Characters! And trees thereof!

Sorry for the delayed post,  life keeps getting in the way. This week I wanted to talk about character trees. In their simplest form these are a list of the physical and character attributes of your cast. Everyone has their own idea of what these entail but I'll cover some of the basic information that they should include.

Why bother doing one in the first place? I find they're useful to ensure your characters remain consistent throughout your novel and help you differentiate them from each other so everyone doesn't act and sound the same. Working out who your characters are will help a lot in working out what they will do once you get to plotting. Here's a quick list of what you might include in a character tree.

·         A quick overview or biography of the character. Who are they? What do they want? What's their relationship to other characters? Where are they at emotionally?

·         Physical description. This can be anything from body type, hair colour, eye colour to how they dress. Be sure to include every detail you think is pertinent, from whether they wear jewellery or make up to their personal hygiene regime. It'll inform your writing of the character through the book.

·         Their character traits. Are they outgoing or introverted? The life of the party or do they sit in the corner sipping a coke? What are their interests? What are their strengths and, more importantly, their flaws. That last one is important. Nobody's perfect and the protagonist of your novel shouldn't be either. They need something to humanize them. I'll give you an example: take Superman and Spider-man. Superman is perfect, he's the strongest, smartest and has the ethics of Ghandi. As a result of this he's about as interesting as whole grain toast. Spider-man isn't perfect. He's often late for important events in his personal life, he's prone to slipping up and he rarely gets the girl. He's human but you wouldn't mind grabbing a beer with him sometime, He feels like an approachable guy. Remember you need your readers to want to spend time with your characters, make them likable but not perfect. We hate those who have everything, sad but true.

·         Their relationships with others. Who are their parents? Are they married? Engaged? Do they have kids? Are they a good husband/wife/mother/dad/friend? Who do they hang out with?

·         Their character arc. Who are they at the start of the book? How do they change? What new skills do they learn? Who are they at the end?

 

That covers the basics. As an added bonus I'm including my own character tree for the character Aimee from "Flare." It's not perfect but it could serve as a practical guide to what you might need before you start tackling the plot. My tree for Aimee isn't comprehensive, there's more in the novel that I didn't have here, but that's the fun of writing, sometimes you end up in a place you weren't expecting. I’ve also left out my character notes for books two and three, because spoilers. As always, please direct any questions, comments and offers of hugs to me via facebook.com/flarebookseries or @paddylennon1 on twitter.

Flare Series: Character trees.

Character: Aimee Dewitt (Revenant)

Bio.

Aimee is aged fourteen in part one of book one. She’s a “Vanguard” fan girl when we first meet her. She buys all their merchandise and idolises them completely. Her family are rich, her Dad, Paul, runs “DeWitt Industries” an electronics concern and weapons manufacturer. Aimee’s mother is Barbara, a former model and beauty queen. Aimee doesn’t really get on with her parents. Her Dad is distant and only had a child so there’d be someone to carry on the family name and inherit the money. Her mother is obsessed with fashion and likes spending her husband’s money. Barbara is a little put out that a daughter of hers could be so uninterested in shoes and clothes.

Aimee is embarrassed by the money her family has and isn’t really into the whole “accumulating possessions” thing. She hasn't got any friends as she finds stuff the girls her own age are interested in to be boring and she feels that most boys her own age are too dumb to be worth dealing with.

When Aimee and her mother are kidnapped it’s up to Aimee to step up and free herself. But what happens that night leaves her heartbroken and angry. Angry enough to decide to train and become a vigilante like the Vanguard members she adores.

In part two, Aimee is nineteen. She’s still not in regular contact with her father although she hears from him occasionally. She has spent the intervening five years training in martial arts, free-running etc to become a superhero. She’s been inspired by the Vanguard to try to make the world a better place, one crippled mugger at a time. Her love for the Vanguard will make her helping Ryan a natural thing when she encounters him; after all, he’s the only son of her heroes and inspiration.

Aimee is an experienced and creative fighter. In her five year training period she’s become an expert in Escrima, Silat, Kick-boxing, Karate and BJJ and is able to mix and match these fighting styles. Of the three main characters she’s the most “heroic” of the lot and, initially, by far the most competent. She’s brave, tough and utterly unwilling to back down from a fight. She has no trouble charging headfirst into a brawl and throwing everything at her opponent until they’re beaten, though she's not above cheating to ensure that she'll win. She does have a tendency to be brutal, she won’t hesitate to dislocate or break an opponent’s bones with her first strike if it means she’ll come out on top. 

Appearance.

Aimee is five foot four, brown haired and reasonably attractive. She’d be stunning if she ever made the effort to dress up, a side effect of having a model mother. She’s a fitness nut and exercises a lot through martial arts training and jogging so she’s in excellent shape and health.

Her clothing is practical and plain, no bright colours or ornamentation. She doesn’t wear jewellery as this would be dangerous in a fight (earrings get pulled out etc). She will wear gym gear a lot on her down time and hoodies and jeans when just hanging out. None of her relaxation clothes will be top of the line stuff, no Gucci or Prada for her, just better than average brands but nothing flashy.

She wears a bare minimum of make-up, no fake tan etc.

She will dress up for work, plain suits and blouses, better than the average but not over the top in any way. She’s a little ashamed of her wealth and doesn’t want to advertise it.

Revenant.

Aimee’s costume as Revenant will be practical, plain and cover her entire body. It’s mostly black with some grey accents. It would be similar to the survival suit from “Batman Begins”, matte black body armour with a soldier’s web-gear on top. It’ll be tough enough to stop a bullet or blade but also flexible enough to allow her to fight.  She carries her equipment in her web gear. Two Escrima sticks in a scabbard on her back (sticks are thirty-two inches long), combat knife in a scabbard on her left thigh, Grappling gun in a holster on her left thigh. Two flashbang grenades in a pouch on her waist. Other pouches have plastic explosive, detonators, a Leatherman tool, a torch, matches in a waterproof pouch, survival rations and a canteen of water.

She wears a mask to obscure her features but which leaves her mouth visible. The lenses in her mask act as infra-red and night vision lenses when required.

She has a portable computer built into the gauntlet on her left wrist, this is a GPS / map and can help her hack into security systems etc.

Book One Character Arc.

Aimee becomes a hero after a tragedy. We see her first night as a hero and on her second evening in the suit she runs into Ryan. She starts out as someone who is only interested in revenge but meeting Ryan will soften her somewhat. She’ll joke with him etc as she’s so happy to be hanging out with the son of the people who inspired her.  She’s almost too ready to trust him but will quickly assign herself the role of his protector as she realises that Ryan can be a little swept up in things and quickly finds himself out of his depth.  She may even come across as a little bossy to Ryan at certain points but it’s because she wants him to push him to live up to his lineage.

Things I wish I knew before starting to write.

Now that I've got Flare out there and Shooting Star is coming along nicely I thought I'd write a few pieces for the blog about things I wish I knew before I started to write a novel. I didn't really have a lot of experience with creative writing before I began Flare, I did the small amount required in school and then, once the decision was made that I wanted to give writing a try, I attended a number of creative writing courses and workshops. Some of these helped, some didn’t.

In short, I was wholly unprepared for the hell I was about to unleash on myself. Most writing courses seem to focus on writing style and so on but don’t seem to address the nuts and bolts of motivation to write, story-lining or character development.

This complete lack of preparation meant that writing Flare included a lot more work than it should have been. Now that I'm two years wiser and managed to get Shooting Star in readable shape in less than half the time of my first try I figured I'd spread the word about how others can learn from my numerous mistakes. This week I'll go through ten tips about tackling a novel that will make your life easier. Ready? Let's begin!

1. Write what you love. People always say “write what you know”. They're often correct but with fiction if you stick to writing about what you've directly experienced then things will get boring for both writer and reader. If I only wrote about “what I know” then most of my writing would be about sandwiches, about which I am an expert. Also, the science fiction and fantasy genres wouldn't exist as no one has ever travelled to another planet or fought a dragon in real life. So, a writer has to lie and write about things they don't know about. It's more interesting. When you decide to write, whether a poem, short story, comic book, screenplay or novel, you need to pick a topic that compels you. It needs to be something that you're not going to get bored by over the length of time it takes to write the story, see it published and promote it. That can be anywhere from two to ten years. That's a significant amount of time, so choose wisely and make sure you're writing something you would like to read or the motivation to tackle an 80,000 word time sucker like a novel will disappear fast.
2. Plan. I found it to be impossible to just start writing from page one of a word document. The white space of that first page just stares at you and turns your mind to mush. Plot holes and inconsistencies will abound unless you’ve taken the time to figure as much as possible out in advance. Not everything needs to be planned to perfection; that will spoil the fun that spontaneously creating an unplanned character or scene can bring. You do need to outline the main plot of the novel in terms of "A then B then C then D then ending." I found that this saved me from running out of steam half way through the book and stopped writers block from occurring. If you know what the ending is then you'll always at least be able to write that! I'll go into greater detail about plot outlines and character building in coming weeks.
3. Write for the edit. Get the first draft written. That’s it. Don't worry about formatting or spelling or even if chunks of character development are missing. Just get the main plot fleshed out as completely as possible for your first draft. You need something you can edit. This first draft will represent the most difficult part of the process, and most likely the longest period of writing time so get it done in a basic format. You can work on making it pretty later.
4. Take a break. Leave your first draft in a drawer, go watch some movies and maybe even go on holiday. Rest a little, you've earned it. Then you can come back for the second draft refreshed and with your mind ready for the next bit.
5. Draft, then redraft. Read your first draft again. By the end you'll have spotted a million things you need to fix: characterisation, plot holes, dialogue. These are going to be the things you need to fix. Once it's done repeat as necessary. How often? More than one book on writing I’ve read recommends seven drafts. Flare got eight by the time I felt it was good enough to be let free into the world. It still isn’t a perfect novel by any means but it’s my first, I’ll get better. The only writer to do a perfect first novel was Harper Lee, I’m no Harper Lee.
6. Listen to what's going on around you. Don't just lock yourself in an office and write all the time. Get out into the world and pay attention to what's going on. Listen to how people talk and interact, it'll improve your dialogue and character interplay in later drafts.
7. Be specific. If your planned story allows you to, use real world examples in your novel. It helps relate the world your character lives in to the world we know. Use real street names, places, events and flora and fauna to make your world a real place. I'm assuming the book is set on Earth.  A flock of birds shouldn’t just be a flock of birds; it's a flock of sparrows or seagulls. These extra little bits of description help the reader get a feel for the fictional world, which is what you want if you’re hoping they stick around until the end.
8. If you love it, let it go. Sometimes there'll be a piece of dialogue or particular sequence that you adore that just doesn't fit the story. Maybe a character says something that doesn't gel or the scene doesn't serve a narrative purpose, you have to be brave enough to cut these out and save them for another time and place. Every writer has a box marked "for later use" containing their discarded ideas. Don't panic if something you like doesn't belong anywhere, someday it will.
9. Spelling and grammar. Once the story and character arcs are good and you're happy to have someone else read it, have another pass and fix all the spelling and grammar errors. You won't catch them all but it'll help everyone else. An agent or publisher will throw manuscripts with poor spelling in the bin without reading them. They've got plenty of adequately written books to read to spend time hoping to find a gem amongst all the scripts with incorrect spelling. This applies double if you're planning to self-publish. This is your work, there's no one else to blame if there are errors. Editing text is boring but extremely important. The most exciting story telling in the world won't mean Jack if it's an unreadable mess.
10. Get another reader or two. Once your manuscript is in legible condition and you're happy with the idea of others reading it then proceed to find a friend to give it a look. Ideally, your friend will have at least a passing interest in the topic of the book, they'll have read similar works or pieces in the genre and will be familiar with the conventions etc. Once your clued in friend has prepared notes, work on those as your next draft. Then find another reader who isn't a fan of the genre, they'll spot things the previous reader missed and will force you to work to explain items that maybe the casual reader will need explained. Again, use their notes as the basis of another draft.

That's it for this week; hopefully my limited experience will help make you think about what you could do to make your work better. If anyone has a topic to suggest please do so via Facebook: Facebook.com/flarebook or Twitter @paddylennon1

Flare: Chapter Two.

After the blurb last week it's time for the first of three sample chapters I'll be putting up here in the run up to releasing the book sometime in mid August. This is the shortest chapter of the book at 1400 words. Generally I aim to have the chapters end up being around 3,500 to 4,000 words for a couple of reasons which i'll bore you with over a pint sometime. I thought for the preview I'd focus on introducing you to some of the main characters, namely Ryan Curtis and his parents, Jake and Lisa. This extract is the entire of chapter two and serves as an introduction to Ryan. 

Chapter Two: First Day.

 Ryan sat on the armchair beside the window in his bedroom. It was seven in the morning and his parents were nowhere to be found. That wasn’t surprising. He had heard them leave an hour earlier as they raced out the door of the apartment to go to work. Had they managed to forget about today and how important it was? There was no way they were going to be back on time. Ryan decided to get ready for school by himself.

He was already washed and dressed so all he had to do was drag his protesting body off the chair, pick up his school bag and head out the door. He entered the kitchen, opened a cupboard and the fridge and pulled out the ingredients he needed to make a southwest omelette: Eggs, some butter, ham, onions, peppers and parsley. A normal fourteen year old boy wouldn’t have to be able to exist completely independently of his parents. But Ryan’s situation in life was far from normal. He listened to some music as he prepared and ate his breakfast. Once he had finished, Ryan placed the dirty dishes and cutlery in the dishwasher and then placed a load of laundry in the rarely used washing machine. Ryan’s mother, Lisa, never had the patience to wait the eternity it took the washing machine to clean a load of clothes. She washed everything by hand. It was faster.

Once the chores were done, Ryan took the cookie jar down from the shelf and dipped his hand inside to take some money out. Ryan’s dad wouldn’t allow sweets in the house, instead the cookie jar held a few hundred dollars in cash, just in case it came in handy. Ryan took a roll of fifty dollar bills out and slipped one into his front pocket. He’d have to pay for lunch in school today. He didn’t have time to cook something decent.

He left the apartment and headed for the elevator in the hall. He needed to be at the bus stop in five minutes. The rest of the building was quiet. The other occupants had left at the same time as his parents had. He exited the building and walked to the bus stop. He didn’t have to wait long for a yellow and black school bus to turn the corner and pull up at the kerb. He got on board and nodded in greeting to the driver. The bus was mostly full. Ryan shuffled down the aisle as the bus started moving; several of the other kids were staring at him, wondering who the newcomer was. Ryan continued on down the aisle and spotted an empty seat about half way down the bus. As he approached the boy sitting beside the seat placed his hand to guard the empty space:

“Someone’s already sitting there. Find somewhere else.” The boy said.

Ryan sat down on an empty seat near to the back of the bus, beside a girl who didn’t even look at him as he sat down. She was too busy staring out the window, trying not to catch his eye. The bus sauntered through the early morning traffic and reached its destination: Jimmy Carter Middle School. The doors opened and the bus disgorged its passengers. Ryan followed his new schoolmates out the door and into the school. The place was noisy and warm as friends who hadn’t seen each other in weeks laughed and talked together. Ryan took it all in as he moved slowly down the packed corridor. The School had the usual cliques, the pretty girls hung out with other pretty girls, the sports stars hung out with other sports stars and the quiet kids hung out in small closely knit groups or alone.

It was exactly like Ryan’s last school back in Chicago, except that most people here were much better sun tanned. Ryan followed the signs for the Vice-principal’s office and knocked on the open door.

“Come in.” said a bespectacled woman seated behind a desk.
“Excuse me.” said Ryan. “I’m a new student here.”
“Name?” She responded.
“Ryan Curtis.”
“Ah, Yes.” She said as she ticked a box on a printed list that lay on her desk. She smiled at Ryan: “Are your parents with you?”

“No, they’re busy.”

“Well that’s understandable. I’m Angela Williams. Your home room is number fourteen. Take a right when you leave my office and then take a left. It’s the sixth door on your right. It’s numbered.”

“Thanks.” said Ryan.

“The Vice-principal asked to speak with you when you arrived. He’s in his office, go straight in. I hope you enjoy your time with us Ryan.”

“I hope so too. See you again.”

 

Ryan rapped his knuckles on the open door and entered the Vice-principal’s office.

The Vice-principal’s nameplate on his desk identified him as Mr Stack. He attempted to smile as Ryan walked in, at least, the sides of his mouth curled up slightly and he exposed some teeth.
“Ryan Curtis. It’s nice to meet you. Are your parents here?”
“No. They were called away on business.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, I was really hoping to meet them. Never mind, let’s have a quick chat before you start class. I like to get to know all my students. Connecting with people personally was a value espoused by the man who this institution of learning was named after: Our thirty-ninth and best President.” Mr Stack leaned back in his chair and pointed up at the portrait of President Carter which hung over his desk.

“That’s great.” said Ryan.
“Yes, He was great wasn’t he? I know it’s fashionable for people to mock the man as ineffective in office but he proved them wrong afterwards. Yes he did!”
“I suppose.” said a confused Ryan, this wasn’t how educators were supposed to talk.
“His approach to life informs everything this school strives for. Have you seen our motto? “Attempt to succeed.” Marvellous sentiments, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Yes, I definitely do.” Ryan said in an effort to bring the conversation to a close before it became even weirder. “I’d better go to class.”

“Yes.” responded Mr Stack as he stood up to shake Ryan’s hand. “Best of luck.”

Ryan left the office as quickly as was polite. A bell rang, signalling to everyone that they had better get to class instantly. Ryan picked up the pace and got to his new classroom just as the second bell sounded. A desk at the front was the only one still free. He sat down and tucked his bag underneath his desk. He probably had a locker somewhere. He’d ask someone later on. An adult waltzed into the room and stood at the top of the class.

“Good Morning class.” He said with a slight lisp.

“Good Morning sir.” The class chorused in unison.

“Many of you know who I am, I recognise a lot of you from last year. I’m Mr Ridge. English teacher and the nearest thing this school has to a poet. But enough about me; we’ll allow our new classmates introduce themselves. You there!” he said pointing at Ryan. “I don’t know who you are. Tell us about yourself.”

“What would you like to know?” Ryan asked.

“Your name for starters.”

“I’m Ryan Curtis, I moved here nearly a year ago but this is my first time at the school.”

“And what did you do for a year instead of coming to our palace of education?”

“I was…home schooled.”

“And why did you stop?”

“My parents thought it might be a good idea to meet people of my own age. We used to travel a lot because of my parents job but we’re settling down now.”

“Very good. What do your parents do?”

There it was: the question Ryan dreaded. The answer he gave would undoubtedly greatly affect the new few weeks and months of his life.

“They’re involved in law enforcement.”

“Excellent. Who’s next? You there, the blonde girl with the vacant expression!” said Mr Ridge.

Ryan sat back and relaxed. He’d dodged that bullet. He mentally gave himself a pat on the back, saying that his parents worked in law enforcement had been smart. It was partially true and also managed to skirt the issue of what it was they actually did. School life would be difficult enough without letting everyone know on the first day that his parents were Superheroes.

Flare: The Blurb.

In a break from the usual selection of short stories and convention reports, the next few weeks of content are going to focus on my upcoming book. Yes, it's true, I've written a book. It's called "Flare" and it's an action-comedy about superheroes, It's been ready to go since last September and I've spent the last ten months shopping it around to agents and publishers to see if anyone will bite. Despite some decent feedback nobody's bitten on it yet so I've decided to just go ahead and publish the fucker myself via Kindle and createspace. (excuse my French). Over the coming weeks I'll shove up some sample chapters to give you an idea of what I've been working on these past two years (yes, really!). First up, here's the blurb for the back of the book and product description on Amazon. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think.

Flare.

It’s Time for new Heroes.

Ryan Curtis is almost an average teenager. There’s just one small problem: his parents are superheroes.

Ryan just wants to be normal but instead his family life is full of danger, excitement and action, but then the tragic actions of a demented scientist mean he has to go into hiding  

Now he’s being chased across the world by a secret organisation which really wants to harvest his organs. He’s tired, lonely and needs help, but all he has for support is a nineteen year old woman with serious anger management issues and an eccentric Japanese inventor. Now they have to team up, defeat the bad guys and save the world. If only it were that simple.

Over the top action, laugh out loud humour, suspicious people named Jimmy! This book has it all!

If you’ve ever thought: “The world needs a novel where a teenaged girl throws grenades at monsters”, then you’re in for a treat!