Archive for the ‘Creative Writing’ Category
The Fictional Side Of Natural Disasters
As I sit here and write this, I’m watching The Weather Channel and the reality of Hurricane Irene as it’s about to strike the Eastern Seaboard. And though there is absolutely nothing funny about this, it did strike me that it’s a wonderful way to bring a realistic touch to a fictional story.
There have been hundreds of natural disaster movies coming out in the past 10 years. With the year 2012 coming up fast, more and more fantastical ideas are coming to the forefront of fiction. But as I sit here and watch how this hurricane is working its way up the coast, I can’t help but think how many different fictional stories could come out of this one real storm.
I live in tornado alley. I’ve done the same thing watching the big storms that roll through here. Though the reality of the storms is anything but fictional, the story ideas behind them can range from young adult fiction, to horror, to romance. If it can be imagined with a tornado or hurricane in the mix, it can be written.
Though it’s true that fiction is all about making stuff up, there is a realistic quality to some of the best stories ever written. And when adding the element of the elements, it’s best to be able to make them feel are real as possible. It’s okay to make up a fictional storm, but at least make it so that the reader can feel the wind in their face. The more realistic the storm, the more likely the reader is to tell their friends about your awesome story.
How Do You Create A Character?
There are a lot of ways to create story characters. It all basically depends on the type of stories you write and the type of characters who’ll be starring in said story. For me, I usually have a pretty good idea of the characters in my head as I start out, but I let them grow as the story goes along. And like any other person, they have their good days and their bad days. It might not be the right way, but I’m not sure that there is a right or a wrong way to create a character.
When I start out writing a story, I think about the characters first. Who are they? Why are they in the story? What kind of people are they? Once I’ve figured out the basics of them, I interview them. Yes, I sit down and do a mock interview with my intended characters. It helps me in shaping them into realistic figures that readers can believe in. I don’t want a story filled with goodie-two-shoes, even if the story is about those types of people. They have to have some flaws. There has to be something about them that makes them human. After all, none of us is perfect, so why should the characters in our books be so.
I do the same types of interviews for both the antagonist and the protagonist. I also do this with all the lesser characters. It’s how I get a more 3-dimentional feel for them. It helps me come up with physical traits as well as psychological ones. It even helps me create some emotional issues that may not even come out in the story. But for me, knowing that those things are there, help me to create a story around the characters that are believeable.
What types of characters do you enjoy reading about? Do you like the perfect never-done-wrong types or do you prefer your heroes to be a bit on the flawed side? Do you want your villains to be a little bit sympathetic or should they be just down right hateful? How do you create a character?
A Cool Place To Gather
Ever wish there was a place you could go hang out at and post all your fictional ideas and maybe get a little feedback at the same time? If so, you need to check out Gather.com. I love this site. I’ve been a member for just over 3 years and I’m still amazed at the number of people I’ve had the pleasure to meet and mingle with over that time. Though I don’t hang out there as much as I used to, I still pop in to get my freewrite on.
There are all kinds of writing groups on this site. Some are meant to help the fiction writer, so to help the poet, and others are just there to help you build points. And why would you want to do that??? Well because if you earn enough points, you can cash them in for all kinds of cool things including Paypal cash cards. I’ve never earned that much myself, but I never really tried either. I wasn’t there to try and make money, I used it as a way to find my personal voice and new people to hang out with.
There are 2 basic kinds of people on Gather.com. Those that you’ll love to hang out with and talk about everything under the sun, and those that will harass you relentlessly and drive you absolutely mad. And trust me, there are quite a few of them. However, you don’t have to accept their friendship requests and if you accidentally run across one of the types of people, just unfriend them and you don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Gather.com is kind of like a social network for writers. And I mean writers of all genre, all walks of life, all personalities, and everything in between. Whatever you are in this world, or whatever you want to be. It’s all good and it’s okay because when you join up with site, you’ll find that you’ll look forward to the times you show up to Gather.
