"Drawing the Story"--July 15th, 2009

"Drawing the Story"--July 15th, 2009

When working to develop your storyline or character for your new fiction novel, be sure to ask yourself six fundamental questions to ensure you are creating characters and conflict that is easily identified by an audience, thereby hooking the reader. Remember to ask yourself: Who, What, When, Where, Why & How.

For reasons beyond my understanding, it seems character development is an overly dramatized topic in the fiction industry. I think many people--and I have been guilty of this in the past--try too hard to over analyze the "rules" for developing real fictional characters. Some say you should start by creating an outline, others say you should draft a character style sheet and others say this and still others say that. I have an easy method, which stems from our early literary learnings in grade-school, that if applied, can help add depth within your characters.

Let's try some practical application using our creative minds, not our editorial perspective. Consider this very simple scenario I have drawn below for practice.

There is a young man sitting in the lobby of a hotel.

If this simple sentence above were the best you could conjure within your creative measures, let's apply those six simple and fundamental questions to the scene and start drafting greater details to the storyline and character. This is a perfect exercise you can try on your own, either with my starting sentence or with the opening of your next great novel.

Who:  Ask yourself, who is this man? The sentence says he is a "young" man. How old is he? Is he a teenage man, or possibly mid-thirties? Who is he? Do we know when your story opens? Who is telling his story? Is it him or the narrator? Do we have to wait to find out? Is he going to be the hero (protagonist) or the villian (antagonist) of the story?

What:  Ask yourself, what is he doing here? What is he waiting on? What happened to him five minutes before he walked in the door? What is waiting for him, just outside the hotel? What's he reading? What's he watching? What's he wearing?

When:  For this aspect, you can start adding backdrop to the story, by perhaps, adding a timeframe. When does the story take place? When did this young man arrive? When was he expecting someone?

Where:  Where does this story take place? Where is the hotel? Is it familiar to you? Is it familiar to your audience? Is is some place new in the world you are going to introduce to the audience, like a fantasy world far, far away? Where was the young man before he arrived? Where was he going before he arrived?

Why:  Why is he here? Why do we not know him? Why did his parents leave him, or his wife leave him or why did he just lose his job at the hotel? Why is he sad or happy or why is he reading a particular map while smoking a cigar?

How:  The last thing you should as is the how. How did this person get to where he is? How will he accomplish the task that you, the author, have set before him? How will the world receive him? How will he find the strength to go on?

By learning how to think beyond the scope of literary rules and outlines and guidelines and instead remember to ask yourself these six basic and fundamental questions, you can develop an entire history, backdrop and future for a character and storyline that is only limited by your ability to wonder. You are the creator of your own art. You have to remember to be witty, charismatic, passionate, romantic, mean, soft, sweet, polite, rude and every possible quality that is common to human beings on this planet. By encompassing those common human emotions into your characer development, you are thereby allowing an audience to relate and identify with your character. And that, is what makes a character believable. That is what moves an audience.

Try using the simple sentence I have provided and apply the six rules and share your brief story introduction here on this blog. Be as creative as you wish! (Let's keep it PG-13 please!)

...drawing stories...with words...
~Bobby Ozuna

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"The Book Coach"--June 23rd, 2009

"The Book Coach"--June 23rd, 2009

When drafting a realistic fictional story, you must incorporate real scenarios, feelings, emotions, struggles and accomplishments, in the life and journey of your character--or hero--in order for your audience to easily relate to them and identify with them. This is the critical aspect of hooking an audience and keeping a reader's attention.

Part of my work as a "book coach" is assisting authors and offering them insight into the common pattern of struggle all humans undergo in order to bring about change. Your story--and the journey of your hero in your story--must undergo some form of change over the course of the story--or you essentially, have no story to follow. Every epic tale, mythological story and classic work of fiction encompasses certain aspects of the human struggle that makes it easy to readily identify with an audience. Because we all relate to emotions and feelings of love, hate, anger, joy, release and feelings of capture (among countless others), when your character shares these types of emotions and states of being, then you make it easier for an audience to either like or despise your hero. It doesn't matter what the reader feels in the opening of a story, so long as they feel something that can relate to the character. As your story progresses, so too should the hero's internal and external character. If your hero is bitter and hateful towards the world, and you bring about a journey that forces them to learn a new perspective, see life through a different point-of-view, etc., then you would have accomplished the primary focus of reading or following a story to begin with. This is one scenario and there are countless others you could incorporate into your tale. The objective is however, for you as the artist to use your creativity to identify a problem that forces the hero and story into motion, create common feelings towards accepting the call, and then ensure they undergo challenges, setbacks and adversity in which they must overcome.

You should ask yourself these types of questions when creating you protagonist:

What is it they love and treasure the most? What do they despise the most about their surroundings? What is troubling them? What inner torment do they carry in their heart? What has brought them to the place where we meet them? What force (internal or external) forces them out of their comfort zone and into the unknown world?

You should ask yourself the who, what, when, where, why and how in relation to building backdrop and future endeavors for your hero. You should then pose conflict (internal or external) that will force the hero to undergo change...good or bad...right or wrong. If you can add this drama to your storyline, you are then on your way to creating effective, realistic struggle and accomplishment for your hero. And that is how you begin working to draft a realistic fictional tale and characters.

***

If your book is in need of help--either in storyline, plot structure or character development--contact me to learn more about my book coach services. My rates vary depending upon the job depth and type of work you are creating. You can learn more about sending an email inquiry HERE.

...supporting the independent arts...

~Bobby Ozuna Author | Ghost-Writer | Book Coach | Internet Radio Talk Show Host | Press Release Services
OZUNA PUBLICATIONS

"Drawing the Story"--August 20th, 2008

Use common surroundings when developing settings or visual imagery to help bring your fictional stories to life!

When people ask me how I came to write "Proud Souls" or where I got the inspiration to create such vivid scenes, settings and literal imagery, I like sharing the special [common] places that are part of my everyday life, that became settings within my novel.

As an example, there is a scene where I describe Reverend Polk's living quarters behind the church. His home is nothing more than a garage loft-style apartment. I described the green grass at the base of a wooden staircase that meets a small deck where he likes to drink tea outside. Now, ordinarily I wouldn't have come up with something like that, even if I was in the creative mood. That was actually an actual home behind one of my neighbors houses, where (I believe) a son lived with his mother. The primary residence was his mother's house and he lived in the back--the very nice and elaborate garage apartment out back. Every morning when I would review the entries for "Proud Souls" I made the previous night, I would watch him come out, down the wooden staircase and water his grass while having coffee. The particular morning I was working on Reverend Polk's home and the history of where he lived and how he came to live there--it just made sense to me.



Another example of how common settings in our lives can be transformed into more elaborate settings for our novels is the moment where I described the town bar, The Hawk's Nest. This was Tessa Jameson's metaphorical prison and it was important that I identified with my audience, regardless of where they lived in the world. Now, that's a pretty extensive goal, to say I am going to create a world that will identify with a vast majority of my readers, but it is something I feel as a writer you must try to accomplish.

To master this I had to first determine what made a bar "common." I have been to the "hole-in-the-wall" bars and the more elaborate high-dollar bars where you literally buy a 12-pack of bottles for one drink and the underlying theme in each of them is freedom. People feel free to become something other than themselves--the person they can't be and would never become at work--or at church or in front of in-laws, etc. I paid close attention to why people went to bars and how they acted (or didn't act) when they arrived and how they were when they left. I listened to them talk, quietly and discreetly at first, and then louder, free to share their feelings and expressions with complete strangers over time (and drinks). Regardless of where the alcohol was being served, I found people came in the same way and left the same way. So, I targeted those emotions within the settings for my bar--The Hawk's Nest--just enough for an average person--male, female, young, old, etc--to identify with. That is why so many people say, "I feel like I have been in that bar you talked about."

When trying to draft a story and you feel your setting lacks powerful characteristics or worse, maybe you feel you haven't "been anywhere" and because of that your stories can't compete with more "experienced" writers...stop and look around. Take in your own environment and use people, places and things common to your everyday walk and then put on your creative hat and let your imagination take control. By using people, places and objects common to your everyday life, it at least gives you a baseline for drawing your story...with words...

Best of luck to you.

~Bobby Ozuna
www.BobbyOzunaOnline.com

Creating "real" fictitious characters: Part I

Creating "REAL" fictitious characters, Part I: "Identifying With The Audience

Since releasing "Proud Souls" I have been asked many questions relating to my ability to create fictitious characters which appear very "real" and "life-like." As ironic as that might sound, I felt inclined to share a few tidbits of information and methodical rituals I partake in to create my characters.

When creating a new story, I never delve into the task "blindly." That is to say, I always have a general idea of how the story might turn out, but unlike many writers, I'm unclear as to how the story might end. I feel this is important considering we as artists should never limit our creativity. Let's take my story, "Proud Souls" as an example. I began writing the story and originally titled it "the Cabin" and I wrote the initial pages on a trip home from Seymour--the setting to my novel. I wrote approximately 14 pages and 90% of those pages were setting, with no character created. I had idea at the time of the draft if the hero of the story would be male or female and I wrote the setting and drew the initial opening to the story with a clear point-of-view. I did this because I didn't want to limit the story to a particular targeted audience. For instance, most romance writer's write from a female perspective, for females. This is not to say a male could not appreciate the emotion and storyline anymore or less than a woman could, but generally speaking, the greater customer base for romance novels is female.So, when the time came to begin compiling a draft for my story, I had to consider the audience and the make-up of the story, as a male character would have different emotional aspects associated with him as would a female. Now, I did write a female, who played a serious role in the life cycle of my protagonist Justin. Her name was Tessa Jameson. I will use Justin Olerude Bower as my example in this lesson however.

Step1: Identifying With the Audience

The first and most important aspect of drawing (as I like to say) or creating real characters would be creating characters the audience can identify with. I write character driven stories, not plot-based, therefore it was imperative that I create true human form on paper, and almost immediately, if I wanted to keep my audience interested and turning pages. I knew right away I would have to draw on basic human emotions that anyone could identify with, if I was to keep the potential reader interested—and I had to do this right away. Now, for those who have read my story (and I promise not to give too much away), you will notice I put lots and lots of emotions within the first opening chapters, which not only helped establish Justin as a character, but these emotions also helped lay the foundations for the theme to my story. "Proud Souls" is a story of loss and in order for me to establish a change within the character, one that will allow him to grow, I had to first draw the character at one spectrum of the character scale, in order for you to see growth and change later, which in turn helps push the story forward.

When I create characters I focus on emotions that are common to most readers. I have often said, a good fiction writer is one that has tasted the water from the well. You can't write about love, until you have had the courage to love someone more than yourself. You can't write about loss, until you have suffered and you can't appreciate victory, unless you yourself—the author and creator of the story—are daring enough to take up the call and challenges of life. Now, does this mean we should write stories that are targeted to particular audiences? Some experts will say yes, but I say no. To do this means you are restricting your own abilities. The stories I write, are the stories that have come to my heart and mind. But, a key element in any good story, again, is emotion. For instance, we (generally speaking) can all relate to love. In some way or another, even the strongest and boldest of men and women have loved someone or something in their life. So, to draw a character that is passionate about someone or something is easily relatable and the art or trick is to create vivid emotion on paper (that is another lesson). We have all experienced love or hate, sickness and health, financial accomplishment and debt. When I begin creating my characters I make sure to touch the senses, those of touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. For instance, let's say you have a character that is standing on the porch, overlooking some passing cars and watching the rain.

You could easily say, "He was standing on the porch when the rain began to fall, nodding hello to the passing cars. That is simple and easily understood, but another approach might be one that captivates and entices more than one sense—more than just sight. Let's say we tried the same approach but this time wrote instead:

"He was standing on the porch when the rain began to fall, waving at the passing cars. As the storm moved in he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, appreciating the cleanliness that comes with an evening rain. He smiled, feeling the first drops spray against his forehead."

In that example, we touched on sight (seeing the storm coming & passing cars), smell (cleanliness of the rain) and touch (drops against his forehead). Now, what I see for a character at this point in the story may be completely different from the next reader, but the commonality will be the senses, as we all can remember the feeling of raindrops on our forehead—for some this might remind them of a bad day when they were caught in a storm and for others a childhood memory when they played in the weather as kids. Either way, you have begun to draw on common emotion, and this my friends, is what readers relate to when getting to know a character.

For my part and "Proud Souls", Justin as did Tessa Jameson, both shared numerous emotions common to us all. Justin is a bitter man, with a hardened heart and he seems to wear the memory of the loss of his family around his neck like a heavy chain. Tessa is sensual and in tune with her more sexual side, something many people might relate to. Some of my readers won't identify with Justin, as they themselves have never lost a family member, much less a spouse or child, but they have known moments where life seemed hopeless and all remained loss, and if they substitute Justin's situation for their own, they will soon find the emotions that come with loss are similar, just weighed and measured on a different scale.

Practice this with your characters-in-progress. Review the scenes or opening chapters and ask yourself, despite the individuality of my character, what emotions does he/she have which can relate to my audience? Remember, you don't want to isolate yourself to any particular group of readers, especially if you write fiction. I myself love fiction of all sorts and when I hunt for the next great read, I try to taste water from the various wells along the bookshelf, not remain isolated to one row. You should always keep an open mind and consider not only yourself and your immediate target audience, but the followers of your genre in general. What emotions do we all have in common? What characteristics are common amongst the various nationalities and groups or sects? Try it… I think you will be surprised how much more "real" your fictitious characters become.

~Bobby Ozuna www.BobbyOzunaOnline.com