Comments on: character arc 5: Aha! moments

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:13:14 +0000

Hi Sri (aka S)! Nice to see you here.

Hmm. That’s an interesting question. I’ll try to get to it next, after I’ve answered today’s question.

Thanks for asking it!

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:11:46 +0000

Ehle, I do think in the ideal world, that the WHAT would come out of the WHY. But sometimes, my brain just doesn’t work like that. I’d say it was because of the process of writing those two particular novels; I probably started writing them both too early, before I’d let the character fully grow in my head. Then again, maybe the writing itself made the character grow. That’s more likely.

As long as the final character is all of a piece, then it’s good. How you get there, is different every time.

By: sri

sri — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:09:38 +0000

Donno why it reduced my name to S in that comment.

By: s

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:08:59 +0000

Hi Julie,

Wanted to come out of lurking and say wow! Listening to your process really is opening up my mind to some new processes of my own. And also to help me realize what my own pitfalls are. I write category romance. While I have the GMCs and the character arcs of the Hero and Heroine pretty well thought out in my head before I start writing, my problem is in how I execute that journey , how they learn that life lesson.
I try to make sure the scenes flow from their motivations and conflict and not the other way around but I fall into the trap of writing a scene and then pretzel the characters into why they’re doing that.
If it’s not too much trouble, can you go over some more examples of how you come up with the scenes where the Character is learning something new or resolves to act in a new way that challenges their initial belief.

Even if you don’t have time to answer my question, thank you so much again for this.

Sri.

By: Ehle

Ehle — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:23:23 +0000

Thing is, what I’d been doing hadn’t always worked for me. It was hit or miss, really. I’d always been so obsessed with the WHY and how that translated into the WHAT that I completely forgot to consider to flip it around and let the WHAT help clue me in to the WHY. Does that make sense? I don’t think so! I’m on 3 hours of sleep.

I ain’t even gonna pretend I watch ANTM for the life lessons. I watch it for the drama and the snark and because I can turn it on and tune it out. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from it anyway. You’d be amazed how many Jades I’ve avoided since I got a close-up look at how one worked.

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:44:06 +0000

There are some very valuable life lessons on America’s Next Top Model. That’s why I watch it. Um, really.

I don’t know about “bass-akwards”; really whatever works for you, works. I’m just saying how I do things, or how I’ve ended up doing things. In a lot of cases I’d recommend you NOT do things my way, because I have been in a world of suckage with my last two books until I figured out where I was going.

By: Ehle

Ehle — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:32:00 +0000

Thanks for answering, Julie! I had an “aha” moment myself while reading it. All this time, I’ve been doing the character thing bass-ackwards.

I love what you said about heroines needing to be flawed, but still likable. Every time I see a heroine called “Too Stupid to Live” — even if she deserves it — I’m reminded of just how hard it is to create a character who has problems, without creating a character who is the problem.

Another top model quote for you: “People don’t like frailty; they like vulnerability. There’s a slight difference between those words.”

Talk about fierce.