You have an idea for a novel/nonfiction book/stage play/screenplay/book of poetry/book of essays/etc. but you haven’t been able to actually do anything with it.
It sits there. An idea. Going nowhere.
If you don’t activate it soon, you’ll lose interest in it and enthusiasm about it.
You may have any number of excuses for not moving forward and developing your idea. Some of the most common excuses are:
I don’t have time to write.
I don’t know how to write or, I don’t know how to do this kind of writing.
I’m not good with spelling and grammar.
Other people whose works I’ve read are really good writers. Where do I get the nerve to even think that I can write in their space?
This will take me such a long time. Is it even worth it to start?
What if I finish it and it doesn’t get published?
What if it turns out to be awful? I’d be so embarrassed.
What if it gets published or I self-publish it and no one reads it?
Most of these excuses are bullshit, and badass writers don’t indulge in bullshit. Acknowledge them for what they really are: AN EXPRESSION OF FEAR.
I don’t have time to write. There are ways to squeeze writing time into the busiest schedule. I’ll recommend some in another post. But this is probably about you being afraid. If you write TEN MINUTES A DAY, you’ll put it more than an hour a week. You can accomplish a lot in an hour.
I don’t know how to write or, I don’t know how to do this kind of writing. You learn. You learn by doing and by reading about writing. There are MANY resources available to you (including some I offer).
I’m not good with spelling and grammar. Then you write what you want to write and either hire an editor/proofreader or get that smart English major friend of yours to correct your masterpiece for a few beers.
I’ve read books like the one I want to write by really good writers. Where do I get the nerve to even think that I can write in their space? These writers inspired you to write! And keep in mind the fact that they didn’t start out being really good writers. They probably started out feeling just as doubtful about their ability as you do now – BUT THEY DID START.
This will take me such a long time. Is it even worth it to start? That’s something you need to decide. However, wasting time thinking this way will not get you to the finish line any faster.
What if I finish it and it doesn’t get accepted by a publisher? Then you self-publish it. (SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT: See my course, How to Self-Publish Your Badass Book on Amazon. It’s on Teachable.com.)
What if I self-publish it and no one reads it? You will have to promote the hell out of it. I cover how to do that in the above-mentioned course.
What if it turns out to be awful? I’d be so embarrassed. There is no limit on the number of times you can revise it. You can continue to improve that. You can hire a co-writer or an editor to help you improve it.
There. There is no excuse for the excuses you’re using to excuse yourself from writing what you want to write.
Let’s start out with the usual disclaimer: this blog post is not intended to dispense professional mental health care advice, blah blah blah. If you need mental health care, go to a mental health care professional. That should be obvious. If you require serious help, there’s a therapist out there who’s waiting for your call.
However…I think it’s (legally) safe to say that many therapists advise their patients to keep journals as part of their treatment. There is widespread recognition that writing down your thoughts and feelings can help you cope with stress and anxiety, confront past trauma and process various emotions, good and bad.
In other words, writing has therapeutic value. And all this time, you thought writing was just a frustrating, crazy-making process!
If you keep a journal, could you – should you – use the deeply private thoughts in it as fodder for your creative writing? Should you lay bare the most private events of your life? Will it expose you to emotional harm? If there are others who appear in your journal entries, will they recognize themselves and be angry or upset with you, even if you change names and descriptions to conceal their identities?
In other words: will the creepy uncle who molested you when you were a child come after you with angry recriminations, or even a lawsuit, if you write about him and about what he did to you?
Fuck the creepy uncle.
Badass writers own their lives. Badass writers own the events that shaped them; the things that happened to them and they things they themselves did. Right or wrong, good or bad, the incidents, people and feelings that have made you who you are will also help make you the writer you want to be.
A play I wrote, “The Bucket List of Booze Club,” had a character in it, Amy, who was caregiver for her mother, who had Alzheimer’s. I drew on my own experiences for Amy’s dialogue. Whenever I worked on her monologues, I wept. Seriously. I cried buckets. That was because I was keeping it real.
Here is one of Amy’s monologues:
I got her one of those shower chairs so she can sit down once she’s in there, but getting her to step into the bathtub is hard. She’s scared. Afraid of falling. I have to hold onto her. She’s not heavy. In fact, she’s getting lighter and lighter, as if she’s just going to float away some day. When I’m bathing her…I can’t stand seeing her scared like that. And I try to reassure her, but I think she’s not just scared of falling. I can’t tell her not to be afraid of dying because it’s coming for her. I hope her mind is too far gone to understand that. And in the shower, she keeps thanking me again and again. She probably senses, somewhere in her mind, that her hygiene is…not good. She would have been horrified to know that she smells. And the adult diapers…
I’m not going to tell you that using your own painful experiences in your writing is easy. It’s not. Did I mention that I cried when I wrote parts of this play? And I’m not a big cryer.
It can be cathartic. It can help you work through things in a way that also helps other people. I’ve had so many audience members tell me that what Amy went through resonated with them. That somehow, seeing a hard part of their own lives play out in front of them, on a stage, was beneficial. It made them understand that they hadn’t been alone in what they’d gone through. During Amy’s most difficult scenes, there was an almost palpable feeling of recognition rippling through audiences. I am not the only person who’s ever been a caregiver for a parent with Alzheimer’s.
Whatever has happened to you- whatever you’ve been through- others have experienced it to. What you write can resonate with them, if you write well. If you write with honesty. It may not have a therapeutic effect for them (or for you, for that matter), but there is value in making people feel seen and heard, and that is what writing about your difficult experiences can achieve.
November, historically, has been a very busy month for me, so I have never yet participated in National Novel Writing Month – although I was intrigued by the notion that you could write an entire first draft of a novel in one month. This year, my November has more free time in it, so I’ve taken the plunge and signed up for NaNoWriMo.
OK, let’s be honest. I didn’t sign up in the past because I was also completely intimidated by the idea of producing an enormous amount of wordage in one month. Of sticking to a daily schedule and meeting a daily word count. I’m still intimidated. I tend to write as ideas overtake me, which means I am not especially consistent in terms of a writing schedule. When I’m deep in the throes of a writing project, I can write for hours and hours. At other times, on other days, I do not write at all.
Can I really do this? I guess we’ll see.
Fortunately, NaNoWriMo allows you to decide on your own goals. Thus, instead of the 50,000-words that seem to be the default monthly objective, I established a more modest – yet still insanely ambitious – goal of 30,000 words, or 1,000 words a day. Even 1,000 words a day will be a challenge. A thousand words is A LOT.
I have a genre in mind – a thriller. I know who my main character is. I have a vague story arc mapped out, and some key events ready to help move the story forward. Is that enough? Help!
Have You Done NaNoWriMo?
I need to hear from writers who’ve participated in this initiative. If you are one of these brave souls, I have questions for you:
~Did you achieve your word count goals, daily and for the month?
~Did you find this kind of speed writing helpful, or not helpful? Did you end up with a piece of writing you could refine and develop into a full-length novel, or did the pressure to write quickly result in a bunch useless drivel? Were you able to publish or self-publish what you started during NaNoWriMo?
~Would kind of preparation did you do for NaNoWriMo? Did you develop a detailed outline? A list of fully-fleshed characters? Or…did you fly by the seat of your pants (which is largely what I’m going to do)?
And finally,
~Would you/are you going to do it again?
Or, Do You Think NaNoWriMo is Nonsense?
Is this approach gimmicky? Not the way real writers should practice their craft?
Whether you love NaNoWriMo, hate it or don’t care about it, I’d love to hear your opinion.
The title you bestow upon your book will determine whether or not a potential reader…reads past it. An uninteresting, poorly composes title will keep the reader – otherwise known as a buyer – moving right along, to other, better titled books.
Your title must give some indication about what the books is about, but it has to do much more than that. It has to be intriguing. It has to pique curiosity. It has to be like a siren song that draws the right readers to what you’ve written.
What do I mean by “right readers”?
Some writers delude themselves into thinking that literally everyone will be enthralled by what they’ve written. That is never the case. Readers have specific preferences. Someone who has bookshelves full of nonfiction tomes about military history and owns not one single book about vampire erotica (yes, that actually is a category) will not be interested in your book about vampire erotica. Don’t waste time on trying to lure that person in by trying to craft a title they’ll like.
Whatever it is you’ve written, whether it’s nonfiction or fiction, stage plays or poems, essays or graphic novels, there are readers for it. Your title has got to alert them to your work’s existence. Make them excited about it.
Start by studying the titles of other books in your category, especially the ones that are selling well. Are there words or phrases that are used in book after book? Pay attention to that. Book buyers use keywords and phrases when looking for something new to read. You will want to put your own spin on how keywords are used, of course, but keep the popular ones in mind as you compose your title.
As I mentioned earlier, your title should be intriguing in some way. I’ve written a number of stage plays. I decided to pull monologues from them and publish them as a separate book, entitled, Monologues for Actors (that directors aren’t sick of hearing). The title starts out fairly straightforward, then veers into more unexpected territory. Actors who are looking for monologues to use during auditions will get it. Using monologues that are not overly used may cause directors to pay more attention to them.
Some examples
The Rosebud Burglar: a Victorian Romance starts with two words that don’t seem to go together – to provoke curiosity – and follows them up with a description that makes the genre clear (a Victorian Romance). A nonfiction book I wrote has a title that includes a negative stereotype: The New Old Maid: Satisfied Single Woman. But wait! The word “New” signals that something is different about this book. Then “Satisfied Single Women” adds to that perception: something really is different. (And it is! I interviewed never-married women from all over the U.S. and all walks of life and found that they are leading happy, fulfilled lives.)
There’s no shame in click bait
So make your title so interesting that readers/buyers keep reading, and get to the brilliant description of synopsis you’ve written for your book. Make your title shameless click bait. Also- keep it fairly short. Customers are more likely to skim right past titles that are more than 60 characters in length.
Writers, there are some surefire ways to be absolutely certain that you will get rejected by literary agents. If you’re a masochist and you thrive on rejection, you’re gonna want to jot these down and do them. Those of you who are badass writers and actually want to see your work published should make a point of avoiding them.If you REALLY want to get rejected:spell the name of the agent or agency wrong in your query letter
If you REALLY want to get rejected:
spell the name of the agent or agency wrong in your query letter
query the agent about the kind of book they don’t handle or
(and this is my favorite) assure the agent that your book is going to be a best-seller that will make both of you MILLIONS.
#1 shouldn’t need any explanation, but I’ll give you one anyway. A misspelled name indicates that you’re sloppy. You haven’t paid enough attention to something that should be important to you: the person or agency who could turn you from a wannabe to a published author. It also strongly suggests that your manuscript will be rife with misspellings and typos. That may not be the case, but remember: literary agents are on the receiving end of many, many queries. They are looking for reasons to winnow that number down into something manageable, so they can determine if there is a potential winner in the pile. Don’t give them a reason to reject you before they even get a look at your manuscript.
#2 is, I’m sure, extremely aggravating to agents. Almost all of them specialize in specific genres. Like the rest of us, they have types of books they love to read, and types of books they do not. If you send your futuristic fantasy novel to an agent who mainly reps cookbooks, you are wasting both of your time. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. It’s very easy to find out what genres agents handle; just go to the agency’s website.
IF YOU WANT TO SKIP THE TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING ROUTE AND GET YOUR BOOK INTO THE HANDS OF READERS YOURSELF, SCROLL DOWN.
#3 shows a naivete that agents will no doubt want to steer clear of. You can certainly make your case about your book’s potential appeal to a vast swathe of readers, but finesse it. If/once your book is accepted by a literary agent, the proposal* that will be sent to publishers will have to be very specific about the demos of the readers your book will be targeting. You’re going to have come up with hard numbers for that. In the query letter to the literary agent, though, give them an overview of your intended readership.
I’ll delve into the art of query letter writing in another post.
*I’m putting together a free guide on book proposals. Check back later.
Too many wannabe writers stay in that wannabe category because they’re afraid of writing badly. Their internal critic kicks in – often before they’ve even started that writing project that’s been living in their head, screaming to get out.
Fear of failure can hobble you.
Understand that the first draft of anything is rarely good. Often, it’s a mess. If you’re writing fiction, it could be a jumble of cliched characters and ill-conceived plot points. If you’re writing nonfiction, it might be a disorganized presentation of the information you want to provide to readers.
You know where you want to go, but you don’t yet know how you’re going to get there.
Embrace the Mess
Push through your doubt, SHUT YOUR INTERNAL CRITIC UP, and write that first draft in a way that works for you. I like to use a stream-of-consciousness, jot-down-everything-that-occurs to me style. Figuring out how it all will come together comes later. For me. The premise must be in place first. For me.
Your first draft writing style might be different from mine. That’s ok. You might not yet know what your first draft writing style is. That’s ok, too. Experiment.
Whether you want to craft an outline or randomly write down ideas as they occur to you, I encourage you to not try and exert too much control over your material. Give it the freedom it needs to take you to interesting places – places that you may not have anticipated going.
As noted: it’s vital that you shut your inner critic up and get that first draft down. Don’t judge it. Don’t judge yourself when you write it.
Give yourself permission to suck when you write the first draft. It’s only a starting point, but it’s an absolutely necessary starting point.
After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. (You were wondering about that image, weren’t you?)
And by the way, when you have completed your brilliant novel/self-help book/how to book/memoir/nonfiction book:
It took me ten years to finish my first novel*. Ten freakin’ years. This was no Walt Whitman “Leaves of Grass” kind of thing, where I spent the time writing and rewriting, perfecting and fine-tuning and ended up with a masterpiece. No. There were false starts, long breaks and considerable time spent wallowing in self-doubt. Also, I had some fairly impressive excuses:
I moved several times during the novel writing process
I changed jobs
I lost two close family members
And did I mention how I spent time wallowing in self-doubt?
The first three items on the list may seem like legitimate excuses. The fourth – not so much.
It is almost miraculous that after several years-long breaks in the writing action, I was able to revive my initial enthusiasm for my story, go forward with it and finish it. Why? Because an estimated 97 percent of people who begin a novel never finish it. I didn’t just pull this figure out of my ass. I got it from a number of other bloggers, who pulled it out of their asses. Whatever the actual number, it’s a safe bet that many would-be writers of fiction, nonfiction, stage plays and other long-form works never complete their projects.
Are you one of them?
Writing like a badass means finishing your projects: taking a proverbial machete and hacking your way through the jungle of self-doubt in which we all find ourselves from time to time. YOU HAVE AN IDEA. Many people never have an idea, so that alone makes you special. Don’t let it die on the vine. In the jungle.
Enough with the metaphors.
Writing something long is a daunting task. I get it. And there is no guarantee that if you finish it, it will end up a best-seller or a National Book Award winner. So why put yourself through it? Because YOU HAVE AN IDEA. Suppress it or ignore it at your own peril. Regret is painful.
Here are three actionables to help you complete a big, daunting writing project:
Work on it every day. No kidding. Short on time, because you work, work out, drive the kids to soccer practice, blah blah blah? Set an alarm for ten minutes and write for ten minutes a day. Do it at the same time every day, so that the habit gets cemented into your schedule. Eventually, what is likely to happen is that the alarm goes off and you keep writing, because you’ve finally regained your enthusiasm.
Divide your project into small, bite-size pieces. If you’re working on a novel and haven’t created an outline, doing so will help you see it in manageable sections. Outlines are absolutely essential for many kinds of non-fiction books (and yours will come in handy when you are submitting to agents).
Speaking of small, write a short version or section of your very long project. This lets you back into it and helps you avoid that unpleasant feeling of intimidation. It can also be useful in drilling down into details, character backgrounds, plot twists that hadn’t occurred to you. A small version of a very long project can take the form of ~a short story based on your novel ~an article based on your nonfiction book ~ten-minute play based on your full-length play
The most important of these actionables (if you want to write like a badass) is #1. Write every day, even if what you’re turning out is garbage. Sooner or later, it will stop being garbage and start being what you want it to be. Writing every day will also reinforce your identity. If you don’t believe you are a writer, you won’t write.
Not like a badass, anyway.
Now go finish the damn thing.
For those who are curious, that ten-years-in-the-making novel was “Palm Tree Pipe Dreams.” It is a dystopian comedy about what happens in Southern California when traffic finally reaches critical mass and comes to a complete halt. I was never able to find a publisher for it, so I self-published. Click here to find it on Amazon. Even though it didn’t result in commercial success, I love this story and am glad I finished it. I needed the closure. I’m currently adapting it into a screenplay. (Movie production companies: get in touch!)
Are you a writer who is BLOCKED? You’ve got a germ of an idea for something you want to write, or maybe a work in progress or maybe even a work THAT IS ALMOST FINISHED, but you can’t move forward with it. You’re stuck. That brilliant novel, short story, memoir, play, essay, nonfiction book or WHATEVER is stuck somewhere inside of you – and it can’t get out. And that is uncomfortable as hell. There’s no stool softener that’s gonna fix THIS kind of constipationGet Those Creative Juices Flowing Again
Get Those Creative Juices Flowing Again
You are a writer because you have something to say. If you are not saying it, you have a problem. Badass writers don’t get creative constipation. We don’t get writer’s block. The only thing that gets in my way is time. Or lack thereof. I always have at least a half a dozen projects lined up, in various stages of ideation or completion. However, I wasn’t always a badass writer. It took me awhile to get here, and it may take you awhile, too. So until you reach that exalted status and join the club, here are ten ways to help you to unblock, and get those creative juices flowing again.
Meditate. Let those troublesome thoughts drift away. Stop worrying and obsessing about whatever is diverting your mental powers and give yourself over to thinking about…nothing. I prefer guided mediation. You can find these all over YouTube. Some are as quick as ten minutes, others are longer. Some guides have especially relaxing voices, others take you through physical actions, such as stretching your limbs or taking deep breaths. Find one that works for you, and do it. Regularly.
Work on several writing projects at once. What? How are you supposed to be able to finish anything if you jump from project to project? When you hit an impasse on one, jump to another. Let’s say you’ve come to a point in your novel where you just don’t know what’s going to – what should happen – next. Instead of trying to force the story to go in a particular direction, take a break from it, and write something else. Make notes for your next novel. Call Grampa and ask some questions that will help you with that memoir you’re writing. Changing things up can be very helpful.
Engage in some sensory deprivation. Go into a dark, quiet room and sit, unmoving. Set a timer for ten minutes.
Engage in some sensory stimulation. Light a scented candle or some incense, put on some mood music or sounds – again, Youtube is a great place to find this. You can set a timer for this, too, although I find that scents and sounds help me write.
Change locations. Take your laptop to a coffee shop, a park, a library. If you need quiet while you write, obviously you should choose a quiet location. Some people, however, may find it beneficial to be surrounded by sound and activity. I take my laptop to my backyard, and sit under a maple tree, enjoying the greenery around me and the sunshine overhead.
If you have access to a sauna (like, maybe, the one at your gym that you’ve never gotten around to using), use it. Get in there, lie down and close your eyes. Stay in there for awhile. This won’t just clear your pores; it’ll clear your head, too.
Participate in my Instagram #badasswriterchallenges. (I’ll be starting them soon.) Look at the image that I provide and write a paragraph based on it – and the starter sentence that goes with. Don’t like my images? Find one of your own, and write a paragraph or short story inspired by it. Who knows? What you write may turn out to be the basis of something much longer. Even if it doesn’t, writing prompts can be very effective in helping you get out of your own way. Badass writers do not get in their own way.
Here’s another image-based technique: find a picture of some stranger and use it to create a character. Come up with that person’s backstory, describe their personality, what they do for fun, what gets them into trouble, assemble details about where they live, how they live, who they live with. Like that. In many creative formats, you’re going to have to invent people. Characters. This exercise gets you in that groove.
Do something else that’s creative, something that has nothing to do with writing. Step away from your computer and spend time on a creative activity that makes you happy. Play your guitar, knit a scarf, paint a picture, macrame a cool wall hanging, sew a quilt, make jewelry, build a birdhouse. All creative activities stimulate your brain and enhance connectivity, so that when writing happens to be the creative activity you are doing, you can more easily access ideas – ideas that may have been percolating in your brain when you were making papier mâché apples to put in a papier mâché bowl. But the papier mâché contributed to the writing.
Stop writing. Put your project away and sleep on it. When I’m tired, I can find myself completely frustrated by something I’m trying to accomplish. When I approach the same problem the next morning, the solution comes to me, as if by magic. Yeah – the magic of a good night’s sleep! Scarlett O’Hara was right: Tomorrow is another day.
Do download the checklist that you see below. Don’t necessarily answer the items in the order they’re in. Wha??? (you’re asking yourself) Why not??? (still you)
How to Use the Checklist
Instead of going down the checklist and deciding on details in an orderly fashion, DO IT THE BADASS WAY. Listen to your gut. Go with what you feel strongest about first. For instance, you may not arrive at a name for a character until you’ve figured out what he or she looks like, or eats for breakfast, or fears the most, or dreams about. And notice I used the phrase, “arrive at.” When you are really in tune with your badass writing self, you won’t have to fight to come up with words. They will come to you. They will recognize the badass creative door that you’ve opened for them and make themselves available to you, without any struggle on your part.
Sounds New Age-y, doesn’t it? It’s not. Being a badass means that you will have the confidence as a writer (and a person, generally) to access your imagination. To acknowledge your instincts and let them play out, on the page. To give yourself permission to BE a writer.
You don’t have to supply every detail on this list, either. Write as many descriptives as it takes for your character to emerge as a tangible being – one that you can set in motion, strutting through your story, wreaking chaos or healing heartbreak, suffering misfortune or inflicting harm on others. If age, appearance and a name are enough to fully flesh out your characters, you’re done with the list! Early on, though, it may be helpful to you to complete it, as an exercise. You don’t have to use all of the characteristics you jot down here in your work. They can simply function as subtext – something beneath the surface that informs the writing you do.
Remember that characters change throughout stories. They’re supposed to, in fact: that change is called an arc. For that reason, avoid falling too much in love with the fictional people you create. That could lead to you being rigid and resisting changes when your characters and storylines are telling you that they are needed.
About Stage Plays
It should go without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway): in stage plays, only use physical descriptions that are absolutely essential to the action of the play. (Don’t specify that a character should be tall if their height is irrelevant.) Keep in mind: the audience is not going to be reading the descriptions. Directors and actors are, for casting and character development purposes.
You may include:
Gender, age, race and regional background IF those things are important, such as if a character has a New England accent (that’s where the regional background comes in).
Personality traits and mannerisms, if they are essential to our understanding of the character. “He is an easy-going man who is uncomfortable with conflict.” “She appears eager to please, but there is a barely suppressed rage just beneath the surface.” “Her movements convey impatience.”
About Using Real People as Inspiration
Do it! There is absolutely nothing wrong with basing your characters on people you know – as long as they’re interesting. However, to prevent hurt feelings, make sure you change names and a few essential details, so Uncle Rufus does NOT realize that the foul-mouthed, abusive alcoholic in your story was inspired by him. No sense getting Uncle Rufus on your bad side, or stirring up family drama.
Use yourself, too. What you’ll find, as you progress as a BADASS WRITER, is that even characters that are drawn from your real life – acquaintances, relatives, loved ones – will evolve into composites. In one play I wrote, “The Bucket List of Booze Club,” several of the characters had experiences that mirrored mine, but were also distinctly different from me. Amy, had an emotional a monologue about giving her mother, who had Alzheimer’s, showers, and how her mother seemed so vulnerable at those times, so afraid of falling. My mother had Alzheimer’s. I gave her showers, and tried to allay her fears about falling. However, Amy was also a talented baker who was trapped in a lifeless marriage – neither of which applied to me. Another character, Jen, complained about bad first dates with men she met online. Jen’s hilarious stories were drawn from my bad first dates I had with men I met online! (At least I got something out of them.)
In a novel I wrote, “Palm Tree Pipe Dreams,” the protagonist is a wanna-be screenwriter from the Midwest who is living in L.A. and working as a low echelon, much-abused admin for a successful talent agent. I was a wanna-be screenwriter from the Midwest living in L.A. and working as a low echelon, much-abused admin for a successful talent agent…who also appears in the novel. I changed his name, but kept his self-centered, smug, patronizing personality.
Interested in self-publishing your book on Amazon but have no idea how to do it? Scroll down.
What is their race? I’d love to say that race doesn’t matter, but it does. Usually. It is one of the first things we notice about someone, along with gender and age. Don’t be afraid to assign a specific race to a character, and it doesn’t have to be your race. (See my blog post on the worst writing advice ever.)
What is their gender? Or are they gender fluid, or nonbinary, or transitioning from one to the other, or…?
Describe their physical appearance and the way they present themselves. I added that latter part to keep this as broad as possible. The things you note here can be permanent or temporary, such as short, thin, loves colorful clothes, fat, appears uncertain, balding, voluptuous, has a limp, smiles incessantly, tall, energetic, soft-spoken, confident, weary, etc. Don’t limit yourself to the obvious. (Read my blog post on Badass Character Descriptions That Will Inspire You.)
Family background: Did the character grow up with a single mom, or in a two-parent household, or with two same-sex parents, or with parents of different races/cultures/religions so there were clashes? Were they raised by a grandparent, an only child, a twin, one of many siblings, a middle child, the baby of the family, the oldest one? Did the family moved around a lot, stay in the same house for decades, have lots of stability, have no stability because of…? (Mental illness, substance abuse, etc.) Did they grow up working class, middle class, poor, wealthy? Our childhoods have a profound effect on how we are as adults. Give some thought to the familiar circumstances that shaped your character’s character.
What are some major events in their lives that have affected them? There will be some overlap here with the family background section, and that’s ok. Did a parent die young? Did they adopt a child? Get molested as a child? Win the lottery? Lose the big game? Witness a murder? Get featured on a sports arena jumbotron with a person who was not their spouse? Spend time in prison? Spend time as a caregiver for a loved one? Win a nationwide singing competition? Were they in a car accident that changed the trajectory of their life? Did they do something heroic? Something cowardly?
Where is the character from? What country, or state or region; a big city, a suburb, a small town, a rural area, a remote village. Did they start out in one place and move to another at an impressionable age?
What are they passionate about (if anything)? Hobbies? Interests? Are there activities they’ve always wanted to try, but haven’t yet? Are there things that broke them? Are they passionate about nothing? If so, why? Did an early disappointment in life teach them that embracing things enthusiastically is risky?
What do they love? Who do they love? Why do they love?
What do they fear? What do they dream of?
Who do they admire? Who do they despise? Who do they feel close to?
What are their political or religious beliefs? Do those differ from those of the people in their lives – people who are close to them or who they work with or deal with? Are they contrarians, or do they go along with the crowd?
What do they hope to achieve in life? (Or have they already achieved it?)
What do they regard as their biggest failure? Their biggest success?
How would you describe a character’s relationships with the other characters in your story? Yeah, this gets complicated. Relationships, though, are the beating heart of fiction and drama, so give them plenty of attention. They can be simple, tangled, tortured, dysfunctional, bitter, loving or fractious. They will also change, or be revealed, during the tale you’re telling. Think about the relationships in your own life. The closer you are to someone, the likelier that your relationship with them has many layers, some healthy and supportive, some negative and frustrating.
Is there something about writing that you want to get off your chest?
Is there advice you wish you’d been given or a warning that would have prevented some frustration on your part? (Notice that I said some. If you’re a writer, or going to be a writer, you need to make friends with frustration, because it is going to be at your side and in your head a lot.)
Is there part of my Write Like a Badass approach that you want to call bullshit on? Or has something I’ve read or said helped you in your writing?
Do you get irritated when you read lousy writing that has been published by a major publisher, while your work of genius has gotten rejected again and again?
Want to boast about your success? Tell us how you did it? Rub our noses in it, even?
Do you want to share your knowledge about a particular writing genre? Tell us why you love writing antebellum vampire cozy mystery comedies or nonfiction books about bringing feng shui to closets?
Want to tell people how you successfully promoted your self-published book?
Do you feel like your work is being overlooked because it represents a viewpoint that is not mainstream (whatever that word means)?
Would you like to tell us why your membership in a writers’ group that meets and critiques has been worthwhile or a waste of time?
Do you just need to vent about the writing life?
Whatever writing topic is burrowing in your mind right now, squirming to get out and see daylight, might make a damn good post. By damn good, I mean something that would, in some way, be beneficial to the people who read this stuff. Both good and bad experiences offer useful lessons, so feel free to get ugly with it. Badass writers aren’t afraid of ugly.
Why bother? Putting your writing out there on a public forum is risky. That’s good for you. You will be engaging with your fellow writers, who will, in all probability, comment on your post. There’s a good chance that some commentors will be supportive. YOthers will not. Some will likely be negative, and that’s good. It will give you practice in dealing with criticism.
Write a blog post and send it to me. If it’s any good, I’ll post it and let you know that I’ve posted it.
-Give me 300 to 1,000 words. -Use your real or name or a pseudonym. -Link to you own website or social media if you want to. (NEVER miss an opportunity to promote yourself.) -Include a photo of yourself if you want to.
Send your blog post to: howtowritelikeabadass@gmail.com. When you do that, you give me the right to post your piece on my blog, but you retain ownership of it.
Write Like a Badass 