.” People use I statements every day, so writing this style is similar to way you think and talk naturally. Just be careful as first person is never as easy as you first think as writing from this point of view can have several restrictions.

·         You have a clear perspective and filter for the story. In first person you know who the story is about.

Disadvantages to this point of view are:

·         It is a limited viewpoint. In first person you are only ever seeing what that person sees, feels, knows etc. To get a different characters opinion that character has to be told about it.

·         It can be a restrictive voice. The story is told from your protagonist’s view and their voice needs to match their background and experiences. Therefore you need be careful to use appropriate language throughout. Would an Army General use the word minging or a teenager use the word unscrupulous.

·         You can easily create a biased narrator. You only see what your character sees. Your character voice will have opinions and they will share these with a reader without the reader seeing the other side to the story.

·         Character can quickly become seen as self-centred or can lack surprises as you will know how a character will react in scenes as you have been in their head throughout the build-up.

·         The constant use of I can become repetitive.

Books in first person:

·         The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

·         The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon

·         Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

 

Second Person

This is very rarely used in fiction. Instead of the more commonly used he/she/me/my, the author uses you and your, making the story directly about the reader. In this point of view the reader actually becomes the main character and is placed right in the centre of the action.

Advantages to this point of view are:

·         It is unique – most readers will not have read a fiction book from this point of view and if they have read one, it’s doubtful that they will have read too many more. Second person is normally reserved for non-fiction instruction style books.

·         It pulls the readers right into the action. The use of ‘you’ makes the story about the reader.

·         It stretches your skills as a writer. Most people are not used to writing in this style, so the skill of creating the story becomes a challenge.

·         It is personal. It is as if the story is a letter from the author to the reader which asks you questions.

·         It forcefully puts the reader in protagonist’s shoes and therefore makes an impression.

Disadvantages to this point of view are:

·         People are not used this style of writing which means it can be jarring. This means people can be pulled out of the story or at the very least find it strange.

·         It is hard to do well and keep the style consistently through the story.

·         It creates a situation where reader is being told they are doing something that they haven’t done. As this is an untrue situation, readers can start to question the story.

·         It limits the reader ability to interpret the story on their own.

·         It can feel like the only reason that the author has written the story like this is as a challenge to themselves and therefore can lack in other areas – plot, character, conflict etc.

Books in second person:

·         Bright Lights, Big City – Jay McInerney

·         Instructions – Neil Gaiman

·         Winter’s Journal – Paul Ausher

 

Third Person

Third person is written from an outsider’s point of view. Instead of the use of I, me, my, it uses characters names, he, she to tell the story. This means that you can see outside the thoughts, feelings and what that character directly sees. Third person is split into limited and omniscient.

 

Third Person Limited

This enters a single characters head. This can be from a few chapters to the whole story. You can hear characters thoughts but it differs from first person as the story is still told from the outsider (author’s) point of view, no matter how many times it dips into a character’s head.

Advantages to this point of view are:

·         You can cheat. You can jump into your main character’s head, almost completely tell the story in a way you were writing first person but come out of that point of view and use third person when you want too. It’s almost as if you have the best of both points of view.

·         You head jump less frequently than in third person omniscient, which means that the readers have a settled voice throughout the story.

·         You can jump into one or two other heads for the odd chapter in the story if you want to.

·         As you are not always in a character’s head you are less likely to have an bias narrator.

·         Reads get to figure things out with the character, so they keep pace with them.

Disadvantages to this point of view are:

·         You are grounded in one character so unless you do a fair bit of cheating you are not going to pick up other characters views.

·         Not using I loses a certain level of intimacy.

·         It can become too introspective with too much internal dialogue and not enough action used.

·         Moving out of your character voice to take advantage of other third person and not first person perks can through readers.

Books in Third Person Limited:

·         The Giver – Lois Lowry

·         Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling

·         Still Alice – Lisa Genova

 

Third Person Omniscient

This means that the thoughts of every character in the story can be used, however in reality this is usually kept to a handful of characters as to enter too many heads can be confusing.

Advantages to this point of view are:

·         You can use several different characters point of view in the same story, which means that you can switch to where the action is.

·         You can get a more fully rounded picture than using just one character of a scene and the story itself.

·         It is less biased and the story is less likely to influenced by a single character.

·         It’s less claustrophobic – it can be hard work for both the reader and author to stay in the same voice for a long time.

·         You get to the action and are less likely to be caught up in thoughts and not what is happening.

Disadvantages to this point of view are:

·         It can be seen as too impersonal as you do not really get to know a character or get the same connection that you do in third person limited or first person.

·         It is harder to withhold information and mislead readers away from plot points that you do not want to reveal yet as the reader can see everything that can happen from many different points of view. This also means that it is harder to use aspects of biased narrator to judge other characters and actions as you see multiple view points.

·         Unless the different points of view/voices are distinctively different it can make it hard to follow and work out which voice you are in.

·         It can be harder to understand a character’s motivation if you are not in that character’s head unless you really spell things out in the action.

·         You can break the flow of the story by switching characters too often  and annoy readers if breaking away from a character at an exciting part of the plot.

Books in Third Person Omniscient:

·         The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Steig Larsson

·         Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkein

·         Under the Dome – Stephen King

 

I guess the only thing left to say is, although you need to keep to a single point of view in a story, you don’t need to do this for all your stories. You can change point of view from story to story, just like you would change the plot from story to story.

Building a Fantasy World: Writing History by Matthew Presley

 

Unless the world you’re writing about was freshly built by Gods/wizards/accident, it’ll have some kind of back-story. Whether the story itself references this history, or whether it’s something stuffed in your notes just in case it comes up later, coming up with a history fleshes out your world and gives you a chance to shot it’s more than a map and castles. It can also lead to coming up with interesting side-stories the bards can tell, or reasons why the Elves hate the Dwarves.

Let’s start with some general bullet points.

·         Don’t be afraid to be nasty...:            History isn’t a long list of people getting on. Wars break out, nobles get assassinated, barbarian hordes burn villages to the ground. As the world-builder, you have licence to be as mean as you like. Even good leaders have to make tough decisions, just as evil leaders might have a loving family.

 

·         But keep it in perspective:  It’s a personal bugbear of mine that fantasy, in an attempt to be realistic, edgy or amoral, will use rape as shorthand for villains or anti-heroes. It’s even turned up in a book aimed at young teenagers. Like I said, history isn’t a long list of people being nice to each other. But if you’re depicting rape, remember it’s a delicate minefield and it’s a lot easier to write badly than respectfully. The same goes for racism, homophobia, slut-shaming and any other bigotry that history’s rife with; if you have to depict it, it’d better be more than a way of showing a villain is capital E Evil.

 

·         Magic affects History:           Figuring out the prevalence of magic and its effects give new challenges to figuring out events like battles. How important are bridges when armies can walk over water, or fly? Why employ sentries if assassins have cloaks of invisibility? Why even have assassins if the court wizards can resurrect the king? In low magic settings, things like disease, peasant revolts, assassinations, famines and cavalry charges are still a problem. Generations are shorter if medicine is less prevalent. Likewise, in high magic worlds, there needs to be a good reason why immortal elves aren’t outbreeding humans, why an undead army isn’t constantly growing, or why giants don’t stroll into town and steal the cattle.

 

·         Change takes time:                 Magic and outside influences are used to explain sudden shifts from tribal worlds to high society. And there’s a good reason for this; if you read Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, you find out real moves to civilisation took thousands of years, involved cultural shifts in farming technique over warfare, and is difficult to depict in an interesting way. In low magic settings, however, the transition from roaming tribes to grand architecture should take generations, not years.

 

Generation I- The Barbarian King. Skrull the Bloodbraided successfully crushes the jewelled throne beneath his sandaled feet. His army is more like a tribe of fighters; each man and woman will be capable of living independently, but have sworn to aid Skrull in his conquest.

Generation II- The Warrior King. Volool the Dreaded inherited the throne, along with what jewels and gold his father plundered. The military is no less aggressive, but better trained and equipped; specialisations like archers and swordsmen appear among the brawlers, but still acts as a horde.

Generation III- The Soldier King. After the expansion of Volool’s kingdom, Malcrus the Argent has to protect a lot of land to keep his throne and his people from revolting. The military may still be aggressive, but now is developed into regiments and high specialisations. As cultures are absorbed, the army can pick and choose effective combat styles. Barbarians tribes may have one style (Vikings had sea warfare, Mongols had horsemanship, to simplify greatly), but a soldier army can have several.

Generation IV- The Knight King- King Brulgere has never had to defend his throne personally; his father’s army has dealt with any wars and rebellions, but has never needed to stand on the front line of a battle. He still wants to give the impression he’s a combat veteran, however, and so a stylised, low-risk form of combat is the answer. Tournaments like jousts or grand melees are held to give a sense of military prowess. Concepts like honourable combat form the basis for chivalry and subsequent laws.

Generation V- The Diplomat King. It’s been decades since the kingdom’s faced any problem smaller than another kingdom, and the rules of honour and conduct now open up the possibilities to engage other Kings peacefully. King Brulgere II is still the nominal leader of his Knights and army, and may even still learn a heavily ritualised form of combat, but most of his work is in peace talks and negotiations. If wars declared, he might post on a horse in full regalia for a painting, but nowhere near the battle his historians will connect him to.

This is a simplification; not all tribes fight upon first contact and a particular civilisation might not progress if one system of government works for their environment. But if you’re going to have grand palaces or specialist buildings like schools or temples, you have to give some thought as to how long that city’s been around.

·         History doesn’t wait:     If the heir to the throne has been missing for any more than a few years, there’d better be a good reason why no-one else has stepped in. The same goes for unpopular or ineffective leaders; if a family of opulent tyrants are in charge, they’re going to be facing potential revolution unless they have an effective way of keeping the citizens in check, be it magic, loyal armies or some other advantage (A phrase Jared Diamond uses is ‘monopoly on violence’; basically commoners aren’t allowed to attack each other, or not allowed to have weaponry).  However this isn’t an eternal resource; the Praetorian Guard turned on Caligula, while feudal Japan’s lower classes used improvised weapons when swords were outlawed. In short, if it’s been five hundred years since the royal family went into exile, the returning king will have to face more than an evil warlord; he’ll have every commoner he meets saying ‘Wait; this was a kingdom?’

 

·         Characters before names:           Even though history gave Britain seven Edwards, eight Henrys, two Charles, six Georges and two Elizabeths, fantasy history that uses the same name (or, a far worse crime, vowel replacements) is hard to follow and dull. Coming up with characters for each ruler and lord makes for more interesting stories. Everyone remembers Henry VIII; he married six times, invented divorce, the Church of England, and the Royal Navy (Though historians might argue with that). Elizabeth I? The Virgin Queen, fought the Armada, body of a woman but heart of a man. If you know a lot about history, changing a few aspects of a famous personality can make them unrecognisable in your fantasy setting (What if Henry VIII was a dragon? What if Oliver Cromwell was a wizard?). Alternatively, if you’re familiar with role-playing games, using their descriptions for character classes can stand in for a personality until you’ve figured out specifics. Remember that magic changes history; if the royalty rule by literal divine right, they’re not going to turn out the same as a non-magical hierarchy, and building a fortified castle on top of a hill might impress the commoners, but be laughed at by the dragons.

                An Example royal family

                 For simplicity’s sake, let’s keep the history we’re writing in human scale. Generations go up to 50 as a maximum; even the rich aren’t necessarily going to see their grandkids grow up, as medicine or healing magic aren’t standardised or readily available. Two surviving children by the same mother is the upper limit; for reasons of simplicity and taste we’ll skip over the probable infant mortality rates. Magic exists but is restricted to simple forms; spirit worship and shamanic magic over formalised divine power or wizards. Line of succession goes to oldest of the oldest, similar to British monarchy, but let’s be equal rights fantasy and say the eldest can be either gender. We’ll also say this kingdom is brand new; no previous rulers had enough clout to declare themselves king of the land, so our plucky barbarian is building from the bottom rather than overthrowing a tyrant.

                Okay, how old is our kingdom? If we say 100 years; about 3-4 generations of royalty since the Barbarian King first took control. It’s fairly sizable, but not yet big enough for specialised armies, education or grand buildings. The capital is less a city, more a large town, with a fort at the centre rather than a castle. Because magic is formal or well understood, the threat of flying armies hasn’t come up (yet); a wooden barricade with a ditch is enough to keep invaders out.

                So, the first generation of royalty;

                Horsemen had a massive advantage over foot-soldiers in ancient and medieval warfare, so it’s as good a reason why our king rose to prominence as any. But who’s his queen?

                We’ll go the Warrior Queen route; this is the first generation world after all, there’s not going to be pale and interesting types. Every member of the tribe would be expected to be self-sufficient, so a huntswoman would be a good wife to take. We’re also combining two fighting styles; horsemanship and archery, both of which give advantages over peasants with improvised weapons or foot-soldiers. King Horseman and Queen Hunter aren’t very interesting names, but they can stand in until we figure out the rest of their family tree.

                The heirs have more formalised versions of their parents jobs, but still within the warriors purview more than a soldier. As a leader, however, a cavalier would be more inspiring than an archer; chances are the younger brother would be the popular choice for the throne once King Horseman dies. Prince Archer might be forced into political alliances at this early stage; he’d certainly take a wife earlier and be more concerned with the line of succession. Prince Cavalier would be much more the spare prince; not settling into domesticity as soon, perhaps preferring battle and leading his warriors to attending his father’s court. So by the first King and Queen are dead, Archer would be married with children.

                                                 

 

                ‘Mage’ in this world is a loose term for witch, fortune-teller, healer; we’ll settle on details later. In this instance, Prince Archer decided to ally with a proto-religion to make him a more credible ruler. His firstborn daughter is raised a warrior, who fully combines archery and horse riding to great effect. His second-born son takes after his mother, still using magic in a scrappy, hap-hazard way. But what about Prince Cavalier? He might be slower to settle than his brother, but he’s still a powerful fighter and potential leader. What’s stopping him triggering a war of succession?

 

Ah. Either his exploits on the battlefield finally caught up with him, or Prince Archer (Now King Archer) isn’t above fratricide. Like I stated above, history isn’t pleasant, especially in an early history as our kingdom has. Any followers that Cavalier might have had would have to be appeased somehow, unless the new King puts down his first rebellion.

                Princess M. Archer and her brother both got political marriages. Archer needed to keep lesser chiefs on-side after his brother’s death. As a warrior princess, though, M. Archer only had time for one child; a son whose closer to a heavily armoured knight than a lightweight mounted archer. Prince Mage had a lot more time for filling up the family tree; ‘Cleric’ suggests a more formalised version of the proto-religion, advancing on the shamanic magic of their grandmother. Giving him three children would be a lot for one wife though; we can have him remarry.

                So that’s our four generations; we’ve gone from Rohan-esque horsemen to the founding of a state religion. From the looks of it, this Temple will end up politically more powerful than the military.

                Naming our Nobles: More important than given names at this point are nicknames. Giving them a nickname reflects their personality rather than a list of funny names. Let’s start with our first generation;

                There’s two stories already waiting to be told. How did Darus end up with a golden steed? Is it literally gold, or did he decorate it? And Mara’s not just a hunter, but a lion hunter, and a successful one at that. How did they meet?

                Onto the next generation;

                Looks like our two princes aren’t nice guys. Garric is characterised as cold, swift, deadly; all traits of a modern day sniper, but transposed to an expert archer. As for his brother, far from being a noble horseman, is outright called a Devil! What’s more, laughing suggests a sinister, sadistic glee; he probably rides down fleeing enemies, lassoes them to his horse and drags them till they die! I’m glad his brother ends up killing him!

                Right, generation III;

 

 

 

 

                Here the given names are more important. Marani is similarly named to her grandmother Mara, while her brother had the same prefix as his mother’s name. Marani similarly evokes her lineage with her nickname; ‘Serpent’ sounds more noble than ‘Viper’, and the silver may be related to her hair, her armour, or referencing the Golden Age of King Darus. She was married off to a baron whose dad hung out with the Laughing Devil; chances are he wasn’t a nice guy either, so having a son called the Bloody Wolf tells that story. Likewise, Anaven’s two wives (we’ll say he remarried the sister after the first wife died somehow) seem to be similarly nasty, practicing some kind of black magic.

                Anasa and her son Anaven have similar nicknames, but going back to the first ideas we had, the Mage was introducing a basic religion to the royal line. She would be a herald, and the nature based shamanism could be called ‘the Wild Way’. Anaven is Devotee of the Wld; he’s dedicated himself to this religion entirely. Our kingdom isn’t old enough for advanced structures like temples or churches, so the fort could double up as a temple.

                Finally, let’s marry them off and have the last generation.

After all the nastiness in this family story, the final generation are looking a lot more noble. Darani is named after his great grandfather, while the three children of Anaven have followed him in devoting their lives to their new religion. However, they’ve decided to devote themselves to more focused aspects of the Wild Way. Anamir, whose mother used ashes to divine the future, decided to combine her slightly sinister magic with his father’s more accepted teachings to become a cleric of Fire. His half-siblings have taken less destructive choices; at this stage of our kingdom, farmers would be more important than hunters, so clerics devoted to rains and plants would be more use than a generic nature religion. After a few more generations, the religion might even formalise these concepts with Gods and rituals, but at this point it’s still early days. Darani’s monicker ‘the White Drake’ takes aspects of his parents (if you combine a serpent and a wolf, you’ll get some kind of drake-like creature) and made it into something more noble.

 

                How much of this should be in your story? If your story’s set in the royal court, a lot of the family history will come up, starting from the current generation and expanding backwards. If your story visits the royal court as a location, you don’t need to know the back-story but it can add flavour to the scene (and explain why there’s three different clerics present). It’s important to identify what’s story and what’s back-story; look at who your main characters are going to be and focus the story on them, rather than trying to give everyone a full story and making the whole thing needlessly complex. There are certain key events in our example kingdom’s history (Crowning of King Darus, assassination of Prince Baltus, founding of the state religion), but the reader doesn’t necessarily have to know the details.

Destined to write? Not me! by David Sarsfield

I have a confession to make: I haven’t always been a writer (like the title doesn’t give that away!). I realise this may sound a little silly but telling myself this as I often do opens up a whole semantic minefield. Like, ‘Dave, what do you mean by always? What do you mean when you say writer?’ For the purposes of this post, lets just say always means ‘not until after my teenage years (like, wayyy after)’ and writer means ‘writing fiction entirely of my own volition (and not what Teacher instructed).’

            So why did it take so long for me to put finger to qwerty? Well, I’m a huge believer that experience shapes the way we in which see the world and how we try to make sense of it. We’re not pre-destined to live certain lives. Experience makes the world go around for all of us. I also believe the paper clips of experience needed to unpick the locks hiding whatever desires and/or abilities lying dormant in our minds are not readily available. Looking back through my childhood, I know if I had read more fiction – genre or otherwise – that lock would have been unpicked long ago. As it happened, up until the age of twenty-two, other than texts set by my English teachers, I struggle to remember a single work of fiction I’d read. It’s one of the biggest regrets I’m ever likely to carry to the grave, but hey-ho!

            In March 2003, that lock was unpicked having been persuaded by an old workmate to read Orwell’s 1984. Something clicked inside me. I felt an exhilaration I never thought possible. I read it again (and again after that, I think). Then I moved onto other dystopias: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin spring to mind. Then I branched out into the wider sci-fi genre, even some non-genre. About a year later I decided I wanted, no, needed to write. Something in my mind was triggered and all I could think of were a flood of different ideas. I procrastinated for a couple more years before I started writing my first novel, which I gave up on two thirds of the way through owing to the fact it was unmitigated shite…but necessary. I realised then I needed to learn the craft, to listen to those who knew what they were doing.

            And it was around then when I came across that most horribly exclusivist of words: ‘innate’ – and we’re suddenly back to the whole pre-destination thing. According to some of the ‘how-to’ authors, good writing is innate and cannot be learned. That’s right, cannot, can-not, c.a.n.n.o.t be learned. Sure, learning the craft could help, but this was supplementary rather than integral. But writers are ultimately born with ability; it’s just the way of the world. As you can imagine, I found this greatly off-putting. I thought ‘Christ, Dave, why waste your time pursuing something you didn’t give a shit about until you were in your twenties?’ Had I missed that literary boat? I started visualising a circle of self-satisfied, self-assured ‘writers’ looking down at me laughingly, poking me with their big ‘innate’ sticks. Compounding this insecurity, I lost count of the amount of author interviews I’d read where he/she lovingly and nostalgically recalled how they’d been writing from a very early age. *Another visual klaxon: kids just out of nappies scrawling their first bestsellers using naught but crayons!* It was all just so frickin’ depressing.

            But…the urge to write never faded. The dam around my mind had been burst. How the hell could I replace the concrete to stem the tide? And anyway, I’m notoriously crap at DIY, so…

            Since joining the SSFFWG two years ago, my writing has come on leaps and bounds – no exaggeration. More importantly, however, the group has convinced me once and for all that the art of writing is something that can be learned. Life’s experiences are what you make of them. No-one has an inherent gene that screams ‘WRITER’. If there is anything innate about writing it is, in my most humble of opinion, the desire, the need, the urge to tell stories to the world. But that innateness was hidden from view. I needed a trigger, an experience to take away the blindfold. For me, reading 1984 was it.

             

What’s My Motivation? How to write a good character by Chris Joynson

If you ask me, and I know you haven’t but I’m writing this blog post anyway, characters are the very centre of a story. People can forgive a weak or unoriginal story if they care about the people involved in the events. If you want readers to invest in the story you’re trying to tell, then the characters are were that happens. But what makes a good character?

Well, there are lots of things that can draw you to a character. They can be funny, have a tragic back story, or be a complete awesome badass (technical term), yet none of these things guarantee that a character will be liked, because, you know, people are different and have different tastes. What one person likes, another won’t. The only way, that I know, to really give a character a solid chance of winning over readers is to make them as realistic as possible. Now this doesn’t mean the character has to be someone you could meet walking down the street, he could be a one-eyed troll with an interest in fine art, it doesn’t matter as long as the character can believably exist in whatever setting you’re writing.

Let’s break down this whole realistic thing. People are weird, complicated and sometimes contradictory, and your characters need to be that too. They need to have layers and different shades to them. You need to think of your characters as flesh and blood people. You need to understand them down to their core, which finally brings me to the title of this post, about time I know.

We’ve all heard of actors who develop vast amounts of back story explaining their character’s actions and dialogue, even though they only say about two lines. You need to do the same when coming up with your characters. Here’s some questions you should be asking yourself when making up the cast for your stories.

Where are they going?

This is fairly obvious, what is the character’s goal? What do they desire and why do they desire it? Characters should have their own aims and reasons for seeking them, this will inform every decision they make in the story, and even set up conflict where goals are at odds. Always try to let your characters have different goals, or at least different reasons for their goals, this will help to distinguish them from one another.

Where have they come from?

This is the back story, tragic or otherwise. The past often influences the present, and even the future. What happened in the past to form the character’s current goals? Are they running away from something? Did they do something wrong that they now wish to make amends for? What was their childhood like? Did they lose someone? Who were the important people in their past?

What sort of person are they?

This is a question of their personality. Is the character a brooder? Quick to anger? Calm under pressure? Are they an extrovert? An introvert? Characters should always drive a story, rather than the plot, so you need to know how they’ll react to different situations, and the type of person they are will tell you this.

What do they believe in?

Does your character follow any sort of religion? Do they hold themselves to a specific code of honour? What set of ideals do they live their life by, if any? Why do they believe in what they do? You can also have a great deal of fun challenging these beliefs and seeing how your characters react to that as you tell your stories.

Now not everything you come up with has to go into your story, it can just be hinted at or left out entirely, you don’t have to tell your readers every single facet of the character, but it’s always good to keep it in the back of your mind as you’re writing.

I feel that if you understand your characters, then the readers will understand and relate to them. It helps the characters come to life, of course that’s when they start arguing back, but we can talk about that some other time.

Why Join A Writers' Group?

I'm a writer. That probably conjures up an image in your mind - the starving author, alone in a draughty garret in the middle of the night, laboriously hammering away on the keys of an old manual typewriter, half-drunk coffee and cheese sandwiches off to one side, a waste bin overflowing with screwed up manuscripts under the desk, a malcontented cat glaring down from the shelf...

It doesn't have to be like that (except for the cat. There's no getting around the cat). You can write your masterpiece on your own, sure, but you're probably much better off getting some outside input along the way. Even Byron didn't live up to the Byronic Ideal of the writer's garret - what else was the Villa Diodati but the ultimate writers' group? As well as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, that meeting also produced Polidori's The Vampyre.

Following in the footsteps of Byron and the Shelleys (now there's a band name...) may not result in a work of that calibre, but there are several good reasons for aspiring authors to seek out writers' groups of their own. And you won't have to go as far as Geneva, either...

It's social. No (wo)man is an island. Alone, we starve ourselves of inspiration. Not that anybody is going to steal your ideas if you go to a writers' group - that sort of behaviour is thankfully rarer than hens' teeth - but watching and listening to other people talk about their writing, their ideas, their plots and characters, can sometimes kick-start your own creative processes. And while no (wo)man is an island, the corollary is that together we are archipelagos of enthusiasm (Alasdair Stuart's phrase), which means there's the added bonus that when you say "I write epic fantasy/urban fantasy/hard SF/Wolverine erotica" in a group of writers, people don't draw back for fear of getting geek cooties (normal people are so over-rated).

It broadens the mind. Reading about stuff on the internet is no substitute for actually talking to real people about it. And yes, I am fully aware of the irony in that statement. You'll learn about pacing, about info-dumps and character motivations, and you may even meet published authors in workshops (Open Road Writers in Chesterfield recently had both Rod Duncan and Emma Pass running workshop sessions).

It thickens the skin. Your mum likes it. Does she, really? Or is she just saying that because she's your mum? A good writers' group will deliver constructive criticism. A good writer won't wilt under that criticism. If you have any ambition to submit your work for publication, you'll have to get used to criticism and a face-to-face writers' group is one of the best places to learn that skill.

It strengthens discipline. From a personal point of view, this has been important. Because this group meets twice a month, I've got definite deadlines. Twice a month, I need something I can read out, something that can be critiqued. It gives my writing some much needed impetus.

Those are the most important reasons I've got for joining a writers' group. You may have your own: let us know what they are!

Get those words down

 
I thought that this would be a good post to start with because first, my word count has increased dramatically in 2015. I write this post having written every day this year and having a word count of 212210 words. And second, this is a writing blog, so getting words on the page is what this really all about.
 

We’ve all heard the phrase before, ‘You just need to sit your bum in a chair and write.’ And I guess like me you’ve all rolled your eyes at the phrase, come up with reasons and very valid excuses to why you can’t do that. I have myself. I was the master of saying:

‘I don’t have the time.’

‘I’ve only got ten minutes is it really worth opening my laptop/ipad.’

‘I’m tired after work; I just want to watch TV.’

‘I’m researching’ (before ending up on YouTube watching cat video or looking through Facebook and completing a quiz.)

In fact I got to a state where I was making these excuses more and more over the last year. Since completing on my first house in August until that was the 1^st January, I didn’t write a single word. I didn’t have time to write. I was tired. I needed to do something around the house. I was playing with the kittens. For one reason or another, I just didn’t have the motivation. And that was okay because I was busy. I work full time. I had other things to do with my evening and weekends.

Yes, I would talk about how I was a writer. I would still go to my writing group. I would still go to my writing group, and read out pieces that I had written earlier in the year. But I wasn’t writing. Not that that was unusual. I would go through writing binges and dry spells on a regular basis over the last nine years. A four month break was longer than average but not unheard of.

 

So what changed. It sounds corny to say it but the New Year came. I set the same resolutions that I do every year and resolutions that are probably pretty similar to the ones that you set for yourself.

‘I am going to write x number of words this year.’

‘I am going to finish writing this book this year.’

‘I am going to read x number of books this year.’

‘I am going to get fit.’

And these resolutions probably would have ended up going the same way that they always do except for one reason. I broke them down, setting small targets that I knew I could meet. On a working week, I would write 4500 words (the size give or take a few words of a first draft of a chapter.) that would work out at 500 words after work and 1000 on Saturday and Sunday. This was manageable as I knew that depending on the flow of the words, I could complete 500 words in around 30 to 90 minutes – the length of TV show. And that was the key. This was a target that I could keep to.

 

Once I had the targets, I got writing and I knew one thing for sure, I was not going to let myself fail to meet that target so early in the year. I was absolutely determined and possibly a little pig headed about it, that I would get through the whole of January without missing a day. Then after those 31 days, writing became a habit or more a challenge I could set myself. I had got to 31 days, could I get to 50, after all that was just 19 days more and then could I get to two months. My competitive nature sparked and my word count kept growing. And why shouldn’t it. I mean if I could be competitive about football then why not use that to help my writing.

 

That nature got me through the first 100 days, I mean who wanted to stop before that landmark and now it just happen. My writing spreadsheet needs adding to.  And the spreadsheet really was the trick to getting me and keeping me going. Who would of thought that I would have been controlled by a spreadsheet and what colour I added to it every day. (Black – no words, Red – under target, Yellow – on target, Blue – above target.)

 

The second thing that I discovered was no amount of time was too short. Okay, I’ve finished work, had dinner and am due out in 30 minutes, that fine, I still have time. Instead of watching half a TV show, I can load up the laptop for twenty minutes and write. I won’t get 500 words done but I can still enter a colour into a spreadsheet and it takes some words of the 4500 I have to hit this week.

 

Another big adjust for me was changing the mind-set that it didn’t matter what I wrote on. Why can’t I write on my phone or IPad and email the words to myself? Well, I can, so just do it. It all about keep the run going. I bribed myself, if I could keep the run going, I’d let myself buy a gift for myself, making it through January meant I let myself buy Hannibal on DVD.

 

Then I looked at the writing itself. Again this was a mind-set issue. It is okay for those first words to be bad. In fact, I often describe my first drafts as dyslexic thrown up on a page. I’m just getting the ideas out. And if I can’t think what comes next in the story, that’s okay too. Why not write some end notes about where it’s going or write a character sketch? It all keeps your brain process and your head in the story. And if it’s bad. Who cares? It is easier to edit bad writing than to think of the words. Just put in down – in sentences, fragments, paragraphs, bits of dialogue. It doesn’t matter – the reader will never see that draft and you are doig the important thing of keeping the words flowing.

 

Finally, I didn’t start all my resolutions at once. I started and made myself get to grips with the writing before looking at reading, fitness and other goals. Then once I was confident that I would write no matter what, I started to look at the fitness goal – to go out running (and I hate running) twice a week. And now I am just about to start focusing on the reading goal – setting aside the last Sunday every month to my duvet and a good book. And again, this has made it manageable.

 

Good luck with your own writing and the next post will be posted on Saturday.

New Updates Coming Soon

This is just a quick message to let you know that the blog will be updated on a Wednesday and Saturday each week. In order for the writers group to do this you will be hearing from a few different voices.