 Short Stories: March 20, 2024 Issue [#12466] |
This week: Character Mapping Edited by: Lilli 🧿 ☕  
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“Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.”
~ Elizabeth Bowen
“If you’re inviting people into a story, invite them into all parts of it. Inhabit each character as fully as possible.”
~ Nikole Beckwith
“It’s the characters. That’s what I spend most of my time with. Once I’ve done that, character will speak to plot and story.”
~ Craig Borten
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Whatever method you use to keep your facts straight, it’s got to be done. Readers will catch inconsistencies and call you out on them. For example, if at the beginning of the story you write that Rachel’s best friend is Pam and that she drives a Chevy, then later say her name is Sam and she drives a Ford... well, someone will catch that. I’ve been known to go back a chapter or two for clarification when something sounds off. I doubt I’m the only one to do that.
With that in mind, it got me wondering how other writers keep their facts straight. Online I’ve found a variety of templates, geared for every genre. Some of them are pages long and meant to be filled out for each character. It can be exhausting and overwhelming, to say the least. Regardless, we have to keep certain facts consistent.
Depending on the length of a story I’m writing dictates how much information I need to establish before writing. Here’s an example of some character information that may be helpful to think about before writing begins.
 Character Name / Nickname
Sex, age, and sexual orientation
Where is the person from
Friends
Family members
Occupation
Appearance (hair and eye color, height, etc)
Marital/Relationship status
Habits (smokes, bites nails, etc)
Personality traits (active, passive, anxious, dependable, etc)
Knowing a few things about your character will help you determine how they act and react, their conversation style, mannerisms, etc. While certainly not required, it just might help. Let me know in the comment section below how you keep your characters straight! |
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Joy  wrote:
I so agree with you on this. I don't mind the small fonts all that much, but no paragraphs get to me, too. Like you, I skip reading a. piece of prose if it has no visual breaks.
Nice NL and thanks for bringing this problem to the open.
Bikerider  wrote:
Your Formatting and Why It's Important newsletter caught my attention. Just minutes ago, I reviewed a story that had a very small font. In the review I suggested that the author use a larger font in the future. I, like you, will sometimes pass on reading a story because of its small font and no separation of paragraphs. I hope your newsletter get a wide readership.
brom21 wrote:
I agree. I hate it when I am reading work from a WdC member and all I see is this huge overwhelming block of text. On the other hand, I also dislike it when the author puts a space between every three lines albeit this usually happens with dialog, but it still bugs me. lol. Good NL!
dragonwoman wrote:
A reviewer once said she found the story hard to read with breaks between paragraphs,distracting in fact. As the story was a lot of dialogue, every speech by a character was a new paragraph. I thanked them for the review and did what I was comfortable with. Thanks for choosing my story about historic house tours.
Beholden  wrote:
Yay, you picked my short story, Tut's Cell, to put amongst all the others' contributions to your Editor's Picks section. Thanks for that indeed!
And hear, hear, about font sizes and gaps between paragraphs. One gets tired of suggesting such things to those who throw hard-packed snowballs of text at you.
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