Thursday, March 10, 2011

10,000 Words Down!

So, this morning I came in to work early like I usually do to avoid the bulk of the Atlanta traffic, and I set to finishing the chapter I was working on. A little over a thousand words later I had finished the chapter, and passed the 10,000 word barrier. If anything means that it's real I think that writing 10,000 words does.

So there are some pretty good characters being introduced. I might take some time tonight and consolidate some facts about them in to my character sheets. I would like to take my main three characters, and kind of plot out where they are at the beginning of the book, and where they will end up at the end of the book. What will their emotional journey be like? What events will be significant to them? How will these events change them?

Does anyone else have experience with character sketches that could offer some advice on how to plan characters so that they grow throughout a book? I'm sure my plan will be fine, but experience would be nice too.

1 comment:

  1. I think what helped me is to imagine my characters as real people. People have a past, they have stories, relatives, etc. Even if you never tell your reader ALL the information about a character, if you imagine it yourself it can help you to more realistically control how that character acts.

    For example, if you had a character whose parents were killed when he/she was a little kid (a little cliche I know) and this made them a complete jerk then use that. You don't even have to tell us that his/her parents died until way later in the novel, just as long as you know.

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