3 Ways to Make Fiction Easy to Read- Tips For Fictional Character Development
3 Ways to Make Fiction Easy to Read
In an age of Facebook and Twitter, where anyone with a keyboard can invent abbreviations, sling the slang around, and bloviate without boundaries, why would I be advising people to keep it simple?
Simple! With so much competition from manufactured sound bites, if your writing isn’t inviting, it’s going to drown in a sea of overwritten prose. And it will drown fast.
But how can you make your fiction enticing and popular without sacrificing literary principles? That’s easy, too. Just follow these tips for fashioning modern literature for the twenty-first century readers.
Engage. Catch your reader’s eye, right from the first word, of the first paragraph. Think of what makes you want to read a post on a blog or a news site. Perhaps it’s something scandalous about a public figure. Or it’s an uncommon human-interest story, such as the 2010 rescue of 33 Chilean miners in a flawless recovery operation. Or it’s a terrifying natural disaster. Verbs are good for snagging a reader’s attention at the outset. Strong verbs included convicted, rescued, or pummeled. A one-word sentence consisting of only a verb has successfully begun a number of intriguing stories and novels.
Reduce. Clear the clutter. Say what you want to say in that crucial first paragraph, and then put that paragraph on a starvation diet, leaving it with only as many verbal nutrients as you need to express your ideas.
Let’s say you started a story this way:
Panicked. She was doomed. Melanie glanced around the room, searching for a way out, grabbing helplessly at locked windows, doors that wouldn’t open, and no way out except into a dim hallway from which haunting sounds were echoing. She strained to hear what could have been the soundtrack of a horror movie or real-life victims being tortured. Hopelessly, she scanned the desks and tables for a phone, even though she’d have no way of telling a rescuer where she was and who had brought her there, blindfolded, in the dark of night, in the trunk of a car. She was doomed.
Not bad for a start. Now get out your red pen, and here’s a better way to catch and hold onto your readers:
Panicked. Melanie searched for an escape from the room, grabbing at locked windows and doors, cringing at a dim hallway. The groans and growls could have been the soundtrack of a horror movie – or real-life torture victims. She scanned the furniture for a phone, though she had no idea where she was, or who had blindfolded her that night and forced her into the trunk of a car. She was doomed.
Identify. Simple doesn’t have to mean condescending. You Can enrich your fiction with savory details that make readers see and hear the scene you set. You can bring them to a place they’ve never visited, and probably never will. But you must define exotic details so that readers can build a mental picture.
Here’s an example, where the characters are meeting natives from deep in the Amazonian rainforest:
It’s midnight, and they’re all exhausted. The Hillyers each lie down in a rickety hammock and try to sleep, but the Yanomami know nothing about keeping quiet so that others can sleep. In fact, they wake up and fall asleep as easily as house cats. Elvis says that you have to learn how to sleep through their talking, snoring, and crying babies.
At around one o’clock in the morning, a tribal elder stands in the center of the shapono and delivers a long, booming speech about hunting and fishing. No one hushes him. Maybe an hour later, a shaman under the influence of natural hallucinogens performs a prolonged mystical chant. Alarmed, Carmela stands between the children’s hammocks. Elvis tells her not to worry and translates the speech and the chanting.
In spite of the never-ending conversations inside the shapono, they all doze off until about 3:00 am, when a man at a nearby hearth leaps up, says a few words to anyone who might be listening, grabs an axe, and starts swinging it around overhead. Carmela screams and tries to cover her sleeping children with her body. Tobias jumps up and throws his arms around all of them.
“Go back to sleep,” Elvis scolds. “He’s only going out to chop some firewood.” Indeed, percussive chopping sounds commence outside the shapono and continue for an hour or so. None of the Hillyers understand how anyone can sleep in this society.
You can write exciting fiction with vivid details and real-life characters, and you can do this without making readers plow through dense paragraphs and complicated sentences to follow the action. In fact, you’re better off if you don’t! The Internet is a glorious medium, kind of an encyclopedia of modern life, and it has spoiled us. We want to know what’s going on right away! If it’s not interesting, we’ll just click to another web page.
In your fiction writing, grab your readers’ loyalty from the very beginning. Engage, reduce, and identify. Now that’s a tale worth reading – and worth writing.
Lilian Duval was born in New York City of French-speaking parents. She is a technical writer for a software company, and before that, created software for Wall Street firms until the terrorist attack on her building in 2001. Her employment history includes, in chronological order: nurse’s aide in a nursing home; bookkeeper’s assistant at O. Henry Steak House in Greenwich Village; suburban stringer for a small-town newspaper; teacher of English as a second language; and instructor in computer programming. Lilian lives in New Jersey with her husband George, a native of Singapore. They have two sons and a daughter, all grown, and several cats. She studies classical guitar and enjoys attending concerts and plays in New York City. To learn more, please visit http://www.lilianduval.com
Tips For Fictional Character Development
Characters are the most important element in writing a fiction story. No matter how good your story is, if you do not have believable characters that your readers can relate to, no one will enjoy reading it. They probably won’t even finish it.
The first thing to do when developing a character for a story is to write a thorough description. You need to be able to see the character in your mind if you want to make your readers see them. Go beyond the basic looks, each character needs distinguishing marks, a stance, or a accent in their dialogue, something that will stick in the reader’s mind every time that character comes up. Never over-describe a character, there’s no fine line here but you want to let the reader supply some of the details on their own, this is especially true for your lead character. Many if not most readers like to picture themselves as your leading character, by leaving out some of the details you’ll make this possible for more people.
The second thing to do when creating a character is to write a character sketch. This is where you develop their personality. Write down everything that comes to mind about the character, you never know when the smallest idiosyncrasy or habit from the character sketch may show up in the story line.
Here are a few things to consider when developing a character
What kind of relationship did they have with their parents and siblings or other family members?
What about their obsessions, what some people refer to as pet-peeves? Most people have at least one and knowing what it is can be a big insight into their personality.
What are their vices? Unfortunately everyone has them even if they are well hidden.
Do they have a hobby?
Do they collect anything?
What are they proud of or embarrassed about?
What are their talents or strengths?
What are their flaws or weaknesses?
Do they have a favorite color?
What kind of music do they like?
Which is their favorite season or holiday?
Are they open and sociable or shy and withdrawn?
What drives or motivates your character?
What are their hopes and dreams for the future?
What sort of turning points did they have in their life? Was it the death of someone close? A success or failure? A right or wrong decision?
What are they afraid of? Sometime our fears determine who and what we are more so than any other thing in life.
These are only a few examples, any little quirks you can come up with will make your characters more realistic and believable. You want things that your readers will relate to. Most people enjoy the books or stories more if they can see themselves as one of your characters.
The next thing that needs to be done is to write a biography for each character, a history. I find it more useful to write it as an autobiography, from the character’s point of view. This is extremely important if you are to make them believable in print. Whenever possible, I use someone I know as a base for the character. I’ve found that doing this will make them seem more realistic, it tends to give them an authentic flavor as it were.
Another method that some writers use when developing a character is to do an interview with each character. A good session of questions and answers will often give you more depth into the personality of the characters, one that you wouldn’t get any other way. The best way that I have found to conduct the interviews is what I refer to as the “Rapidfire” method. This is done by writing without stopping to think or edit. I always use a pen and paper just as if I were interviewing a real world person, you can type it and worry about spelling later. Don’t prepare the questions in advance either, let the answer you get to one question determine what your next question will be. Let the character answer each question with the first thought that comes to mind without censoring. Have fun with it, this in and of itself is not a great work of literature, you’re just getting to know your characters.
I have always found that drawing up a character tree showing how all the characters relate to and interact with each other helps to keep me from making drastic mistakes and overlaps. If you have only three or four characters this is probably superfluous, but if you have a lot of characters as I do in most of my stories it is an indispensable tool.
In conclusion; always remember, the more real a character is to you, the more real they will be to your readers.
Copyright 2010 by Timothy C. Everhart, author of Tianna Logan and the Salem Academy for Witchcraft, found at: http://www.tiannalogan.com/ and at: http://www.pdbookstore.com/.
To contact the author, send an email to: author@tiannalogan.com
Tianna Logan and the Salem Academy for Witchcraft is the story of a newly orphaned teenage witch that’s had her life turned inside out. Follow along as she enters the academy, makes new friends, and discovers new truths. After her parents are killed, Tianna Logan is left in the care of her grandmother. She is to attend the Salem Academy for Witchcraft. While at the School, Tianna makes many new friends… and stumbles into adventure at every turn. With the help of her friends, Tianna learns a little more about the night her parents died, and a book is discovered, hidden in a room at the Academy. Tianna is stunned to discover that the book belongs to her. Tianna and her friends soon uncover a plot to attack the school. Now, their skills will be put to the test to ensure the future of the Salem Academy for Witchcraft.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Timothy_Everhart
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lilian_Duval
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