 Action/Adventure: November 25, 2020 Issue [#10489] |
This week: Character Edited by: Storm Machine  
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“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”
(The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan) |
| ASIN: 197380364X |
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Amazon's Price: $ 15.99
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The journey becomes different for all of us because of what we bring with us. Sounds that are utterly normal to one person - like I grew up on a farm, so I was accustomed to listening to the sounds of a rural life, where sometimes in the heat you could hear the corn grow, and insects were often part of the background noise at night - are completely alien to someone else.
When I moved in with my husband, we lived in a small city. A train went by at certain times of night. It was much different from life at home on the farm.
When you write your characters - where they come from matters. It might be the small things like knowing there's a mountain in the distance or seeing endless rows of corn or soybeans or even having the ocean's dull roar in the background. These characters on an adventure are going to notice different things as they go through different areas. They may miss that mountain or that pasture - but they'll also notice different pieces as they go forward into the new areas in front of them. That mountain they've never seen will be huge if they're from flat lands like the middle of Missouri or Kansas. The sky seems bigger in Montana than in the rolling hills of Iowa, Minnesota, or South Dakota.
Sometimes that's what we're missing in those long fantasy sagas or other adventures with a lot of different terrain. We need to see it through your character's eyes and experiences, which means first grounding us in what is normal and second bringing us what is new and different. Immerse your reader as you would be inundated through the differences in terrain and also culture.
I know I often have to keep a list next to me of what my viewpoint character is accustomed to, so I remember what would be normal and the things they see, hear, and smell are not normal. Sometimes it's hard to keep straight what would be normal to my characters that is not normal to me - like the hum of that space ship constantly in the background. It wouldn't sound anything like that humidifier that annoys me through the winter, but I could imagine that it could become an irritant to someone who wasn't accustomed to it.
We're supposed to get used to these things eventually, right? But November to March isn't long enough and I always hear it in the background, and I'm grateful as soon as we can shut it down in spring. Can you identify these things in your own environment that are different for a season or that you do or don't miss when they go away?
Whether we're writing a contemporary mystery or an exotic adventure, we need to ground our readers in the details of what is normal and what isn't in whichever world we dream. You can create whatever you like in this backdrop, whether it's puce wallpaper from an eccentric previous owner that the current inhabitants can't quite afford to replace or the insects outside the window that we've never heard before that may or may not be squeaking out the protagonist's name. What is that little detail that makes the world more clear to you? Does it bring that point home to the readers, or has it not translated well to the page? The call to adventure is waiting for you to bring it home. |
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| |  | Cave Hunters (E)
A trio of children explore a flooded cave...although one has a different idea of fun.
#2237179 by Wintersage  |
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Monty 
For years I made sometime to write every day, now when I feel like it. Always Poetry.
Glad you still make some time for it.
WakeUpAndLive~"HoHoHo" 
Great newsletter on Nano, so I had to react. A few days before the end of October I suddenly got the urge to sign in for Nano. It's not that I have a novel outlined in my head, nothing of the sort. It's just that I am in a good place writing these past two months. Good enough to give Nano a go. I only have a title. But then again I am a pantser when it comes to writing. So, a very big adventure for 30 days, writing 1675 words each day. I do hope I'm going to make it through. Just winging it, I suppose!
I hope you're doing well on your NaNo adventure!
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