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.
The why is easy. You want to keep a record of the people, companies, theatres etc. that you have sent your work to – or sent a query letter to – so that you don’t: • Duplicate submissions (which will waste your time and piss the submittees* off) • Miss submitting to someone you should submit to (which may prevent you from getting published or produced)
I recommend using an Excel worksheet. It’s easy to use and does everything you need it to do. If you have another program that you prefer, use it. There is no one way to do this.
What should your spreadsheet include?
• The name of your work – this can either be a column, or you can have an entire tab devoted to one work. • The name and title of the person or company or organization you’re submitting to. • The name of the publishing company, theatre company, publication or whatever organization it is that you are sending to. • What you’re sending. Is it a query letter? The first ten pages or three chapters? A synopsis? What goes in this column will depend upon what the submittee says he or she wants you to send. You can find this information on the company’s website. Do not ignore it. If a literary agent wants a synopsis and the first five pages, do NOT send the entire novel or nonfiction book because it is so brilliant, so well-written THAT YOU ARE CERTAIN the agent will want to read the entire thing, not just five pages. If the agent likes those pages, he or she will ask to see the entire manuscript. Disregarding instructions is a BIG red flag; you are letting the agent know that you will be difficult to work with. Likewise, if a publisher says they don’t accept unagented work and you don’t have an agent, don’t send to them out of an overabundance of confidence. It will be a wasted effort.
You may NEVER get a response
Sadly, many cells in this column will stay blank. You often won’t hear back from agents or publishers – even those who say they are open to submissions. Accept that fact right now, so you won’t pine away for an acknowledgement that you exist. That you write. Some agents will answer you, but that will almost always take a looooooong time. Agents get a lot of submissions. Don’t think about that. It will only depress and discourage you. If you are determined to be a writer, write and submit. Rinse and repeat. Screw the competition.
If you actually DO get a response-
Keep notes about them. I might write something like: “nice rejection email – it’s in agent folder.” That tells me to check that email I saved the next time I submit a (different) work to that agent. I might use the comments in their email, to remind them that they liked my writing the last time. “I appreciated the positive feedback and constructive criticism you gave me on my novel, ‘Palm Tree Pipe Dreams.’” With that, I am reminding the agent that even though they did not decide to represent me, there was something about my writing that they liked. If an agent absolutely HATED my work (and they will rarely admit to that), I jot that down, too, so that I don’t waste time sending to them in the future.
Other things to keep track of
Make note of things you learn that will save you time and effort going forward. Things like: • Ms. QPOEIREWPOIU is no longer with this agency. • This agency is no longer in business. • This agency says it no longer accepts submissions. Like that. Information that will help you going forward. A lot of the above is relevant for fiction, nonfiction, short stories, plays and other creative endeavors. You can also keep a spreadsheet when applying for paid writing assignments or for full- or part-time writing jobs.
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.
The only reason a writer should self-publish is if they are unable to land a deal with a publishing company, right? And the only reason a writer can’t get a book deal with a publishing company is because their book isn’t good enough, right? They’re losers.
At one time, self-publishing did have a stigma attached to it. That still may be the case among some snobs at elite publishing houses, but since I’m not invited to dinner parties at their luxury Manhattan apartments, or to summer weekends at their Hampton estates, I don’t care what they think.
Neither should you.
The internet has had a democratizing effect on publishing. When you look up a book on Amazon, is it immediately apparent whether or not the book has been published by, say, Simon & Schuster or by you? Sure, if you scroll down and squint at the fine print, you’ll see the publisher’s name, but it’s not what you’re going to base your decision on. You’ll have already been intrigued by the title, or the cover art, or the synopsis.
The point is: the self-publishing option has helped level the playing field.
And there are some good reasons for self-publishing instead of attempting the traditional route:
Fewer hoops to jump through. Most major publishers won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. They will only consider submissions from established literary agents. That means you have to first get an agent to represent you, and then that agent must try to get your book placed with a publisher. If you want to try this, get ready for a lengthy and arduous process that involves researching agents to find ones that would be a fit for your book, writing and sending query letters to those agents (some of which you’ll never get a response to) and then, if a miracle happens and one agrees to rep you, formulating book proposals for the publishers your agent will query. If you self-publish, your book can be available online quickly.
Numbers. You are up against tens of thousand of other writers who are also querying literary agents.
Time. Let’s say your dream comes true and your manuscript gets accepted by a publisher. It could take two years until your book actually gets published. The wheels grind slowly at these big companies. I don’t know about you, but…tick tock. Two years???
Support – or lack thereof. Publishers tend to focus their attention on their big moneymakers, not on newbie authors. James Patterson gets plenty of marketing and promotional support. You won’t necessarily feel the same love. Even if you’re published, your book could minimal marketing attention.
Control. This has both pros and cons. As a self-published writer, you have total control over your book’s cover art, back cover description, marketing, etc. For some writers, that’s a relief. For others, it’s frustrating. Once you sign a contract with a publisher, you relinquish a great deal of control over your book.
Writers who self-publish aren’t losers. They are making the choice to not let the traditional publishing industry control their writing destiny and prevent them from doing what they want to do: get their books into the hands of readers.
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.
You’ve heard of J.K. Rowling. Love her or hate her, ya gotta admit: the woman has sold some books. 450 million of them. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” – the first in the series – was rejected by 12 different publishers. It finally sold, but her editor advised her to stick with her day job – which was teaching – because she probably wasn’t going to be able to make a living as a writer.
“Gone With the Wind” was given the thumbs down 38 times before Margaret Mitchell finally found a publisher for it.
A Bucket of Pig’s Blood
Stephen King’s manuscript “Carrie”? 30 different publishers said, “no” to it. It was finally accepted, sold more than a million copies, got made into movies – you know the Carrie story. The bucket of pig’s blood, up in the rafters – yikes!
“M*A*S*H*” – it was a book, then a movie and then an iconic and long-running TV series. Twenty-one publishers turned down Richard Hooker‘s book. One finally saw it’s worth. All it takes is one.
Agatha Christie – her first novel never got a nod from a publisher. Never. She didn’t let that stop her. She wrote another novel. It finally found a publisher only because she agreed to change the ending. Sometimes ya gotta be flexible. Ms. Christie went on to publish 71 more novels.
A Time to Kill…Publishers
Dr. Seuss – turned down by 27 publishers. What? Now, you can read Theodor Seuss Geisel’s many published books in the air. You can read them anywhere.
John Grisham’s first novel, “A Time to Kill” – rejected many times. Finally picked up by a small publisher, who printed 5,000 copies. It didn’t sell well, until he wrote more novels and they became bestsellers, and then his fans went back and found “A Time to Kill.”
William Faulkner, James Patterson – I really shouldn’t mention those in the same breath, I know – but they do have something in common: their first novels collected MANY rejection slips from publishers. They persevered. If Louisa May Alcott took rejections to heart and stopped submitting to publishers, we wouldn’t have “Little Women.”
“The Diary of Anne Frank,” a book that has had an extraordinary impact on our public psyche, was turned down by 15 publishers before one that recognized how extraordinary it was. Through it, the memory of Anne Frank and all those who suffered during the Holocaust lives on.
The Takeaway
The lesson here is obvious. If you believe in your work, don’t let rejections get in your way. Badass writers reject rejection. Keep submitting. If you don’t believe in your work, no one else will.
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.
Write Like a Badass 