I really don't have much to say about Story of the Dead this week; it's coming slowly lately and I'm still working to jump the hurdle that is Chapter 12. :annoyed2: But I'm thinking as soon as I pass it, I'll shoot ahead, at least until the next snag, which I'm assuming will be at about the time the Dark Hunters arrive, probably not until Chapter 15 or later. (Yes I did just give you a spoiler.)

This is a really long one, so we'll now be moving right along to the...

Writing Tip of the Week

This week, as the title of this entry suggests, is about how to create a character - hero or villain or love interest or best friend or ninja sensei or little sister or (so on and so on), it doesn't matter. This is a nearly fool-proof way to create a sound, believable character. Note that this tip isn't written with Bionicle in mind like most of my tips are - this is to create a human or humanoid character. You could probably use the same thing to create Bionicle characters, though.

The next time you have some idle time, just close your eyes so you only see through your mind's eye, into your imagination. (I apologize for the flowery language but this whole idea is so romantically poetic ) Normally when you close your eyes, you see darkness. Maybe a few random colored blobs. Well, I see in vivid detail people and detailed scenes playing out in my head when I close my eyes, and all I need to do is give them a little attention for them to appear. With your eyes closed, just try to imagine a person there. Don't think too hard about how the person looks, because then you'll be controlling it too much; you want this concept for a character to be completely from your subconscious. It's like how your mind creates a dream character - it just randomly generates a person even if you've never seen anyone who looks like that in your life. Eventually the character will appear.

Once you're this far and you've got the mental image of your character, look at her (using female pronouns because the first character I ever did this with was a girl and saying him/he, his/hers, he/she gets really annoying after a while). Note her appearance and try to keep that first mental image in your head as the "finalized concept art" of your character - do not reimagine anything about her later. Next try to pick out everything abnormal about her. My character, when she first appeared to me, had her face covered in tattoos and looked gloomy; her clothes were uninteresting but her shoes were oddly bright red. And she was standing in a subway station. The more you focus on the abnormal parts of your character, the more real that image of her will become to you.

The next steps can be hard because they involve completely bypassing all logic and being willing to believe completely ridiculous things... Blotting out all sense of doubt, tell yourself that this character is a real person and exists in your subconscious world. (To me, metaphorically, the mind is kind of like a stack of three "worlds" on top of each other: The top is the conscious world where your conscious thoughts occur and it's pretty empty and small. The second one down is the subconscious world where your dreams take place - there's an entire universe in there and that's where stories happen. And the bottom world is the unconscious world which is sort of empty but it's where characters and ideas come from.) Then go into your subconscious mind - this will probably require closing your eyes again and being in a near-sleep state - find your character, and talk to her.

Not only does this get in mind her voice and how she acts around other people (for example, my character was shy and she tended to look away from me when she talked), it gets you to know about her. Her past, her future plans, her secrets, her accomplishments... It's kind of like an interview that takes place completely within your own mind. And this kind of thing should probably be done when you don't need to have any kind of contact with the real world at all. I tend to find myself going into a "trance" where I have to consciously shake myself out of this world before I can move or even hear in the real world. A long car ride or when you're trying to get to sleep are good times for this.

Mentally note any observations you have during this "interview" and then move onto the next step. Become the character. Going into the trance I described earlier, put yourself in the subconscious world and manifest your subconscious self as the character, not yourself. This can be awkward and forced at first, but you'll eventually fall into it, like an actor who gets into their role so much that they practically are the character they're playing. Once you've done this, you should have a really great feel for the character. You should know her at least as well as you know your best friends, and probably as well as you know yourself. I routinely switch from my own personality to the personality of my character, in fact, and can do it more or less at will.

The big thing here is asking yourself the question "What is my (or my character's) goal?" Your character can actually answer this for you, or you'll answer it for yourself if you are the character at that time. My character told me simply that she wanted to be free, which told me I had a hero character on my hands who readers would probably be able to sympathize with. Taking the details of her life I already knew, I put her in a scene and started writing. That's your next step.

Write while you're being the character, paying attention to what your character senses - write down exactly what she sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes. That's the key to writing good description that will hook the reader in and make the reader become your character as well. At this point, the character is done and she should be so real that you can have a mental conversation with her at will.

Generally by the level of attachment you have to a character you can get a feel for if they're going to be a main character or a minor character. From their goal, you can tell if it will be a hero or a villain. Usually the first character that rises to your head will be the main hero. But I suppose it could happen differently. As you go through this process, you'll develop a cast of characters (and quite likely schizophrenia as well, but as far as I'm concerned, as long as I know the voices in my head are my characters, I'm not too concerned ). You may or may not already have a setting, but if not that's the next thing you'll want. And so for the next tip, I'll tell you how to make a good setting.