This is always something I've had conflict with: whose perspective to write from.
Both have their plus points but others also have their downfalls.
First Person
Good: It's easier for the audience (and often the writer) to connect with the character and understand them better. If you are the sort of reader who imagines themselves living the story it is easier to get in the mindset and you are seeing through the character's eyes. You can follow the character's thought processes easier and see more clearly how they come to some conclusions.
Bad: It can be harder to write as you have to keep including the character's opinions and thoughts instead of getting on with the story. Sometimes the audience can get annoyed with the character or just bored of the inner monologues. It's hard to take an objective view of the story if you're constantly being bombarded by opinions (though that may be what the writer intends to happen).
Personally I find first person is easier to write, but it tends to make the story a bit slow moving and I often end up writing pages and pages of nothing but thoughts. I am working on improving this.
Third Person
Good: Tends to keep the story moving faster. You can still use character's thoughts but only when you feel it's necessary. It allow you to use the points of view of all you characters, rather than just your protagonist. It can be better for a reader who just prefers to view the story objectively and not get too emotionally involved.
There is less chance of the audience getting sick of the inside of the character's head.
Bad: If badly done it can make the story read very dryly and not be as engaging, stopping readers from empathising as much.
This is slightly harder for me as I like to really get inside character's heads, but for some things it can work really well for me: it depends what sort of mood I'm in.
For my story I've come up with a compromise, taking a leaf from the book of one of my all time favourite authors. I'm going to switch between the two.
The half that centres mainly around my original protagonist will be in third person as I want to be able to view how other people perceive her rather than how she views the world. She is all about images and how people treat her differently compared with other characters.
My second protagonist - who, oddly enough, seems to be becoming slightly more of the main character than the original protagonist - will be written from the first person as hers is more of an internal struggle and how she reacts internally to what goes on around her.
Well then, that's my thoughts on perspectives.
I am feeling fairly proud of myself today: I have finished the prologue (for now - things will probably revised later) and have added a lot more the my first chapters of each section (the first and third person sections).
I am also hoping to get some more planning done tonight so I'm going to end this nice, long entry here.
See you
W-O
Monday, 21 November 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Keeping it going
I know one of the main problems us aspiring authors have is writers block, or simply just letting things taper off. Yesterday morning I was in a position where I hadn't written anything in several days and I was feeling very guilty and annoyed at myself: I used to write a little every day, even if it was just a few words. When this happens I normally just get myself to buckle down and get something - anything - down on paper, but yesterday it was taking me ages to do it.
So, my advice for this situation, and what I ended up doing, would be to take a break for a little while: it's no good to just sit there in front of a blank piece of paper or computer screen waiting for something that isn't going to come. Go and do something around the house, get all your other jobs done so there is nothing else you could be doing except writing. No distractions. Once everything is done or you've done enough to bore yourself silly, then go back to writing. This way there will be nothing else weighing on you mind and stopping you from getting down and writing. You may even come up with a couple of ideas while slaving away. If you are indeed bored out of your mind from the work then you will find the writing a lot more enjoyable than before and will be more willing to get down and do it.
This is what I ended up doing and I now have a new character profile written and some more planning done. A lot more productive than sitting staring.
So, my advice for this situation, and what I ended up doing, would be to take a break for a little while: it's no good to just sit there in front of a blank piece of paper or computer screen waiting for something that isn't going to come. Go and do something around the house, get all your other jobs done so there is nothing else you could be doing except writing. No distractions. Once everything is done or you've done enough to bore yourself silly, then go back to writing. This way there will be nothing else weighing on you mind and stopping you from getting down and writing. You may even come up with a couple of ideas while slaving away. If you are indeed bored out of your mind from the work then you will find the writing a lot more enjoyable than before and will be more willing to get down and do it.
This is what I ended up doing and I now have a new character profile written and some more planning done. A lot more productive than sitting staring.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Character development - how I create people
This is how I go about creating and developing my characters.
I start out with a basic layout:
Age: (this doesn't always work as ages can change throughout the story)
D.O.B: (I normally just have a month and day)
Natural hair colour:
Eye colour:
Parents: (include mother's maiden name)
Siblings: (include rough ages)
Pets:
Known Powers: (this for when the characters are magical folk)
Subjects: (if the character is still at school)
Profession: (if the character has a job)
Weapons of choice: (should my character ever end up in a fight)
Martial arts grade: (same as above or in case I want them to have some cool fighting moves up their sleeves)
Characteristics: (these range from 'bad liar' to things like 'hates disappointing people')
Querks: (any funny or interesting habits the character may have, like hates red foods or believes in ghosts)
This gives me a basic character profile and an idea of who this person is. I don't always fill it all in at once: sometimes I just start off with the basics like name and appearance and add the rest as and when it comes to me.
Sometimes I create the characters on whim and then add them into the story later. Other times, I start writing a scene and suddenly introduce this character that I've never even thought about before: I then go and write them a character profile in my little planning notebook, filling in everything I've included in the scene with them and then add the rest (then or later on).
My main characters are, obviously, ones I thought about before writing them. However, I originally started my story with just one main protagonist in mind, but as I continued I reaslised I wanted somebody else to express a different point of view and have different ways of doing and thinking about things: someone who was more than just a sidekick or secondary character. I then developed this new character to have her own plot within the book and to have equal importance to my original main chracter.
So now I have two protagonists whose stories I can weave together and two separate points of view that I can write from: this lets me choose what I feel like writing, as the two are very different people and have their own distictive moods and atmospheres.
Well, that's my character development for you.
Hope this was helpful
Bye
W-O xx
I start out with a basic layout:
Age: (this doesn't always work as ages can change throughout the story)
D.O.B: (I normally just have a month and day)
Natural hair colour:
Eye colour:
Parents: (include mother's maiden name)
Siblings: (include rough ages)
Pets:
Known Powers: (this for when the characters are magical folk)
Subjects: (if the character is still at school)
Profession: (if the character has a job)
Weapons of choice: (should my character ever end up in a fight)
Martial arts grade: (same as above or in case I want them to have some cool fighting moves up their sleeves)
Characteristics: (these range from 'bad liar' to things like 'hates disappointing people')
Querks: (any funny or interesting habits the character may have, like hates red foods or believes in ghosts)
This gives me a basic character profile and an idea of who this person is. I don't always fill it all in at once: sometimes I just start off with the basics like name and appearance and add the rest as and when it comes to me.
Sometimes I create the characters on whim and then add them into the story later. Other times, I start writing a scene and suddenly introduce this character that I've never even thought about before: I then go and write them a character profile in my little planning notebook, filling in everything I've included in the scene with them and then add the rest (then or later on).
My main characters are, obviously, ones I thought about before writing them. However, I originally started my story with just one main protagonist in mind, but as I continued I reaslised I wanted somebody else to express a different point of view and have different ways of doing and thinking about things: someone who was more than just a sidekick or secondary character. I then developed this new character to have her own plot within the book and to have equal importance to my original main chracter.
So now I have two protagonists whose stories I can weave together and two separate points of view that I can write from: this lets me choose what I feel like writing, as the two are very different people and have their own distictive moods and atmospheres.
Well, that's my character development for you.
Hope this was helpful
Bye
W-O xx
Monday, 14 November 2011
Having a pseudonym. Good or bad?
OK, so, at the moment my plan is to use a pseudonym for writing, but I'm going to go over what are my main reasons for this and what the draw-backs might be.
Part of the appeal for me is that I'd only have to tell people it was me if I wanted to and possibly not tell anyone at all, but to me this could also give the impression that I am not proud of what I've written and don't want to own up to it.
Another big pull of a pen-name is the idea of having a secret identity. I'm sure at some point in our lives we've all fantasised about leading a double life and having to keep the secret. I know the main attraction for me in this would be people's reactions, if and when they found out the truth: reactions are some of my favourite things to imagine and write. However - as most TV shows and movies
portray - keeping up the secret isn't the easiest thing in the world and can lead to trouble.
And finally I may have to adopt a pen-name out of necessity. Unfortunately I am not one of those people blessed with an unusual or memorable name and - much as I do like my name - I don't think it would be a good idea to go ahead and write under it if I want to stick in people's minds.
And so I came to the conclusion that I would use a pen-name.
The next step came in choosing said pen-name:
Surname change
Some writers may simply choose to change their surname
Possibility 1: Other family names.
This option did not work for me. Again I have been rather unlucky in the naming scheme of things and ended up with all my relatives having either very common surnames or ones that would be fairly obvious to anyone who knows me or ones that I simply would not choose freely.
I found this fairly frustrating, as what are the chances of having your main surname choices being Johnson, Smith and Brown?!
Possibility 2: Unrelated surname.
I found this the more effective and appealing option as gives you all the world of choice. Some difficulties may arise in picking one name out of the millions possible or in making a choice between several that you like (for me a very common problem), but other than that I found little wrong with this.
One method I used of selecting a surname was to take the same first letter as my own and then choose from there; it allows you to keep a bit of your own name in there but still leave you with plenty of choice.
I fneither of these yields a name that you want you can always be original and create a brand new one.
First name change
Some people may choose to go the whole hog and change the first name as well, or just change the first name while keeping you own surname.
Possibility 1: Middle name
As with surnames this was not a great choice for me as my middle name is not one I would normally pick for myself, nice name as it is. However this may work for some peopl.
Possibility 2: Family name
Use the name of someone else in the family, be it parents, grandparents etc. It keeps it a little more personal than a completely made up one.
Possibility 3: Unrelated name
As with surnames: pick one that you like. I went for this option but, again, went for one with a matching initial to my own.
Again: if in doubt, make something up.
So that's how I came up with my pen-name (which I will not put here). I also spent about an hour messing around with anagrams of my own name but these never really worked well with my names, it may do for others though.
Yikes! That was a long post!
Hope it helped some of you
Bye
W-O
Part of the appeal for me is that I'd only have to tell people it was me if I wanted to and possibly not tell anyone at all, but to me this could also give the impression that I am not proud of what I've written and don't want to own up to it.
Another big pull of a pen-name is the idea of having a secret identity. I'm sure at some point in our lives we've all fantasised about leading a double life and having to keep the secret. I know the main attraction for me in this would be people's reactions, if and when they found out the truth: reactions are some of my favourite things to imagine and write. However - as most TV shows and movies
portray - keeping up the secret isn't the easiest thing in the world and can lead to trouble.
And finally I may have to adopt a pen-name out of necessity. Unfortunately I am not one of those people blessed with an unusual or memorable name and - much as I do like my name - I don't think it would be a good idea to go ahead and write under it if I want to stick in people's minds.
And so I came to the conclusion that I would use a pen-name.
The next step came in choosing said pen-name:
Surname change
Some writers may simply choose to change their surname
Possibility 1: Other family names.
This option did not work for me. Again I have been rather unlucky in the naming scheme of things and ended up with all my relatives having either very common surnames or ones that would be fairly obvious to anyone who knows me or ones that I simply would not choose freely.
I found this fairly frustrating, as what are the chances of having your main surname choices being Johnson, Smith and Brown?!
Possibility 2: Unrelated surname.
I found this the more effective and appealing option as gives you all the world of choice. Some difficulties may arise in picking one name out of the millions possible or in making a choice between several that you like (for me a very common problem), but other than that I found little wrong with this.
One method I used of selecting a surname was to take the same first letter as my own and then choose from there; it allows you to keep a bit of your own name in there but still leave you with plenty of choice.
I fneither of these yields a name that you want you can always be original and create a brand new one.
First name change
Some people may choose to go the whole hog and change the first name as well, or just change the first name while keeping you own surname.
Possibility 1: Middle name
As with surnames this was not a great choice for me as my middle name is not one I would normally pick for myself, nice name as it is. However this may work for some peopl.
Possibility 2: Family name
Use the name of someone else in the family, be it parents, grandparents etc. It keeps it a little more personal than a completely made up one.
Possibility 3: Unrelated name
As with surnames: pick one that you like. I went for this option but, again, went for one with a matching initial to my own.
Again: if in doubt, make something up.
So that's how I came up with my pen-name (which I will not put here). I also spent about an hour messing around with anagrams of my own name but these never really worked well with my names, it may do for others though.
Yikes! That was a long post!
Hope it helped some of you
Bye
W-O
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Why a blog?
Ok, so now you know a little about my life and goals I'm going to tell you why I'm really writing the blog.
As I have already said, I like to express myself through writing - be it poetry or stories - and this is another way for me to share my thoughts with the world.
I'm not the most confident person in the world and I have only just admitted to myself that writing is what I really want to do: my family don't have a clue and they think I'm off to study at university and become a scientist and acedemic - but maybe I can still do both! None of my friends or family will know about this blog until I am ready to tell them.
I hate missing out on opportunities and like to have my fingers in as many pies as possible without being too greedy. This is one of the reasons I wouldn't admit to wanting to write, as I believed I would have to give up on so many things and miss my chance to go to university just to follow this dream - who knows, it could still happen! - but I've decided I have to be true to myself and give it a go.
My other problem is I hate to disappoint people. It feels to me as if everyone expects me to go off to university and focus on my studies, rather than throw it all away on a creative whim, and this is the real reason I haven't told anyone about my writing yet. I'm afraid that they'll be disappointed and say they expected more of me than this, that I shouldn't risk everything for what might not come true.
I'm probably just being paranoid or worrying to much and they'll support me just the same as before, but the fear is still there.
I hope that realising, myself, what I want will help me carry on and maybe sharing a little on the interweb will give me a bit more confidence to be more open in my everyday life.
Hope I haven't bored you all with my sob-story.
See you
W-O
As I have already said, I like to express myself through writing - be it poetry or stories - and this is another way for me to share my thoughts with the world.
I'm not the most confident person in the world and I have only just admitted to myself that writing is what I really want to do: my family don't have a clue and they think I'm off to study at university and become a scientist and acedemic - but maybe I can still do both! None of my friends or family will know about this blog until I am ready to tell them.
I hate missing out on opportunities and like to have my fingers in as many pies as possible without being too greedy. This is one of the reasons I wouldn't admit to wanting to write, as I believed I would have to give up on so many things and miss my chance to go to university just to follow this dream - who knows, it could still happen! - but I've decided I have to be true to myself and give it a go.
My other problem is I hate to disappoint people. It feels to me as if everyone expects me to go off to university and focus on my studies, rather than throw it all away on a creative whim, and this is the real reason I haven't told anyone about my writing yet. I'm afraid that they'll be disappointed and say they expected more of me than this, that I shouldn't risk everything for what might not come true.
I'm probably just being paranoid or worrying to much and they'll support me just the same as before, but the fear is still there.
I hope that realising, myself, what I want will help me carry on and maybe sharing a little on the interweb will give me a bit more confidence to be more open in my everyday life.
Hope I haven't bored you all with my sob-story.
See you
W-O
Friday, 11 November 2011
First Blog - An intro
Wow my first ever blog!
I guess I'd better start at the beginning then:
As the title suggests I'm an aspiring author - a fantasy author to be exact - and am in the process of writing my first book. I'm not that far with the actual writing of it, it's mostly planning at the moment but I'm writing snippets as I go.
This blog is basically going to be a record of my writing progress: how far along in the story I am, when I start sending it off etc.
I find writing is my way of escaping into another world and expressing my feelings through characters and what they experience. It's something I've always thought I'd like to try and growing up I've found that I'm able to write fairly well and recieve good feedback. My least favourite part of writing is ending the story, as I know that it is never really the end and I want to carry on following my characters in their lives. I don't intend to write for money and I fully expect to end up working another job, with writing taking a back seat, but I can still give it a go.
As for the book itself:
I have the main idea and a basic idea of the plot, my main characters are fairly developed now and some of the secondary characters are starting to take shape. I have a setting and some very detailed notes about the environment, fundamental laws and a little history of the location.
The book is currently divided into three sections and I have written the start of the first chapters of two of these.
And finally a little about me as a person:
I am actually in my last year of secondary school at the moment and am currently waiting for replies from universities: I am sitting pretty on two offers but still waiting for three more replies. I am not studying and subjects at the moment that in any way relate to writing.
I am - naturally - an avid reader of just about any type of fiction you can shove under my nose and have a huge arsenal of fiction books under my belt.
I have a number of obsessions ranging from books to films to sports and skills.
I also write a little fanfiction every now and then and have my own DeviantART account where I post photos, drawings and digital art. These two accounts are not under the same name as this blog: I want to keep them separate for now.
Well, I think that's about it for now.
Toodles :)
W-O
I guess I'd better start at the beginning then:
As the title suggests I'm an aspiring author - a fantasy author to be exact - and am in the process of writing my first book. I'm not that far with the actual writing of it, it's mostly planning at the moment but I'm writing snippets as I go.
This blog is basically going to be a record of my writing progress: how far along in the story I am, when I start sending it off etc.
I find writing is my way of escaping into another world and expressing my feelings through characters and what they experience. It's something I've always thought I'd like to try and growing up I've found that I'm able to write fairly well and recieve good feedback. My least favourite part of writing is ending the story, as I know that it is never really the end and I want to carry on following my characters in their lives. I don't intend to write for money and I fully expect to end up working another job, with writing taking a back seat, but I can still give it a go.
As for the book itself:
I have the main idea and a basic idea of the plot, my main characters are fairly developed now and some of the secondary characters are starting to take shape. I have a setting and some very detailed notes about the environment, fundamental laws and a little history of the location.
The book is currently divided into three sections and I have written the start of the first chapters of two of these.
And finally a little about me as a person:
I am actually in my last year of secondary school at the moment and am currently waiting for replies from universities: I am sitting pretty on two offers but still waiting for three more replies. I am not studying and subjects at the moment that in any way relate to writing.
I am - naturally - an avid reader of just about any type of fiction you can shove under my nose and have a huge arsenal of fiction books under my belt.
I have a number of obsessions ranging from books to films to sports and skills.
I also write a little fanfiction every now and then and have my own DeviantART account where I post photos, drawings and digital art. These two accounts are not under the same name as this blog: I want to keep them separate for now.
Well, I think that's about it for now.
Toodles :)
W-O
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