characterization

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Point of View: Diving Into Your Characters

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Writing fascinating, well-rounded characters comes easily to some people. Character traits, past histories, and quirky, unique personalities seem to just flow out of their fingers and onto the page, and every book is a new adventure filled with a fascinating new cast. I am not one of those people. Are you? If you are, you can stop reading here. 🙂 I grew up devouring science fiction and fantasy, and I was hooked on the Big Concept. Dragons are real and can travel between in the blink of an eye? OMG, give me that book. Living space ships will carry humanity … Read more

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Point of View: That %$&*! Characterization Thing Again

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Every year or two, I circle back to my Achilles heel as a writer. I can build worlds with the best of them, and my intertwined plots are legendary. But I’ve always had more difficulty with characterization. I’m working through beta reads on book two of the Tharassas Cycle, and have been dinged by a couple readers for being inconsistent with a couple characters and drawing one too shallowly to support what comes later in the trilogy. And so I thought it would be fun to go back to my previous posts on the subject and see what I had … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Finding the Character Heart

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One of the first criticisms I received as a newbie writer was that my characterization was a bit thin. Readers loved my immersive sci-fi world building and my intricate plots, but my early characters fell a bit flat. Ever since, I’ve been on a journey to learn how to delve deeper into the hearts of my characters, to make them really come alive on the page. I’ve made some good strides, but I still sometimes come up short. Before I start a new book, I do a few things to learn more about each of my primary characters before diving … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Alien

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I just finished reading The Bantam by RJ Theodore (review coming soon). I really enjoyed it – it’s like a crash course in writing a relatable alien. So how did the author do it? When writing truly alien characters, we have to discard everything we know: Why should they be bipedal? Why should they have hands or fingers, and why would these appendages be at the end of arms? Why would they have two genders? Why two eyes? Would they even have something we’d call eyes? Many sci-fi shows, books and films create aliens that are basically humans with different … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Stanislavski-ing My Characters

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man in mirror

Constantin Stanislavski came uo with a theory of acting that I’m loosely going to describe as “become the character” – a method of connecting with the personality of the person you’re playing, and learning how to think and feel like they did. It’s also known as Method Acting, and taken to its extreme, it can mean basically living as the person you are portraying. As folks who regularly read this column know (thanks to both of you!), I’m working on going deep with my characterization. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about method actors and how they get into the heads … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Building Compelling, Complex and Charismatic Characters

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Every writer has an achilles heel. Mine is characterization. I’m fantastic at world building – I can create compelling settings that will wrap you up and transport you away from whatever mudane place you find yourself in. I’m also great at plot. Not bragging here. It’s something that just comes naturally to me. The one thing I consistently get dinged for is my characterization, or lack thereof. I’ve worked on it for years, and I’m way better than I used to be, bit alas, there’s still room for improvement. Agents and publishers have a word for this – they call … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Finding the Flaws

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I’m coming up on my five year publication anniversary in May. Interestingly, it’s not the first story I sold – “The Bear at the Bar.” That honor actually goes to “Avalon,” originally published by Mischief Corner Books in their wonderful and now defunct MCB Quarterly journal. When I was first starting out, I got two main complaints from readers in my reviews. The first one was that my stories just weren’t long enough. This kind of pissed me off at first – I mean, you knew you were buying a novella, right? – until a friend pointed out that it … Read more