Characters Pt.1

Read “Characters Make Your Story” by Maren Elwood. It’s old, written in 1942 (reprinted in 1966) but I’ve been finding it incredibly useful! I don’t care how great of a writer you are, or how long you’ve been writing. This book is brilliant! Here's the list of some of the chapters I've found especially useful, along with a small synopsis of what they cover -

"The Importance of Characterization" covers what the book is about, how it can help you, and what it will cover. I normally don't read introductions as I find them long, boring, and tedious, especially when I know I can just cut right to the action. But even this section I found useful 

"Appearance Only" is probably one of my favorite chapters as it doesn't just focus on character traits but really what makes a fictioanl person come alive in just the simplest ways such as the "way [a woman] wears her hat" (pg. 41) 

"Listen to Him Speak" is another great chapter as it really helped me figure out how my characters should be. Who they are, ad what and how they would say things. Especially in the section about "Tone and Voice Modulation" on page 68 because it's hard to make this come alive on paper. If you're watching a movie you can hear it, or if you can't hear then you can at least match facial expressions to the subtitles. They convey this on paper you have to essentially do the same thing...with only words working in your favor, and the goal of those words are to get the reader to see it in their mind. A process which is by far harder. But this chapter really hones in on how to get it done. 

I could easily go on, but I think I will leave it leave it at this for now, though I do wish to add one more useful thing about this book: At the end of each chapter there's a list of ways to apply what you've learned into your own life. This is the "Method of Study" chapter, and the exercises listed here are generally quite helpful. 

All in all, please read this book. It could save your characters from being forced to come to life at your hands and instead morph naturally on their own.

As a side note: I found a blog called "Cute Boys" and I almost skipped past it because of the title, but as I read on I realized two things. First is that it is not actually just a blog about how cute certain men are. And two: It's a blog (that to me) can help with characterization, and gave me a few ideas on how to create characters and incorporate intriguing aspects to them. Hence the reason I added the blog's URL to my own favorite links list below