Category Archives: Characterization

Fine Tuning An Edit

  By Eleni | February 20, 2013 - 09:35 | , , ,
2 Comments

This past Tuesday was an auspicious day. I finished my second edit of Beyond Omega’s Sunrise, began writing the second book of The Spheral Series, and the Kindle version of Unison was ready.  Talk about synchronicity!

Now on to my favorite topic: editing. Well, not really my favorite. Writing the first draft is still at the top of my list. I couldn’t relate to why some authors had a preference for editing until I witnessed the transition between manuscript to  book.  I never perceived this transition with screenwriting. I can only assume it’s because none of my screenplays were made into movies, so they’re all incomplete journeys. There’s something about this new awareness that feels oh so very good. It has nothing to do with money or whether people will like my book, but that I completed a piece of art according to my vision. Writing the story in novel form made the difference because I wasn’t writing for an agent or studio executives. I read so many blogs with authors emphasizing the importance of writing authentically. I agree with that crew. It’s the way to draw out your own unique voice. If you write with an audience in mind, you’ll be stifling your own voice with imagined expectations, preferences and opinions from people you’ve never met. I’ve read a few authors that write by envisioning one specific person reading their book. That doesn’t work for me either.

Writing is personal and sacred…

It’s a form of meditation for me. I can’t look to others to determine what my story should be any more than I would ask others how I should live my life. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that  writing is my outward spiritual expression. It’s what made me fall in love with writing.

ON TO THE FINE TUNING

The editorial process is getting easier for me. It seems like my second pass through Beyond Omega’s Sunrise gave my story its shape. I can see what it looks like now, and I like where it’s headed.

In my blog post, Sculpting a Story, I mentioned how my third draft was where I saw the shape of a story emerge. I managed to streamline my editorial process because in addition to the obvious concerns regarding plot, structure and characterization I learned how to analyze my manuscript like a nit-picky editor. These fine tunes take time to develop as they’re mostly intuitive. But once mastered, they save a lot of time. I firmly believe, and now know, authors are their own best editors.  I know I”ll get a lot of flack for this statement, but no one knows my story as well as me. It’s all a matter of learning the craft and being objective…very objective.  The latter is the most challenging for most people. Most writers are either enamored by their own words or unsure of them. My issue was the latter. Luckily, I got over that hurdle, but new ones have come up to replace them. It’s always something. I’ll save that for another blog as I want to get into three very important editorial techniques that saved me a lot of time once I understood them.

RHYTHM

A sentence can feel awkward when read, even if it’s grammatically correct and makes logical sense. This one used to drive me nuts until I discovered it had to do with rhythm.I went over this in the Sculpting a Story post; however, I’ll take it one step further here. The rhythm must not only flow from one sentence to the next, but it must have an equally flowing transition into the next thought. Giving away my age here, I compare it to what happens when the needle on a record skips over a scratch. When a skip occurs in my edit, I don’t stop and analyze it. I brainstorm until I find the proper connecting  thought and voila…the skip is gone. I find this type of edit the most time consuming because it’s very ambiguous and hard to identify.

A CAR IN THE CITY? 

Would a person in New York own a car? Yes, some of them would, and I’ve known a few. Nevertheless, I pondered over this question because my protagonist owns a car in the City. As it wasn’t an implausible scenario, I left the question unanswered and gave my manuscript to  my editor. She ended up mentioning the car issue, and I was astonished. Apparently even something that wasn’t implausible can be viewed as implausible when it’s not a common occurrence, such as owning a car in the City. This may seem petty to most readers, but I thought it was very revealing in that I had the same concern. If both of us thought about it, you can believe that some equally fussy readers would discern the same thing. I did, and admittedly, I’d question it.

Why on Earth would someone own a car in the city when parking is almost impossible and garages charge a fortune?

So, no matter how insignificant I think a concern of mine is, I fix it immediately because I know my doubts won’t disappear. They’re there for a reason.  I brainstormed a fix, and it added to the characterization of my protagonist, who likes the freedom of moving around.

UNFAMILIAR TERMINOLOGY

I reference a theramin in Jessie’s Song. My editor was concerned that a lot of readers wouldn’t know what a theramin is. Now granted, they could easily go to a dictionary, as I typically do when I don’t know a word. Rather than throw in annoying exposition, I injected a little humor into the dialogue that makes it obvious that it could be used for music. This fix worked both for the lazy reader, which I admit to being at times, and the curious one who need to know the definition of every single word in the English language. The additional benefit is that the dialogue enhances the protagonist’s characterization.

With a little brainstorming, there are always creative ways to make mediocre text shine  and help add to the characterization and meaning to the  story.

Love and light,

Eleni

Characters Write Themselves When They’re Free

  By Eleni | August 16, 2012 - 07:35 | , ,
6 Comments


I started working on my fourth novel, On The Farm.  The  antagonist’s personality came to me three days ago. I wanted to know why he would work against his own growth, and once I figured it out, I was ready to begin writing the story…twenty days ahead of schedule!

When I realized what motivated me to begin this new project, I knew I had a topic for my next blog. I find I write the best story when my characters are real enough to take over. I’m not implying chaos over here. Structure is very important to me, and I learned it via my screenwriting experience.  It taught me how to plot effectively and make every scene count. I use the techniques in my novels because it keeps my acts clearly defined, cinematic and razor sharp. Some writers will tell you that structure leads to formulaic writing, and from my own experience, I find that declaration erroneous and harmful advice to those who are just starting out in their writing. How we write depends on how our brains process information.

Some of us can write without an outline, but not me. Because I’m right brain dominant, I need to see the whole picture for it to make sense and to get that, “Eureka, this is it!” feeling about my story. This gives my first draft more direction, but it doesn’t mean I won’t make changes as I go along. What remains is the structure that keeps me grounded to the story and prevents me from going off in irrelevant directions.  This makes my editing job a lot easier.

Before I learned structure, I meandered in my writing, A LOT. And the criticism I received about my work was all about how my story didn’t have well defined acts. Once I learned  various forms of structure, I began to see how a story flowed and how when I got everything right, it worked better.

Books that resonate most with me have both a well-developed plot and strong characters.  Stories heavy on plot and light on character don’t hold my interest, which is why I toil, with great effort, on my own characters.  The stronger they are, the more they take the lead and that’s what I count on.

Outlining prevents chaos, so we can let go and enjoy the ride.

I like outlining my stories because it reinforces the structure.  The reason structure in  our writing works so well is because we live in a structured environment, which means, by default, so do our characters. Even stories where societies fall apart, like in “Mad Max,” develop hierarchal systems. Try as we might, we can’t get away from structure.    Everything around us is structured.  We can either lead boring and predictable lives, or exciting lives, depending on our personalities.  Same thing goes for our characters, which are extensions of our personalities brought on by our imagination. When we let our characters take over we free our imagination, which is far more interesting than when we hold it back because we want to control everything.

It’s all about the characters…

A strong structure and accompanying outline gave my characters more freedom to challenge my pre-determined plot points. If my foundation is solid, my characters will either head towards the story goal or attempt to stop it from happening. Their motivations are clearly related to what’s happening in the story, meaning when Fox leads Ram outside the farm for the first time, they don’t head off to the mall to play video games! Their reaction is always within the proper context. With a clear story goal, they can’t take me out of the plot. They can throw me past my comfort zone, add a twist that will take me a while to think through, or re-write a character’s association with another character, but the change is usually for the best. In Sunrise, my last novel I completed, I explained how one of the characters rewrote the conflict of my story. It was better than what I had, but because the character was strong, she led me down a different path, and  I never looked back. In the middle of writing this blog, my protagonist in Jessie’s Song, did something that surprised me.  It ended up increasing the dramatic tension.

On the contrary, if during the outlining stage my characters are screaming for a different outcome, and that outcome is better than my own, I’ll go ahead and tweak the last act to accommodate them. I do what’s right for the story, and I find if I keep that intention, I have a stronger and more emotionally satisfying read.

Writers as actors…

To write a great character I have to become the character as I’m writing. I have to experience her emotions, cry when she does, laugh at what she finds amusing, and be scared when she feels threatened. If I don’t feel any emotions, then I know she’s a flat character. I’ll work on  a scene until I get the appropriate reaction.

My writing routine evolved into an organic  practice in that I let the story flow where it must be without forcing it into what I want. It’s very Tao-like and it’s as pure as storytelling gets to me. This is why I enjoy the process so much. I never know what to expect, and this  leads to suspenseful and exciting storytelling.

What gets you excited about telling stories?

Love and light,

Eleni