Creating Dynamic Characters, by Saviour Pirotta

One thing I learnt very early on while talking to kids during school visits is that people remember characters far more than they do plots. They might remember a particular scene or a striking quote but what stays with them the longest are the characters. Ask them what they know about a book and invariably they mention character traits. Harry Potter, sir, he's the best at doing magic but he helps others be as good as him. So here's my to-go list for creating dynamic characters. I started using it while writing The Golden Horsemen of Baghdad which was published by Bloomsbury Ed in 2019.

1. DYNAMIC CHANGE

A dynamic character changes dramatically during the course of the story. They are usually the main character but not always. A good example of this is Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. To all intents and purposes Dr. Atticus Finch is the main protagonist in the story but the dynamic one is his daughter Scout. She is the one who is irrevocably changed by the end of the book.

Atticus is what is sometimes called 'a well-rounded character'. He has motive, back story and detail but the story doesn't change him much. He's still more or less the same person at the end of the book.

2. CLEAR AND REALISTIC MOTIVATION

Establish what the characters' goal is at the beginning of the book. Make it clear and make achieving it the only driver in the story. At the start of Golden Horsemen, Jabir, the main character, discovers he can't provide for his family with fishing. He goes off to Baghdad to find a job. One way or another he has to earn enough money to keep the evil landlord from making his widowed mother and sisters homeless.

3. INTERNAL CONFLICT

Before the main character can attain their goal, they must resolve an inner conflict. Jabir, being a boy and the eldest in the household, is cosseted all  his life. He's wasted time hanging out with friends on the street when he should have been learning fishing skills from his father. Now suddenly he is out of time and options. Not only must he take on the responsibilities of being the bread-winner in the house but he must also come to terms with the fact that he has failed his family, especially his dead father. The remorse and the will to redeem himself keep his character dynamic and the plot moving along.

3. EXTERNAL CONFLICT

The dynamic character's internal conflict is mirrored in external challenges. Jabir gets caught in a sandstorm, finds himself in jail and, when he does eventually find a job he is good at, the evil landlord tries everything he can to stop him from achieving his goal. I make the challenges bigger and scarier as the story progresses. 

The internal and external conflicts mirror and compliment each other. With each challenge, Jabir changes for the better. Sometimes the change is physical and this acts as a visual marker of the character's inner journey. More often than not, the change is emotional or cerebral. Sometimes it's spiritual. 

Trough the story, Jabir grows emotionally stronger. He starts to mature and takes on his responsibilities with pride. He learns to empathise and to forgive.

4 OFFSET YOUR DYNAMIC CHARACTER WITH STATIC ONES

A dynamic character's journey is highlighted when set against a static one. A static character is one that doesn't change through the story. The genie in Aladdin is a perfect example of a static character. He facilitates Aladdin's journey from a penniless beggar to a prince, from a dissolute thief with no thought to his mother to a caring, well-rounded human being. But the genie himself does not change. He is still the same at the end of the story as he was in the beginning. 

I like to have static characters on either side of the main character's conflict. In Golden Horsemen, they are the landlord, the main source of external conflict. He starts the story being a despicable, cruel person and ends it that way. He is a warning to reader of what happens when someone refuses to change.

At the other end of the spectrum is Jabir's wise grandmother Nabiha (yes, I know I always have grandmothers in my stories. It's my trope, ok?). She comes to the rescue when the golden horsemen of the title are destroyed by the landlord and it seems Jabir is not going to meet his goal. She too doesn't change, mainly because her story-journey was told long before Jabir's narrative started and she has already reached her goal.

Well, those are the four steps I use to create dynamic characters. I hope they are of some use to the readers of this blog. I've been in quarantine for ten days but now the self-isolation is over. I am going to treat myself to fish and chips on the seafront, at a table, with other people around me. If it doesn't start raining before lunchtime...

Saviour's The Golden Horsemen of Baghdad is set during the Islamic Golden Age. It was shortlisted for the North Somerset Teachers' Book Award and other prizes. Published in January 2019, it is now in its fourth reprint.

For more tips on writing follow Saviour on Twitter @spirotta. Visit his website at www.saviourpirotta.com

 

Recalibrate - Heather Dyer

It’s just after dawn and I’m sitting in my easy chair in front of the patio doors. My dog is on my lap, and I’m cradling a cup of coffee. Outside, the sparrows are going about their business.  At this time of day, living out here, it's easy to believe that nothing has changed.

But of course, everything has changed. Offices are empty. Hospitals are chaotic. Flights have been grounded, and the pandas in Hong Kong are mating. And the projects I was so invested in two weeks ago feel irrelevant. But I still feel an urgency to write, to produce, to make something out of all of this….

Then, scrolling through my emails, I discover an article called, ‘Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure’.

Professor Aisha Ahmad has lived through several crises, and her reflections are wise, calm and kind. First, she says, establish your physical security and get your team in place. Then, she says, we must, ‘abandon the performative and embrace the authentic.’ She says we must focus on real internal change.

Yes! This is the creative process. We mustn’t try to keep treading along the previous tracks. We must stop and recognize new directions, new patterns. The world has shifted, so our thinking needs to shift.

On the other side of this shift, says Ahmad, ‘your wonderful, creative, resilient brain will be waiting for you. […] New ideas will emerge that would not have come to mind had you stayed in denial. Continue to embrace your mental shift. Have faith in the process. Support your team.’

Aisha Ahmad has written another article on Productivity and Happiness Under Sustained Disaster Conditions, which follows on from the first.

Heather also blogs at https://thecreativestateofmind.wordpress.com/blog/  

Heather Dyer is a consultant in writing for children. She provides writing and publishing advice through The Literary Consultancy, The Writers' Advice Centre for Children's Books, and privately. If you’re ready for feedback on your work-in-progress contact Heather at heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com. 

Heather’s children’s novel The Girl with the Broken Wing was one of Richard and Judy’s book club picks, and The Boy in the Biscuit Tin was nominated for a Galaxy Best British Children’s Book award. Heather also teaches creative writing for the University of the Creative Arts, and facilitates workshops in creative thinking techniques for creatives and academics.

Nothing good ever happens in October - Ciaran Murtagh

The leaves are falling from the trees, the nights are drawing in and I turned on the heating in my shed for the first time in months. Nothing like the scent of the million fly carcasses that have tumbled down the back of the radiator slowly turning into charcoal to get the creative juices flowing. They do say that for every great work of art there has to be an act of sacrifice, I wonder if this is the modern equivalent.

It’s October, our country is in a period of flux and uncertainty, the Christmas adverts have appeared in the shops, it is tempting to think that 2019 is nearly over. Put off whatever it is you were going to start until the halcyon uplands of 2020 appear. Anything’s possible in 2020. We’ll probably be writing with laser beams, commuting on hover boards, or more likely, fighting over prescription drugs and reminiscing about what bananas tasted like.

What I’m saying is, nothing good ever happened on a damp Friday in October. Nothing. The promise of the year is waning, curl under the duvet and think of Christmas. Being self employed we don’t even have office parties to look forward to – not that I ever really looked forward to them, but at least someone else bought the beer.

It can be hard to remember that there’s still three months left. Three whole months. That's loads of time to turn it all around. As a redhead, it's always been my favourite time, and frankly the only one my colouring coordinates with. 

But in a world governed by advertising, we’ve had our summer holidays, there’s just Halloween, bonfire night and then Christmas left to go -  what's the point in starting something now? It can be easy to get demotivated, to start wishing the days away, to take a cue from the seasons and start bedding down for the year. 2019 is done. 

Don’t.

There’s loads of time. The best is yet to come. Make the most of it. It could still be your year. 

Write the thing, do the thing, make the thing.

Everyone wants to give up their job and write a book in January. Nobody wants to do it in October. Be that person, steal the march, get to the agents when they’re quiet (er). Get your ducks in a row, make your plans and don’t be conned into thinking 2019 has passed you by. October is where it’s at baby! 

2019 isn't done and dusted.  You’ve got a quarter of the year left. 2019 could still be your year.  Grab it.

Struggling to navigate the halfway point - Tracy Darnton

DISCLAIMER *Any publisher or editor who [has signed/is contemplating] a publishing contract with me should completely ignore all of the following.

I’m at the halfway point.

Wading through treacle.

Self-doubt.

Imposter syndrome.

The “why did I make this book so complex?” stage.

The “why don’t I write really short books with basic plots?” stage.

The “please, will someone else write my book for me?” stage.

Shall I watch ‘The Wife’ film again?

*Spoiler Alert* I want Glenn Close to write all my books and win the Nobel Prize for Literature for me. I could go to Stockholm again and eat cinnamon rolls.

I interrupt my son’s revision to ask him what cinnamon rolls are called in Swedish. Kanelbullar. That's a nice word. Kanelbullar.

Full-on procrastination cleaning out the fridge, hoovering the cutlery drawer, watching ‘The Thick of It’ on iPlayer, dusting my desk and sharpening pencils.

I am so good at procrastinating.

I am good at something! Yay me.

I take it up a gear.

I count the days before book delivery date and do a pie chart to show how many are possible writing days. I calculate the average word count I need to meet my contractual target. I adjust my figures to allow for sickness, family obligations, a holiday… I wonder if I should have used my A’ levels in Maths and Further Maths in a more constructive way.

I like graphs. I'd forgotten how much I like charts and graphs.

Shall I forget writing and become a statistician? Yes, my life will be so much easier. Won’t it?

I complete a memory research request on voice-recognition. I am delighted that my short-term memory is excellent at discerning chiming bells and voices.  But I worry that I performed badly on today’s long-term test on voices I heard ten days ago. Old voice? New voice?

I interrupt my son’s revision to ask him if I have performed any better than a random monkey randomly answering the fifty-fifty old or new voice questions. He explains probability to me and makes me doubt my aforementioned A' levels in Maths and Further Maths.

I cannot become a statistician after all. I have to carry on being an author.

Also, bad news, I am not as proficient as a random monkey tapping at the keyboard.

I write lists of questions in my notebook to make me feel better about plot holes in my novel.

I give the questions a heading: The Unsurmountables. I like the heading. I picture an action movie with Sean Connery and The Rock.

I check if ‘unsurmountable’ is a word and the difference between ‘insurmountable’. The WikiDiff entry makes no sense whatsoever. I should rewrite it.

I worry about my cast list. Too old? How old is Sean Connery?

1930! Sean Connery was born in 1930. He is too old for my action movie. I shall recast.

I laugh at a tweet with a funny picture from author Marie Basting about two and a half hours writing and her word count has gone up by seven words. Her tweet is longer than her WIP output for the day. I have a brief warm glow that there’s a whole community of #amwriting people out there feeling like this. 

Or is just me? That’s the self-doubt again. I check my word count so far for the day. Marie has beaten me.

I interrupt my son’s revision so he can thrash me at table tennis. I feel slightly better.

I buck up, eat a biscuit, and tell myself that it will pass. 

I pick up my notebook and turn to The Unsurmountables. Jodie Comer. I shall cast her. Boom! I am current and hip. I add more insurmountable questions to the list.

I look at The Truth About Lies on the shelf and wonder how on earth I wrote it and ponder the nature of selective memory that has removed the bad times to make sure it is not my only novel.

Logic tells me this stage will pass again and become a distant, buried memory.

I write this blog.

I sneak up on my novel late at night when it’s not expecting me to put in an appearance. I start typing. I put one sentence after another and watch the word count slowly, slowly grow.

Tracy Darnton is the author of The Truth About Lies, shortlisted for The Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019. She has an MA in Writing for Young People.

Making New Year's Resolutions - Chitra Soundar

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I haven’t made one in almost a decade and I’m thinking about one, just one for 2018. Maybe two...

When we were growing up in India, making NY resolutions was a big deal. Every child and adult were asked constantly about it from the last week of December to the first two weeks of January. 

My resolutions ranged from learning a new word from the dictionary every day, finishing holiday homework on time to helping Mum with the washing up. I’m sure I wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of weeks of either of those.

As an adult, doing my first job, we were part of a massive training programme that incorporated “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven R Covey. We tried to create new habits as part of this programme and again in spite of this directly affecting our daily jobs, I’m sure resolutions flew out of the window when 12-hour long shifts took their toll.

I checked online and found over 100 books including journals for helping people with their NY resolutions. I checked youtube and found innumerable motivational speakers on this too. 

As a writer, I have tried making new resolutions – not necessarily on 1^st January. I told myself, as an adult, I don’t need to wait for 1^st January and I can start a new habit anytime I want. Here are some of the habits I tried to make and keep – some were more successful than others.

1. Writing a journal – I try and fail at this often. I want to record feelings, thoughts, observations every day and I often fail. I have started one again in October 2017 and so far I’ve written at least twice a week. Then I found this useful post for writers - 33 ideas to put in a journal and now I'm more confident of keeping the habit.
2. Write every day for 15 minutes – I picked this up in 2010 when I bought a book titled “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. I have bundles of notebook from this exercise – I wrote for many days, keeping the habit for months, recording the amount of time I wrote every day, it was the practice that was important as her book says and as she said to us in person when I went to attend a course run by her in New Mexico. 
   
   And then it became a habit – I wrote most days – either a new story, or a story I was working on. Then it became part of life and I think it did because I held the habit for months. But also because at some point writing became a vocation rather than just a perseverance.
3. Writing a poem a day – I have a notebook titled “A Poem a Day” and after a while I had to change the title to “A Poem a Day Sometimes”.
4. Doing my admin work every weekend – this is one of my biggest failures in spite of my corporate background. I never allocate time to sit and sift through my expenses, bank statements and key them in.
5. Read one short story and one essay every week – this came from one of Ray Bradbury’s lecture. I tried it a few weeks and then life took over. Sometimes I binge on short stories and essays and other times I hardly find the time to open a book. 

So until recently I told myself I won’t set any NY resolutions. If I want to create a habit, I will work at it knowing I’ll fail and I have to pick up myself. I proved it to myself by starting something outrageously stupid – a carb-free diet combined with running everyday. I failed often, I missed days, but I got back. 

And then I read this opinion piece by Ann Patchett in the NY Times and I thought, ‘Hmm, I have a shopping problem, maybe this NY resolution thing that will give me delayed gratification might be a good idea.’ Anything that is easy is not so much more fun. If I can afford it and I can order it online and I want it even a little bit, I go for it. I don’t put it away to think about it. I think it is a natural rebellion to the eternal voice of my dad in my ears, “DO YOU NEED IT? OR DO YOU WANT IT?”  So I thought I should stop the habit before a giraffe lands on my doorstep with an Amazon delivery card attached.

Having decided to make a resolution for this new year, I decided I have to declare it publicly. 

This TED talk tells me I should be quiet about it. 

But I always like to announce my personal goals in public – like the no-carb habit or the running habit. The more people I tell, the more people I would disappoint if I didn’t achieve my goal. So the pressure is on and of course the support is useful too. Us writers know how to push each other gently and help each other through failures. So I’m not going to follow the advice from this Ted talk.

So are you going to make a resolution? Do you believe in making them? Here are some talks from TED to inspire you to choose one that might tweak your interest. But if like me you prefer profound advice from wise people, then this one is for you. 

If you are making a resolution, then do put it in the comment box if you like to share it publicly like me.

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Chitra Soundar tries to juggle her resolutions between writing stories amidst school visits, festivals and book tours and often fails to conquer them. Find out more at www.chitrasoundar.com and follow her on twitter at @csoundar.

Winnie the Pooh Wisdom: all the writer needs - Hilary Hawkes

What I’ve come to realise is that all anyone really needs to be a writer is Winnie the Pooh Wisdom.

For every eventuality: exciting moments, rejection moments, cloud nine moments and general slogging along day to day moments you might encounter on the writing journey, the little bear (or his friends) would know how to handle it all.

New book idea moments:

 "As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen."

Looming deadline moments:

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

Challenging review or feedback moments:

"Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them."

Working up courage to send manuscripts out moments:

“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

Thinking up new character moments:

 "Piglet: “How do you spell 'love'?" Pooh: "You don't spell it...you feel it.""

Pixabay

Book talks or signing moments:

 "You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think."

Agent/publisher dumping moments:

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”

Spending time with writer friend moments:

“A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.”

Looking back moments:

 “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

See what I mean?

Now I just need one for stop-the-procrastinating-moments. Any ideas?

A A Milne is most famous,of course, for his books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin.  The various characters were inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably his teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh. 

The quotes were all inspired by A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh books' characters, and what happens to them, and appear in 'Pooh's Little Instruction Book' illustrated by E.H. Shepard - who illustrated the Pooh books.

Hilary Hawkes

Writer and children's author

Finding Heart – by Ruth Hatfield

I met a relation by marriage recently at a family gathering – the prolific Mills and Boon author Kate Walker. She’s written over 65 books, which is the kind of number that makes me blink a few times and rub my eyes to be sure I’m typing right. In my mind, anyone who’s managed to even write 65 books, never mind have them all published and develop a cult following, probably has quite a lot to tell me that I’d really like to hear. We had a fascinating chat in which I learnt a lot, but it also had the effect of dropping something neatly into place for me – a pretty simple answer to a thorny issue that’s been troubling me for some time. 

When writing becomes a more long-term, practical endeavour, rather than just a passion or hobby for spare moments, it sometimes goes well and it sometimes doesn’t. At the moment, for me, it isn’t going all that well, for which there are many reasons – a young family, the shrieking demands of life in general, exhaustion, confusion, pessimism, lack of confidence – you name it, it’s probably swimming around there somewhere. But there is still a small amount of time available for me to write, so I can do it. The problem is that writing is very low on my internal priority list and continues to linger there, i.e. I really never particularly want to work on the book I’ve currently got in progress, although I do it, of course. I’m still hugely into making up stories and reading, but I just can’t raise any enthusiasm for my WIP, and I’m aware that’s not a good thing.

I asked Kate Walker how she kept it up – writing and writing, despite all the pressure. How did she remain enthusiastic and interested, book after book. Her answer was straightforward: she’s interested in character, and her books are all largely about a particular character/s (the romantic hero and heroine). They are vessels in which she can explore how she thinks a particular character might respond to a particular scenario. Even if the scenario is suggested to her by the demands of the genre, she still gets to explore the character’s journey within those confines, and so retains the element that is personally interesting to her.

It’s kind of an obvious point, I guess, but I’d completely forgotten to qualify it to myself recently. A readable book stems from an author’s interest in a particular aspect of that book, whether it be character, plot, setting or message (or a combination of these). And in terms of writing, the aspect you’re interested in is the fun part, and the rest is often hard work.

I’ve had to work so hard on plotting in recent years that it’s taken over the creative and constructive part of my brain, which used to begin with much more personal things – character and (if it doesn’t sound too pretentious) a desire to explore moral philosophy. I think that my lack of enthusiasm now derives from having written a story in which I leant too hard on the plot button before I’d had a chance to create those more personal elements. My characters don’t yet sit down with me as I write, and yet the ‘story’ is finished. They don’t talk to me, either – I have to invent words for them, which is blooming hard work. No wonder I never really want to face the great effort it takes to whip these shadowy figures into some sort of colourful, three-dimensional life. I didn’t stop to look at them properly in the first place, and I don’t know who they are.

It seems so silly to have forgotten what makes a story live and breathe, but I guess it’s all part of the great learning experience that is any creative art. There are no universal rules – you have to discover what the rules and parameters are for you, personally, as you go along, and you have to be prepared to learn that you’re doing the wrong thing, albeit with the best intentions.

So back I come to it, for definitely not the first time: I’m working in the wrong way. The right way for me is to actually focus on the things that are easy, first, and make something I’ve enjoyed. Then I can turn to the hard part, and it’s worth doing, because I’m working on something that does, occasionally, make me smile. A happier me, a better book. Which is, after all, the point of it all.

Inspirational chance encounters. Now there’s an interesting subject. Sounds like another good springboard for a story…