Ten Things Money Can't Buy

Pss.40:4 “Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.”

Manners - We live in a nation where please and thank you have gone way to “yeah, text me sometime.” We’ve lost all sense of politeness and maybe if the new generation teaches kids manners the world would change but parents today would rather a machine like a tablet, iPod, phone, computer, and television raise their kids so they won’t have to.

Morals – You don’t have to be a religious person to teach your kids morals. If YOU have morals then this would flow from you to your children but if you don’t care if your children have a moral compass more times than not you’ll raise a self-centered child that feels life owes THEM and not the other way around; grateful for the very food on their plate! They NEED to know right from wrong from the very beginning.

Respect – People today don’t have the respect for their elders the way in older times. I’m not THAT old but I know respect and taught my child to respect ALL people, not just one race. I never once heard my dad call his wife his ‘old lady’ but kids today call their girlfriends their old lady before they’re even married. It is a derogatory word meaning he/she is chained to this person but wishes they weren’t. THAT is not respect, that is entitlement when kids are raised with no moral compass!

Common sense – Kids today definitely don’t have the sense God gave them, take God out of the equation and kids still don’t have the sense their parents gave them. Their common sense is flushed in a sewer somewhere and they’re happy just sitting behind a screen. Children today don’t want or NEED common sense in their minds because they have no aspirations for anything other than ‘just living’.

Character – And I don’t mean Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse as a character either. Character is defined by the way you think, feel and BEHAVE. Even adults today lack this aspect of their personality and I don’t know why. They were raised in a generation where they were taught respect but when a child grows and forms his own character, sometimes their moral compass does not sway the character they need. They allow their character to build off of the hate they have for people and the world and thus lose any sense of a personality with character. They and they alone have deformed their character thus giving them a false personality.

Class – This is right up there with respect. A person with class doesn’t need to be rich or hold their tea in a proper way, class can be defined with the way you treat people. If you treat all people the same as you would say, your mother, you have class. It’s respecting ALL people in the same manner as you would treat the most respected person in your life. Example? When you’re with a bunch of the guys, you curse like a sailor, but would you speak that way in front of your mother? You lack class. 

Integrity – The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Honesty is one of the hardest things to live by. Too many choose the route of a fib or a ‘little white lie’ but this my friends defines your character. If you can lie about something ‘simple’ it makes it easier to lie about something big and more times than not you’ll choose the fib over the truth because the lie makes you look better, where the truth might allow people to see the ‘real’ you.

Trust – Remember I just mentioned honesty? Well, trust goes hand-in-hand with honesty. People trust you to tell them the truth but when you’re caught in a lie, it chips away at your trustworthiness.

Patience – Patience is the ability to wait. We live in a world now where everyone wants what he or she wants and they want it NOW! There is no patience in waiting for the right time, the right way or the right purpose. This is obvious when you’re driving down the road, doing the speed limit of 60 (or 75 for that matter) and someone comes up behind you, rides your tail and waits for an opportunity to SPEEEED around you! Mind you, you both wind up at the same intersection or red light, but sometimes you can see the speed-demon in a ditch because they lacked patience!

LOVE! – The world has lost the interpretation of love. They say they love but know, these people only love their mother and have no room to love anyone or anything else. They say they love God, but you can see in their actions that love is just a term they use again, to make themselves look good, feel good and like they have good character. 

The entire post I deliberately left God out of the equation you know why, to show you that it is morality that is lacking in the world. People decry, it is the lack of God but I’m here to show you these ten FREE things on a moral compass are lacking and thus, there goes the world. WORLD! Not just our country.

Bonus, the God factor: 
Faith – The ability to believe in things unseen. 
Hope – That all things are built trustfully and honestly on this thing called faith. 
and Charity – Matt. 7:12 (NIV) says it all: 
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

Quotation Saturday

1 Tim. 6:20 “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:”

FAKE

“The difference between my darkness and your darkness is that I can look at my own badness in the face and accept its existence while you are busy covering your mirror with a white linen sheet. The difference between my sins and your sins is that when I sin I know I'm sinning while you have actually fallen prey to your own fabricated illusions. I am a siren, a mermaid; I know that I am beautiful while basking on the ocean's waves and I know that I can eat flesh and bones at the bottom of the sea. You are a white witch, a wizard; your spells are manipulations and your cauldron from hell yet you wrap yourself in white and wear a silver wig.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“I despise the rituals of fake friendship. I wish we could just claw each other's eyes out and call it a day; instead we put on huge radiant smiles and spout compliments until our teeth hurt from the saccharine sweetness of it all.”
― Jody Gehrman

“You will never find the real truth among people that are insecure or have egos to protect. Truth over time becomes either guarded or twisted as their perspective changes; it changes with the seasons of their shame, love, hope or pride.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Being kind to someone, only to look kind to others, defeats the purpose of being kind.”
― Shannon L. Alder

SINCERITY

“Sincerity - if you can fake that, you've got it made.”
― George Burns

I am an extremely sincere individual. I am sincere, to a fault. One of the many things that I have come to realize, to learn, is that sincerity must be reserved and given only to those who deserve it. And one must save one's emotions, channeling them only to the people who are worthy of it. One must not throw one's pearls to the pigs.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.”
― Confucius

“When pure sincerity forms within, it is outwardly realized in other people's hearts.”
― Lao Tzu

CHARACTER

“The worth of a person’s thought is measured not by the quantity but by the quality of the support that it has got and this quality is defined by a single factor, which is only people’s human character.”
― Anuj Somany

“A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.”
― Leszek Kołakowski

“A company of wolves, is better than a company of wolves in sheep's clothing.”
― Anthony Liccione

“The steady soul and the ego pretender / walk with their arms round each other's shoulders / through the mirage.”
― Jay Woodman

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters”
― Albert Einstein

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
― John Wooden

“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
― Abraham Lincoln

ALONE

“It is better to be alone than in bad company.”
― George Washington

“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”
― Norton Juster

“Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.”
― Virginia Woolf

“Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.


I have been easy with trees
Too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
Suddenly
This rain.”
― Jack Gilbert

Grip 'em! Grip 'em Good!

I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots --- things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story --- readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what they expect, not the easy answers you get on T.V., not wash and wear philosophies but a reproduction of believable emotional experiences. ~ Terry McMillan

***

This week we’re learning the technique of utilizing conflict in a story. I think the above writer, Terry McMillan, has said it much better. It’s like tying your words in knots and placing the knots in the hands of your readers and letting them slowly do the unraveling of sorts until they walk away with an emotional experience for having read your words.

Conflict in a story? Sure you can call it that, but I like the knot theory much better. Conflict sounds so aggressive and can be. Do we want to write an aggressive scene or a scene that has your stomach in knots as you turn page after page? I’m leaning towards the knots, myself.

For conflict to be effectual, you need the inverted check mark is what I’ve been taught. You need to slowly build up the scene, place a few knots in the rope, or tension, as the scene grows and mounts the highest mountain.

Instead of having your character jump off the other side of the mountain, you need to bring your reader down slowly as if releasing the pressure out of a tire. It doesn’t deflate immediately; it slowly comes to a flat. But wait a second now, you don’t want your ending to be flat, you want vibrant life to be in the ending, so don’t deflate your tire completely. Give your reader an emotional release.

This is why I like the knot theory more than I appreciate the conflict. Sure you can give the reader an enormous amount of conflict but giving them knots is like handing them a fully inflated tire, and releasing the pressure slowly so that your reader is gripping their stomach in anticipation, the knot has been built and you’re slowly releasing them. By not allowing the tire to go completely flat you’re saving room for the completion of the heartache in the tale, the happily ever after, so to speak.

All in all your reader is what counts. If you can tug at THEIR heartstrings, bind them up in knots, and give them a welcomed conclusion by untying the knots, I think you’ve achieved your goal in your story.

Chapter by chapter should have elevated the heart rate so that they continue reading each and every word, dangling by a thread; they are waiting for you, the writer, to make them feel as though their visit to your world of words was worth every thread.

Giving them conflict, you might be giving them aggression. Giving them knots, you’re filling your work with the drama that carries the story. Remember that as you’re building your characters and story. Drama is GOOD; it is a writer’s best friend!

Book Bites:

Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell

Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict, Action & Suspense by William Noble

Truth in Fiction?

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Mark Twain

 ***

Have you ever heard the statement ‘life is stranger than fiction’? I found the quote by Mark Twain and it says, “Truth is stranger”. This is so true! Just take a look at the debates of our politicians as they go head to head nit-picking each other apart. I think of another statement by Rodney King many years ago, “Can’t we all just get along?”

As I write fiction, for my readers it comes across as so real, vivid, lifelike in many ways. So is my life experience leaking into my writing? Am I divulging more truth than even they realize?

I love writing non-fiction but that is for the magazines that seek true stories. But what is a true non-fiction story. Is it your truth with a little coloring of adjectives or is it ridiculously painted lies to make it look like truth. Nowadays, I just don’t know anymore.

I’ve read some harrowing stories of some of my closest writing friends and their pain and angst are clearly evident as they trudge through this so-called life. I’ve also read snippets from people who have been in the limelight (I won’t deem them movie stars or politicians) that tell a markedly different story than the one we were led to believe. They write books years after the fact, and that is when the supposed truth, comes out.

Where does the truth lie? Somewhere in between? I see over and over people slinging mud at one another, claiming it as truth, yet I see over and over the person that it is slung at lie, claiming truth. I often get confused with who to believe these days when dear, respected, trusted friends turn their back on you, when people of power turn into dictators relishing the power, and when family surrounds you…from a distance.

What is wrong with that scene? I couldn’t have paved the road and put it in a ‘supposed fictional tale’ any better. When is it okay to lie? When it furthers your agenda? When is it right to tell the truth? To me, always but not all people are like me, they’re very different. Not whom I thought they were so they become a character in life, and as I portray them in fiction.

Is there truth in fiction? You bet. Stephen King has said in his book On Writing, that he was Jack in the Shining. Over and over parts of his life are written into his fiction but he adds a splendid twist to make himself look fictional. I wonder how many other writers are really writing their fictional novel, as a way of healing a part of them that they’d never allow the world to see. Stephen King is now clean and sober and his writing has taken on much different hues, giving us the real him, hiding inside his works.

What is my point to this post? If you’re writing fiction, then you too I believe, are filtering parts of yourself into your writing.  Whether it is truth or a lie, parts of you are being seen and the world is hanging on your every word.

The truth shall set you free. That is what I practice, in writing AND in my life. THAT is how REAL character is built!

Character

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

***

So you want to build a character? A great exercise in the journey of building a character is having your character describe YOU. When you put on your characters personality in introducing you to the world, something happens, you learn more about your character(s) in their voice, actions, and their readability.

A lot of the times you find out things about your characters that you never knew.

1) Are they antagonist or protagonist?

2) Does their voice sound flat?

3) Do they need to be redefined in your eyes?

4) Can this (these) characters carry a fifty-thousand word novel? A short story?

5) Are you ready to hear from your character what they dislike about you the most?

Keep in mind your characters take on a life of their own. They think for themselves, dress for themselves and are everything they need to get by. When you, the nosey writer, pokes and prods, you create things that maybe really are not in character for him or her.

This character exchange exercise really gives you a window to look through at your character to see how THEY see YOU! And they’ll be real vocal about it too. Once you begin writing you just can’t stop. You didn’t realize Rapunzel (my character) could be so vocal!

Maybe I should do my exercise here, for you all to see a writer and character at work! Well that’s a cool idea. I see too many people do this exercise allowing the ego-tripping character to go on and on about THEM, when that is not the point AT ALL in the exercise. WE, the reader, want to hear about YOU, the writer, from your characters perspective!

Introducing (drum roll please) Rapunzel

My name’s Rapunzel and my Drama Queen of a writer, Joni, wants me to tell you about her. Sure she’s going to stir my story up like stew but it is her story that I can’t wait to tell YOU about.

She went and shifted gears in the mentoring stage and is now going to be teaching you, the gracious readers of her blog. She thinks the writing sites are full of fluff and has put them in the closet, but her blog, now that is her own and where she can be free to write whatever she wants to write.

Freedom, that is what she likes and I sure hope she likes it enough to give me a taste of it too! Funny thing is, she has long flowing blond hair, like me, often feels imprisoned, like me, and she tries to be a light at the end of the tunnel, like I am for some.

I’m thinking she chose to write about me because we’re so much alike. Will she be able to pull off a story of say 1500 words about a fictional character and keep herself out of it or will we merge together. Hey, I don’t want to be a writer, after some of the things I’ve witnessed her go through, no thanks!

Freedom will be the goal for both of us and I’ll watch as she soars, now if only I could too.

The Love of Compromise

A convent in Concordia, Kansas

***

Ah don’t you love being a writer? I sure do. My giddiness over my love of writing has resurfaced and you all know, that as a writer, there will be times of compromise. Sometimes you understand where the compromise comes from and sometimes it hits you upside the face, like an iron skillet kissing your cheek at full force.

One definition of compromise is this:

a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.

This is what I mean. As a writer you will be forced to make a compromise or many compromises as you write. What? Take for example, me. I’m a Christian and for the life of me I cannot stand witch stories or vampire stories and I’d be hard pressed to write of those things or to read a novel with such things.

I have written a Spiritual novel, and it is more about the spirits of the past meeting the present and guiding my characters into the future. I can relate to the spirit world, sometimes more than my own world. Can’t say too much more about my novel, but I did find myself compromising my beliefs when my character, a carpenter got in an argument and said a few choice words. As I got into my character, I could not see him saying, “Well FUDGE, you piece of refuse.” Well that just doesn’t sound in character.

I made a compromise. He was a real man and I myself, growing up with four brothers, and living in a city environment, I heard many choice words and many years ago wasn’t excluded from using a few of my own colorful words. Even today, as sinner, one or two might slip when I bash my toe. But here I am a Christian woman, writer and needed to sell my character to my reader. I compromised. He cussed. In character, he used a foul word. Didn’t change the character, made him real to the reader. It’s not like I use it through the entire book but I felt this character had it in him to cuss. What can I say.

I wonder if Stephenie Meyer, of Twilight fame, really likes vampires? Maybe deep down she despises them predatory bloodsuckers and just, for the love of compromise and writing, she wrote a best selling novel! Went against all she believed, but wrote it, because she IS a writer!

Maybe J.K Rowling really knew nothing about witchery and Witchcraft, but she too wrote best selling novels. A compromise? Quite possibly. Well I myself wouldn’t compromise myself THAT far, for witches and vampires. I’ve never read the aforementioned books but I hear they were good, to some people, many who compromised their very beliefs just to read them.

I can compromise on some things like words, they’re just words, but compromise my beliefs, for the love of money? Not for a million dollar best selling contract!  There comes a time when a person needs to decide if the compromise is worth the pain and heartache to their soul; their very essence of whom they are.

My soul is worth more than all the money or friends on God’s green earth. My soul has worked hard at becoming whole and moving forward, instead of holding on to the past and all the darkness that had its grip on me and going backwards. There are some things a writer has to stand firm on and never compromise! I’m a writer, with a soul.

What is your soul worth?

What's in a Word?

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

~ Matthew Arnold

***

What’s in a word?

Well to begin with, letters, as simple as that, letters are what makes up words. But as writers you need to be careful and choosy with which word you use because just like driving a screw into dry rotted wood, the sentence just might fall apart!
And is that what you want, your sentence to fall apart?

I didn’t think so. First you need to begin with a good strong piece of wood. Okay, too metaphorical here. The strong wood is symbolizing your strong plot! You’ve got a story all ready to build so you have got your solid piece of wood and a few loose screws. Oops again, didn’t mean that. You have screws on hand and are ready to begin writing your story!

Oh my, where do you start? Do you have a character in mind?  What I mean is, has this character been knocking on your noggin begging to be let out of the closet you have her/him stored in? Well, if you’ve got the plot idea, now is the time to let Suzie McQuirkle out of the closet and let her have a run of a few lines. What? You don’t have a plot OR a character?  Uh oh!

Ok...you need to start writing a few sentences. We do that with words. It was a dark and stormy night. Oh that is too cliché. Try something a little stronger. The car was zooming down the wet roadway... Ah little better. You can do so much with the words in a cliché. This might be the foundational piece of wood your seeking to begin building your plot and character. 

Once you have those two elements, start asking the questions: WHY? Why was Suzie zooming down a wet roadway? Was she running from something or worse, someone? WHAT caused her to flee? WHO is she fleeing from? The law, a stalker? Oh my we’re building now! Let’s not forget the WHEN and HOW of the questions, okay?

When you start questioning your character, you have begun to pick up a few more scraps of wood to add to the little story you’re building. I hate to do this to you, after I’m always saying to just keep writing and writing and don’t stop. But stop for a minute. Yes, one minute is all I’m allowing you! Look at the words you used!!! Are they strong words? Too fluffy? Too exuberant? Ok, minutes up. You’ve looked at the words and are thinking, maybe zooming isn’t a tight word, you need something MORE graphic.

Okay, time for the thesaurus. I always have mine opened as I’m writing so I don’t use the same word twice in a paragraph or two. If it is meaning the same thing, you need to find another word! Make it strong, bring home the point you’re trying to get across.
 
The car was zooming down the slippery wet road, making a speedy getaway as Suzie dashes in and out of traffic, she zipped right through the scene to safety. Safety? I don’t think so. She more than likely crashed, or you wouldn’t have told the reader the road was wet and slippery.

See all those synonyms I used. Pretty easy huh? Well it’s not and it takes a lot of skill and tried and true blood, but you’ll get the hang of it in no time. Remember, in writing, words are your friends!  Make every one count for something as you build your little birdhouse, I mean story. A few loose screws later, you might just have something! Stick with it.

What a difference...

Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

...a day makes.

Wow, all I can say is, WOW! I said I wanted change, and I just can’t stop looking at my blog page and thinking, Wow! Now this is change! Many years have passed through in my life and many have been full of change, but this one has to be the one that will stand out as one of the most exciting years of change. This is why I wanted the drastic overhaul of my blog, so you all can change with me.

I decided a few months back that things needed to change in my life. After I made that decision, oh about the end of September I’d say, that was when things began to swiftly change. I peeled off layers of pain, let go of the darkness that tried to swallow me, left it to build it’s own little playground of dark matter and I moved on, at a snails pace.

I was consumed with life! You know this thing we must live, in a physical world. Life, the reality of things in real-time happening, not virtually. I got off of the maypole, slid across the sand on gravel-burnt knees and embraced, LIFE.

Have you ever read a book, gotten so consumed with the character(s) that you lost track of time and space? That’s a writers job, to make sure you are consumed with their characters so much so that you forget your reality. That is exactly what the virtual world holds in its clutch. Sure, some folks will say, “There are some good things too, that the computer holds.”

Sure there is, and just like God himself is a struggle to find when you are in the pits of darkness, the computer wraps you in its tentacles, squeezes you real tight, until you are gasping for breath, never really knowing who you are or the insanity that has taken over your life. You dig and plow your way though the mire, stab through the muddy waters, and find pieces of the light as you surface.  What am I saying? That the computer, IN MY OPINION, holds more dark than LIGHT!

In October, a realization hit me, that it isn’t about consuming myself with the virtual world. Life is not about building walls of defense to protect yourself. You should be able to freely live and appreciate the snowballs that are tossed in your face, and with great strength, brush away the powder!

Life is about change, characters are about transformation, story line is about variations, so why would we not take the precious care of our lives as we do with the characters and worlds we form? You can not produce something of context, if you haven’t taken the time to shape the content of your life.

It’s not about consuming all you can of the virtual world, because change only comes when you’re brave enough to tackle your inner world.

Build-a-Character

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. ~Oscar Wilde
***

Okay, we’re off to a great start at f2k. The students have all met one another, they have been rolling through the halls like snowplows on a blizzardy day. They’ve sat at the cafe, posted some work, talked a little about themselves and just basically did everything the orientation week calls for and that is “Get to know your peers.”

We have a lively bunch too, with a sense of humor, intelligence that would make Gates sit in awe, friendliness that Mother Teresa would be proud of, and then there is the camaraderie. It can  possibly be found nowhere else on the web except through writers.

We have a tendency to be accepting and friendly and it rubs off on even the most scared of the bunch, that would be the newbs. Newbies means new folk to the forum for those of you, not in the know.

We’re learning already about each others likes and dislikes, style and originality, we’re getting to know one person at a time and this is always a highlight of my year when I can share with others a part of myself, while growing and learning at the same time. 

Which reminds me this week we learn about our characters. Nice segue by the way, right? From living breathing characters to our fictional characters?  Yeah, that’s what we’re doing this week. We’re getting to know our characters intimately. I mean all the way down to a well produced pimple! If a character has one, write about it, we need to know our characters right down to the hairs spurting out on their heads.

Building a character is as much fun as the ‘Build-a-bear’ workshop. But as adults, we get more out of it than the eager child. We are like the eager child as we build our characters to form a part of a story that we writer’s are writing. It builds and builds until we have a an outline, a story, then either a novel or a short story.

This is the week our characters sit at the keyboard and talk about US! Kinda like Stephen Kings The Dark Half. We’re letting our characters have full reign of the keyboard for a change!

A lot of folks will pay no mind to the rules and guidelines, their characters will stay on the paper while they themselves talk about their characters. Gee, there’s a spin, do what you want! lol I’ll learn a whole lot about everyone’s characters and their character as a person as a matter of fact.

Don’t post your links, and they post them, don’t be in a hurry, and they rush and post the lesson, editing twenty times before weeks end. Yup...its a dog eat dog kinda world. We just gotta live with it. Now...
 
Go be an eager beaver today and start building a Character!

Write Right friends!

Itchy and Scratchy

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world. ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

***

Character building is not something that is just a fly by night thing to do. There is some really deep thought that needs to go in the construction of a beloved character that your reader is going to latch onto and never want to let go of through many readings and many generations.

A few characters that stick out in my mind is Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House, Gem from To Kill a Mockingbird, and most recently I think of Odd Thomas from Odd Thomas, and Max and the birdkids from Maximum Ride. Shirley Jackson, Harper Lee, Dean Koontz and James Patterson, respectively.

These characters were not just put on paper and thrown into a story. You have to have a basic idea of who that character is. After you got your premise down of the story you want to tell, you start filling it in with characters. The main character is the one you want to spend the most time with because he/she is going to not only carry the weight of the story but have the most lasting impression on the reader.

Basically you are building the person from scratch, but you might have an idea from someone you’ve met in life, maybe a person you admired and looked up to, or maybe an evil sinister man whom you loathed as child will become your antagonist. Either way the path is being laid and you need to build a strong house to get this character on board.

Does she/he have blue eyes, green eyes or purple eyes, in Odd Thomas’ case? Are they tall, short, small, big? Anything stand out to make them special? Think about that one. You’re going to want something to stand out on that character like never before written.
We have enough blond bombshells, they are more caricatures than characters. We have enough men with chiseled cheekbones and etched out abs.

We need something unique, a scar perhaps? Then you can build on it, as a scar from say a fire many years ago, an accident a few years ago, or a pimple that won’t go away from a few weeks ago? Whatever the case may be, your character needs to be unique. No cookie cutter cut-outs. Unique in the fact that he/she has not been done before. The reader wants something new!

As you can see in the TV industry, it is very hard to come up with something new. This is the reason they inundate the screens with reality tv, because they think that is what people like. So isn’t that what you like when picking up a book? A character/hero/heroine that rings true to life? Or do you read  to see the same old things over and over.

I don’t think you do. I have pretty brilliant readers and you look for something fresh every day whether it is in a blog post or a book or an online story, you’re looking for NEW and getting the same-old, same-old.  Is that how you’re going to build your character? Getting a little itchy and scratchy there are ya? You now feel the need to go and CREATE?

Don’t let me stop you! Write Right!

Quotation Saturday

“The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m
against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.”
- Robert Frost

HAPPINESS
"Choose a career you love and you will never have to go to work."
-Denis Waitley

Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.
-Elisabeth Bishop

My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault-finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more.
-Og Mandino

VISION

“A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.” -Oscar Wilde

If you don’t have a vision, then your reality will always be determined by other’s perceptions.” -Melanee Addison


CHARACTER

Just as an oak tree grows from a little acorn so does great character grow from a great many decisions that may at the time seem very minor.
-Ben M. Herbster

The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.
-Earl Warren

HUMOR

“Laughter is to life what shock absorbers are to automobiles: It won’t take the potholes out of the road, but it sure makes the ride smoother.”
-Barbara Johnson

“The saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities: a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.” -Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.”
-Thomas Jefferson

You've got Character

Eph 4:[23] And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;[24] And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
***

Well we’re on our way. Like linking lego’s together we’re building our characters. Like an erector set, all the pieces are going together and fitting nice and tight, but we still have a few screws loose.

Now we need to tighten up the bolts and make the character unique. I was thinking of this today. Dean Koontz likes to give a lot of his characters, too many to mention, green eyes. I think, “It is not every day that you see a dazzling emerald green eyed person pass you by.” Koontz thinks it is unique enough to use it all the time but dang Mr. Koontz, it is getting old!

In his Odd Thomas series, Odd (the main character) has blue eyes that when closely looked at, and when the sun bounces off of them in a certain way, have a purple hue. Now that is odd! Unique. But you can’t give tons of characters purple eyes now can you?
By the way, that is an excellent book, a must read!

This is where we’re at. We know that there has to be something unique when we have a character in mind. Sometimes it can be a big nose with black framed eyeglasses, or it can be a skull tattoo across the mans face! Or maybe it is an unusual piercing, like in the fingernail or something. Whatever the case, you need something that is going to make the reader want to come back to this character and by making them unique in many ways, is almost a sure fire hit; one that will keep your reader reading and keep them coming back for more.

The characters are going to carry the story, so if they aren’t unique or stand-outish, you better get back to the drawing board. The setting might help a bit but it is the antagonist and protagonists that are going to melt the tale together and form the building of your dreams, all out of out of the erector set that you started with as just a bunch of pieces laying on the floor. :-)

My friends and new writer’s at f2k are well on their way to constructing the masterpiece of their dreams. I’ll find the holes, weed out the inconsistencies, pluck away a ton of adverbs, scrape a ‘but’ here and there, never overlook the over-use of the word AND, then we’ll revise the tale until it is whole and maybe, just maybe they’ll get a submission out of it.

And maybe I too will get some writing done. This is looking like a good start to Twenty 10 to me! May it be for all of you, too.

Build - a - Character

It is not who you know or what you know, it is what you create in this world that will be your living legacy. ~ joni
***

Okay, we’re off to a great start at f2k. The students have all met one another, they have been rolling through the halls like snowplows on a blizzardy day. They’ve sat at the cafe, posted some work, talked a little about themselves and just basically did everything the orientation week calls for and that is “Get to know your peers.”

We have a lively bunch too, with a sense of humor, intelligence that would make Gates sit in awe, friendliness that Mother Teresa would be proud of, and then there is the camaraderie. It can be found nowhere else on the web except through writers.

We have a tendency to be accepting and friendly and it rubs off on even the most scared of the bunch, that would be the newbs. Newbies means new folk to the forum for those of you, not in the know.

We’re learning already about each others likes and dislikes, style and originality, we’re getting to know one person at a time and this is always a highlight of my year when I can share with others a part of myself, while growing and learning at the same time.

Which reminds me, this week we learn about our characters. Nice segue by the way, right? From living breathing characters to our fictional characters? Yeah, that’s what we’re doing this week. We’re getting to know our characters intimately. I mean all the way down to a well produced pimple! If a character has one, write about it, we need to know our characters right down to the hairs spurting out on their heads.

Building a character is as much fun as the ‘Build-a-bear’ workshop. But as adults, we get more out of it than the eager child. We are like the eager child as we build our characters to form a part of a story that we writer’s are writing. It builds and builds until we have a an outline, a story, then either a novel or a short story.

Be an eager beaver today and start building a Character! Use this link to get you started on a profile of your characters. Try it on the four main characters as you get to know them inside and out. Like a worn out paper bag you'll need to get all the wrinkles out, but it is worth holding onto, because they just don't make bags or characters like they used to.

Write Right friends!