How to Get to Know Your Characters

The Write Time Writer’s Group in Geneva, Illinois, discussed ways to get to know a character in preparation for writing a novel. With Nanowrimo coming up in November, these ideas may help you prepare to write a novel in a month.

Here’s our list:

1. Give them their own goals.
2. Identify personal theme songs for each character.
3. Write a voice summary for each character. As an author, you have a voice. Your characters need their own voice to help you distinguish them from each other.
4. Interview your characters. This is one of my favorites. As my character answers a series of questions, her personality, mannerisms and speech patterns emerge.
5. Rewrite the Gettysburg Address as the character. This gets at the character’s voice and personality.
6. Diagnostic – Use DSM for mental disorders – working reference for physicians, psychologists, social workers, attorneys, etc.
7. What else is going on in your character’s life? This is the backstory that doesn’t make it into your novel, but helps you get to know the character.
8. Which Hollywood actor would play your character? Basing your character on an actor provides a built-in character description.
9. Write the story and the characters will reveal themselves. At the end of first draft, you will know your characters. Make adjustments as part of the editing.

Explore the characters in my new horror humor novel, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, today for less than a buck for your Amazon Kindle. It’s nonstop action, nonstop monsters and nonstop laughter when you visit the crazy world of Snpgrdxz, the teenaged alien shape shifter, and his high school buddy Bryan Ganarski. And don’t forget Jennifer Hawkins. A guy has to have someone to fall in love with even if she does shoot at you, right? Click here to learn more.

The Curse of Dracula

Grummuglefix.

That’s what I say when I’m angry like when some smart alec stakes my heart while I’m dead. But you didn’t stop by to hear me curse. I am Dracula, Count of Transylvania. My people hate me because I charge high taxes. The town councils complain.

“What do you think?” they ask. “Do you expect blood from a stone?”

But I say, “Of course not. I have you for that. I don’t take all of your blood, just a little to pay for my many services to you like keeping out barbarian invaders from the north and civilized invaders from the south. And west? Don’t even ask about the west.”

Things run great in my country. People are happy once their bite marks heal up. I only take a little bit. It’s good for them. They make new, healthy blood.

Things went bad for a while when the Communists took over, and I was no longer Count Dracula. Instead, I became Comrade Dracula, Commissar of Transylvania.

But the people hated me because I charged high taxes. Comrades from Moscow said I had to share my castle with the workers. “It’s too big for one man with only three living dead wives,” they said.

I offered the villagers the opportunity to spend their nights in Dracula’s castle. Villagers all said, “No thank you. Your castle is too far from the factory.”

So the Communists fell after only 75 years in power. That’s like a long lunch break for me. I went into exile like all good former commissars. By the way, there’s no such thing as a “good” commissar. This explains why communism failed.

I moved to England and married the daughter of an earl. We were happy until she wanted a baby. I found a teenage baby for her. She became a nice daughter for Dracula and his lovely bride.

Grummuglefix.

She found out about boys.

Maybe you have seen her at the high school dance. She’s the one with the two big teeth up front. No braces.

My wife likes our teenager but wishes for a real baby still. I explained how vampires can’t have babies. You have to be human. Instead, please enjoy our teenage daughter. See she’s having nice romances with teenage boys and werewolves.

Our daughter is a nice girl. She brings her girlfriends home for a pajama party. We serve them snacks, sodas, booze and drugs. Then we suck their blood.

Before dawn, we send our daughter’s friends home happy. Later they make their mothers and fathers happy. Unfortunately, the authorities don’t like too much happiness, especially amongst their vampire neighbors. So as the police pound stakes during the day, I move the family back home to Transylvania.

Grummuglefix.

My three old wives do not like my new family, but I tell them we are one big happy family whether they like it or not. I remind them that Count Dracula can pound a few stakes just like Englishmen.

My teenage daughter adapts quickly to Transylvania. She loves dating the local boys at night.

Meanwhile, I am no longer Commissar as I said. Instead, I am Count Dracula again except now we have democracy. I am a very democratic count. I tax everyone equally. It’s only fair. Oh wait. I am progressive democrat. I tax rich people more equally than poor people. And I support health care plan because we need a nice hospital with a big blood bank.

***

Speaking of vampires…
Did you know that my new novel, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, is chock full of vampires? It’s loaded with trolls and a wide range of other strange monsters. It’s a horror story blended into a time travel journey. Snpgrdxz is pronounced as if spelled snip-grid-ix. Begin by reading the free chunk you can access by clicking on the book cover on Amazon by clicking here.

Snpgrdxz and the Discount Offer

Purchase Snpgrdxz for just 99 cents today.

The modern novel is about two things: action and emotion. Action moves the story along so that you can’t put it down because of the nonstop forward motion. Emotion is about laughter, joy, excitement. It’s about anger, fear and angst. It’s about the exhilaration of needing to know what will happen next. Above all, it’s about falling in love with one person in one place, and with one book, one author. For love conquers everything including the monsters who’d love to kill us, eat us, or transform us into something unspeakable in the world of Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

What if one night that teenage girl you have a crush on appears at the foot of your bed, pistol in hand, and threatens to shoot you? But your best friend and a terrorist burst into your bedroom and kill her in the nick of time? But the next night this same girl shows up in your bed again? This time she’s ready for love. When did your dead crush become your girlfriend? Wild dreams? Since when did your nightmares leave actual bullet holes and blood stains behind?

Join the crazy journey of Bryan Ganarski, Jennifer Hawkins, Gilbert Armstrong, and of course, Snpgrdxz, the teenaged space alien shape shifter who can be either a boy or girl depending on his or her mood. Hormones fly, earther and other, in this madcap misadventure.

Is Bryan totally insane or is there a part of him that can still fall in love with one of the many versions of his time-traveling girlfriend? And will Bryan work up the gumption to kiss Jennifer in front of the whole sophomore class like she asked him to? She did ask him, didn’t she?

This love-crazed tale of time travel features a group of friends who become stuck between the wrong time on earth and a troll world filled with monsters far worse than those pesky tiny bridge trolls and the really tall, hairy mountain trolls. An evil daemon, werewolves, nosferatu, and a few ghosts are among the many monsters waiting for you in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. It’s the first novel in my new sci-fi/fantasy horror series.

Enjoying a great read begins with action and emotion. Act now to purchase Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters on Kindle today for only $0.99 US. Save $2 US and pay less than a buck. Such a deal! Don’t miss out on it. Click here now.

You can get all emotional later as you read Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

In case you missed it, here’s the link to my new novel on Amazon: Click here.

A Modern Warrior Woman

Jennifer Hawkins discovers her role as the warrior attracted to a cowardly boyfriend in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. Jennifer protects and lifts up her boyfriend while displaying the courage to become the only female member of the time travelling team searching for the lost Maria Gonzalez. She serves as the conscience of the group while retaining her nickname of Wild Thing. It’s Jennifer who dispatches two of the mobsters who attack in 1923, and she is the one who serves as nurse to a wounded Bryan Ganarski. (BTW, you’ll want to check out this scene as described in a first-person point of view by Bryan after he is wounded in the head. It makes for an interesting Tour de Force.)

Jennifer meets herself on her time journey and the two Jennifers travel together without having the time-space continuum collapse. Apparently the universe can abide a paradox. 

One of the things to watch for as you read my Snpgrdxz (pronounced like it's spelled Snip-grid-ix) series of novels is the way the two main Jennifers (there are others that pop in from time to time) grow in two different directions with one becoming a strong female warrior while the other descends into evil.

By having two versions of the same strong female character, I’m able to explore the way any of us can choose evil or good actions. Snpgrdxz also provides a humorous way to examine the theme of good and evil in our modern culture which dismisses this kind of contrast as primitive Bronze Age thinking. In a world that approves of our actions as “lifestyle choices,” the Snpgrdxz novels show that not all choices are for the good and not all actions give life.

Read the free portion of the first novel in the Snpgrdxz series, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, by clicking here for the book on Amazon.

And while you’re on Amazon, be sure to download the Kindle version of my most downloaded short story Little Miss Forgotten. It reached number 33 on Amazon this morning and today is the last day it's free.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: How can a Christian write a story where a character commits a murder? Take a deep dive into a philosophical issue. Click here.

The Girl with the Killer Kiss

You have to be realistic. Like all other organizations, whether for profit or not for profit, the idea is to promote your services in the most attractive way. For example, would you voluntarily kiss a monster in a floor-length hoodie? Or allow the same monster to kiss you full on the lips?

When it comes to applying the kiss of death, wouldn’t the victim be more likely to respond to the advances of an attractive young person?

What we have here is the basis for my short story, Little Miss Forgotten, a tale about a death angel who takes her vacation in the real world where you and I live. The story is set during the Vietnam War era when death angels were especially busy and their vacations well-earned. What happens when a vacationing death angel meets a regular guy in search of love?

Find out by reading Little Miss Forgotten. It’s available today free on Amazon. Download your free copy by clicking here.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: Mosquitoes. The season isn’t over yet, so let’s take a quick look at mosquito prevention humor from August 2009. Click here.

Death Takes a Vacation

We often think of death as an angel sent to take away your soul to judgment, leaving your body as an empty shell for the fire pit or burial ground. But the world is so overrun by people that one angel simply can’t snatch all the souls fast enough, especially in a war zone. So what’s Death to do?

It turns out the Death Department operates a whole cadre of death angels, each assigned to its own territory and given a quota to  meet. Death angels, known in the Vatican archives as Deathabus, circle about their area of responsibility to snag those souls ready for the great beyond.

On occasion, the Deathabus is authorized to take a vacation. Now, you may be picturing the agent of Death as this mysterious skeletal creature wrapped inside a floor length hoodie, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The angels of death, all of them, are either handsome young men in appearance or attractive, well-figured females. The one who kisses you depends on your preference. Death knows your secret desires to be sure.

Learn more about the deathly kiss of greeting by reading Little Miss Forgotten. It’s available today free on Amazon. Download your free copy by clicking here.

Today’s nostalgia post: Day 1 describes the first day of a road trip taken by my adult son Joseph and me back in 2009. In this post, I channel Robert M. Pirsig despite my then desire to wax Hemingway-esque. Click here to read.

Little Miss Forgotten

My writing style has evolved over time as has reader tastes. Novels I write today begin with a strong hook. For example, my new novel Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, begins with this line:

From where she stood at the foot of my bed, fifteen-year-old Jennifer Hawkins couldn’t miss, but would this sweet girl shoot me?

The idea of the opening hook is to entice you into wanting to know what happens next. Will Jennifer Hawkins pull the trigger? There was a time when a story about a teenage girl and a gun would end up with the girl not firing. But this is a 21st century girl who has been raised in an era of high violence, often meaningless, involving teen-on-teen crime.

So does Jennifer pull the trigger? The odds are very high that she does, but I’ll let you find out for yourself when you read the free portion by clicking the book cover on Amazon. Click here to visit Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters on Amazon. BTW, Snpgrdxz is pronounced as if spelled Snip-grid-ix. It’s all explained in the novel.

This brings us back to Little Miss Forgotten, a strong female character who appears in my short story of the same name. This is an older story of mine, and it features a more languid opening style of stories written decades ago when readers preferred a little more setup before the action blazed hot.

Here is the opening:

"Do you wanna dance?" Okay, it was the name of a top ten hit, and today's kids would sneer if they heard me, but in 1967 it worked.

She hesitated. She frowned. She stared for what seemed an eternity, (about three seconds). "Sure, why not?"

I don't remember the song. The band was on break, and the young kids who worked as house deejays were playing records. It was a fast one. You just didn't ask a girl to dance a slow one the first time. You had to dance a couple of fast ones first. At a nice suburban Catholic church hall like Holy Cross, a girl accepting a slow dance was giving you an invitation to climb all over her.

We danced that first one, and then a few more fast dances. They were the usual Mashed Potato, Watusi and Stomp. Then a slow one came on, my all-time favorite: "Angel Baby" by Rosie and the Originals. (High falsetto, andante: "It's just like heav-en, be-ing here with yo-oo, 'cause you're like an an-gel, too good to be true-oo, but after-ah-all, I love you, I do-oo, An-gel Ba-by, my An-gel Ba-by," etc.) These lyrics won’t mean much to you unless you already know the song, but trust me, the tune was great for slow dancing.

***

Set during the Vietnam war era, the rest of this short horror fiction is yours free for your Kindle by clicking here today. Beware the kiss of death and as always, stay away from those pretty little blondes.

Okay, you don’t have to avoid the blondes, but you still have to watch out for that one kiss from Little Miss Forgotten that will change your life forever. Click here for the free download.

Today’s nostalgia blog post is from May 22, 2009. Click here for a sweet yarn on yet another strong young lady and my take on wisdom.