Flash Fiction For Your Audience

There are a lot of things you can do to rev up your writing. Sometimes, the mental exhaustion takes over even when you are ready to write. Those moments mean that what you are working on is too on the front burner and your brain is melting down as a result.

The best method: Flash fiction.

Flash fiction is taking three components and making it into a story.

Take an object, a character, and a place.

Then, make a story out of it.

The story doesn’t have to be good. It shouldn’t always be something you want to save or keep forever. It is a way to push those ideas forward, get yourself in the mood for writing and return to those things that you want to write about.

News reporting in many ways uses the flash writing beast the best. A snap of the fingers, too many little stories, little components in order to develop your writing. Forget the bad sentences, the wrong paragraphs or terminal edits. This is about you developing a small story to push yourself back into the writing mode.

That object: apple.

That character: A fat worm.

A place: On the kitchen counter.

Now, think of the possibilities. A lot of them. Including a side character who walks in on the worm coming out of the apple on the kitchen counter and shrieks. Or maybe the person eats the worm out of indifference (extra protein). Or what if its from the view of the worm, who gets stuck in the apple and is screaming as the human comes forward with a knife (or drops the worm’s living remains in the trash compactor).

A lot of ideas just came to me in this. It builds a story quick. Maybe its funny, maybe not. But who cares. It gets me in that writing mood. And that’s what counts.

Writing more influences for your characters

I thought I would share something that’s been bothering me as I read short stories or novels, especially mass produced ones. They rarely let the characters influence each other.

What I mean by that is how characters don’t react in stories. They simply do their part because “that’s what the storyline says to do.”

My thought is that characters can change the way other characters in the story are pushed. It may change the story altogether.

Writing tools:

Anyone can make art out of a girl with a gun. I think it takes a skilled writer to develop something out of a girl without a gun, who has to do the same thing. That to be separates the “men from the boys” in terms of how someone manages to cope without the very thing which would make their role easier in a story.

An example:

Five men are standing in a police lineup. A woman is behind non-reflective glass, watching with a detective, who asks her to point out her attacker. She squints, says she doesn’t know, but the detective is insistent. Says that he can help her if she doesn’t tell anybody. The woman is unsure, doesn’t know what to do. The detective tells her that he knows the man that did it, he just needs her to point the suspect out so they can bring him to trial. He badgers her, saying pointing to the man on the far left, saying that is the one who didn’t, is he? The woman finally points at the man on the far left, because he looks like he might be the guy who attacked her in the park, because she wants the detective to stop yelling at her. She cries, the detective dismisses the three suspects, he tries to comfort her, the woman backs away, waiting to be alone.

This shows how influence of other people can make your character “react” to something. One pushes the other, but it doesn’t mean a whole influence. Your two characters still breathe, have to think for themselves. It all depends on how you use your writing tools.

Conversations Conveying Information

Conversation is not an art. It is pieces of information segmented together, hopefully with a little more sense even though it does not have the benefit of being an edited sentences. Much like my blog posts. Huh? Ain't that a kick? Now, I'm making fun of myself which doing a blog about writing.

People who talk rarely make grammatical sentences. And as they speak, they develop a specific code that some can follow, others can't. That is the way of the world. That's why some have the gift of gab, while others just talk and never get to the point.

I had a brief conversation with two people that appeared as if it had a lot of information between the three of us which was conveyed, but it was hard to ascertain what the final outcome was.

Most of it was the environment. We were in a loud bar. There were things going on. Plus, it was hard to know whether each of us should share too much of what we said. It might gets us in a little trouble.

Not enough trouble to be career-threatening. But still, you don't hear every exact thing someone says, even when they say it in a quiet place.

Sometimes people talk very fast, or are boring enough that don't listen.

I hate going out to dinner with someone. Right when some important information is shared, some waiter comes up and interrupts the conversation. By the way, when did that become part of the American server model? Shouldn't you wait until the conversation is lighter between the two people at a table? I would think that would result in a larger tip.

I had a habit of talking over people. My friends hate it, but when you grow up with multiple family members all fighting to speak, you tend to do it.

Plus, some people keep talking and babble.

Yes, I'm talking about you. I write a lot of babble. So, there, it's both of us.

Funny story that happened recently regarding conversation.

At a all-night fast food drive-thru, talking into a speaker system to a faceless guy at a place that rhymes with Jack-In-The-Box, I tried to order extra cheese for my friend who wanted them on his curly fries. The guy on the PA didn't respond. I repeated the extra cheese order. Again, no response. I said it a third time, he said, "I can't put cheese in your drink, dude."

At this point, my friend didn't want his food. He figured it would be spit in. It's not my fault that this guy's G.E.D. was a photoshop fake print-out so he could fulfill a lifelong ambition of working a kitchen grill in the fast food arts. Yes, I was that pissed.

And my friend got soggy tacos that he refused to eat, fed to his dog. Yes, dogs eat anything.

The point is; regardless of what I said, or he heard, the communication breakdown that we had is common enough. Especially when you cannot see the other person to recognize their reactions.

If you look at films, or books, characters always get the correct amount of information from each other regardless if they see each other. I know several times in which I have conveyed an annoyed or tense reaction over the phone, but in reality, I was avoiding running into someone while I paced back and forth with a cell phone. By the way, I've found that I walk more while on the cell phone. Because the rest of my body needs something to do.

So, in terms of dialogue, is it realistic to have two characters talk on a cell phone, send and receive the correct amount of information?

I screw up information all of the time. Screw up e-mail addresses (even when the person is talking right in front of me).

I don't even want to get into my ability to receive directions correctly. Had I not found map quest and internet, I would still be driving around Stevens County on abandon dirt roads with no telephone cable, tall evergreen trees and no sign that anyone had stepped foot in the area for thirty years.

Sports is where communication can be both intuitive and conveyed through verbal skills.

Phil Jackson knows what to say and what not to say. And he gets his point across.

That's why I'm unsure about Erik Spoelstra's coaching of the Miami Heat right now. He seems to convey some of the basketball plays and skills, but tends to overtalk in timeouts which may cause his players to stop listening.

I tend to listen to how people converse with each other. It allows me to hear how people REALLY talk. It doesn't show me where or not each party receives the information correctly, but gives me some detail on who the people are when they speak. And few, if any, speak grammatically. That includes English professors, who tend to butcher the English language when they speak worse than a eighth grade drop-out.

Person 1: "You work in accounting? In a cubicle? You're nuts."
Person 2: "Hey, living the dream, you know?"
Person 1: "Since high school? That's as far as you got?"
Person 2: "Didn't know there was a pop quiz at whose guidance counselor was drinking on the job."

This is a conversation I overhead tonight in the bar. Funny, but not something that you might see in a book. Why? Because writers tend to form grammatically correct sentences. Because it is what editors and readers expect of them.

I wonder if we have higher expectations for ourselves than the reality suggests.

The End of the World As We Guess It

This blog entry comes late with good reason.

I had a long time to contemplate something. If the end of the world happens tomorrow, I'm giving up my check for rent until Monday or later. Screw it, why should they get the cash if it ain't going to a good cause.

A lot of people hold the future as destructive. Few are lucky enough to guess that it will be utopian. It's a strange world we live in that you can never with happiness. Especially as a global issue.

The world is fine. I read it once in USA Today.

That's more of a joke than you think. Because as Homer Simpson says, "USA Today is the one paper not afraid to tell us that everything's okay."

And in a way, it's that a pessimism that we as humans have? That nothing can be alright?

What if that's the case? What if we are dooming ourselves into a misery that doesn't exist except that we keep advocating or expecting it?

We should be attempting to develop some type of happiness. Promoting that "everything is okay."

Instead everyone is giving credence to the prediction that the end of the world is happening quick. Apparently it is May 21 at noon, which means the Triple Crown in horse racing is lost and the Vancouver Canucks will not win a Stanley Cup... ever.

The Canucks maybe won't win a Stanley Cup, but assuming that anything short of a mass destruction of everything makes the quest impossible... I don't agree.

By the way, one of the frustrating things about The Terminator series is the future. Everyone lives in tunnels, there are machines hunting humans, and children are still being born? Really? Isn't it hard enough to hide out from killer robots sans children? And if there is little food, it would appear less likely that someone would want to bring children into this world. Forget the fact that you are bringing your children into robot death camps.

I doubt many children were born in such situations. The baby boom happened AFTER World War II, not during it.

See, I'm even guilty of a negative view of the future. Who knows, maybe it's the best way to raise children in the future: Without Baby Einstein tapes and with killer robots hunting them down like dogs.

Characters, both badass and mute

I got this character in mind, but no story to put him in. It's frustrating to see what I believe is a great character go to waste, but I understand the alternative.

Writers sometimes place characters in stories that don't fit, and I wonder if its because the character was so damn remarkable that they just had to use it somewhere. The film Hesher comes to mind. As if the Heavy Metal jerk was dropped from space on a whim, with no understand or reasoning for why he was there. That's the moral of the story when it comes to writing. Sometimes, those great characters have no walls to surround them, no universe to exist in.

There must be people in real life who feel that way. As if they were written into a story, but really, they are afterthoughts in character development. You see people who question why they are here. What they are doing. Well, that goes without saying that if you exist without a reason, without a function, it can probably be very boring for you.

I call this my "John Doe' theory of real life people.

Sure, these people exist, but even they don't know as to why. Those people who don't have any interest in knowledge, feeling, purpose, being. They merely go through the plot of the story and aren't even curious as to what the ending might be. In some cases, you meet these people and you can't begin to understand how they lasted that long.

Ask them about their interests. It's always vague, to the moment, nothing which holds more than a few thoughts.

Ask about their goals. Again, vague and elusive.

While I understand that everyone doesn't have the answers in life, I would hope that some of the people would attempt to discover a few of them before their lives are over. A lot of people have become characters that resemble Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt. It's only after they've done exactly what they were told through the years do they sit back and ask what the hell they did.

Apparently, people can and do function that way. I have no idea how. Life would appear pretty boring. And most of the people who the above statement mentions are just that. Boring.

The last thing that I ever want to be is completely boring to another person. I mean that. It holds that I don't have enough thought to contain or entertain this person for less than a few moments before they tire of me. And really, what is that?

This guy walks up to me this afternoon. He doesn't really say much, but mentions in vague terms everything he does. But it appears less interesting than it should be. Especially when I find out he works in New Mexico with tribal childhood development. But the way he gave off information made me feel as if I had lost interest in the conversation shortly after it began.

I wished I could stop, turn back to my computer, and keep typing this blog post out, but that would be rude. But I'm sure it's easier to do when you're reading something from a point of boredom in a book or ebook. You can put it down without any regrets.

Then, I had another person who used sexual innuendo with every sentence. Not to be disgusting, but to be fun. And it told me a lot about a person that he wanted to have fun at his job while speaking frank about stupid sexual things. This wasn't at my work, but still, where have we gotten in society where you can't have any fun? Because it might hurt someone's "feelings."

Have people in office's become more like the first example of the man so vague that he barely says anything in order to avoid becoming the guy who says too much?

That brings up the character "talking killer" which is more of a film thing, but still happens sometimes in novels.

Really? Do you have to explain everything before you kill someone? I don't know.

Here's the alternative, the "mute killer" who just points the gun, shoots and looks like a badass.

But that is problematic. Now you have an impersonal character creating a personal act.

Doesn't appear that forceful of an antagonist.

So giving enough of both the features of "talking" and "mute" in the antagonist where they say enough without talking too much may be the answer. Otherwise, your character doesn't feel real at all.

Besides, I would like to believe that a real character, even someone evil, would say something to me before they would attempt to harm me. And if they do, they can't be boring. That would make me angrier than just being killed.

Climate Change

Well, that was odd.

This morning I woke up about 4 a.m. and couldn't sleep, but I still don't feel worn down as I did when I got a full 8 hours of sleep yesterday. It must be the weather change.

Everything is being blamed on weather change. But here's my question; what if this is the weather of the 1600s and we don't know it because no one was around?

I am not debating weather change in the sense of the world coming to a great climate departure due to our involvement. If you're an idiot, you're still believing the Rush Limbaugh theory that the North Pole is like ice cubes that melt in a glass (except that the north pole has land underneath).

I started writing something good last night. It was really weird how it started. Everything was going pretty slow, I was chugging out my 5,000 words. And then I started cooking at something. Which was weird on how fast it was coming out of me.

I had a settling and a bunch of character arcs about halfway through the story. Some of the issues came up which I knew I would have to go back and revisit.

I love when my brain works that way. It starts churning, going through the motions, then charging as if its on the time trials at the Utah Salt Flats.

And thus, I am back to pounding out more words...

Learning Nothing From A Learning Experience

I met two people utterly fascinated with themselves last night. And they felt you should be too. While they spoke endlessly, you learned almost nothing about them. Bits, pieces, but nothing concrete.

This leads to the question: Are some people speaking to merely pass the time or do they have something to say?

While a character might provide tidbits of information in order to advance a plot, if the plot or character is meaningless, doesn't that mean the comments by the character are also meaningless?

The two people had various components of the same story.

Both divorced. Both had rotten spouses, made mistakes. But neither appeared to learn anything from the those mistakes. In fact, they were intrigued enough to continue approaching the wrong type of person in the hopes of making that mistake again.

While this may appear to be an interesting character, they didn't appear to recognize their choices were wrong. In fact, one lived for the moment. The other didn't appear to know why they were living at all.

Harsh? I agree, but it was the assessment you gain from them. Nothing sunk in enough to qualify as an actual definitive moment or a learning experience.

The experience did bring something to me, but I am sure it was a lesson not to have characters who talk a lot, but never get to the point.

Are there characters doing this? Yes.

Are there characters who don't learn anything from any of the experiences? Yes.

Is this a good thing for the reader? I don't think so. It feels, personally, as it did with the two I met last night, to be a complete and utter waste of time.

I worry about characters that I write becoming bland by default.

Two Characters In Real Life

I had a great conversation with the hair stylist this morning. Sure, it was a chain-store haircut and I took the day off in order to do it, but I wasn't expecting to actually have a decent person talk to me.

A little back history: I usually go to Bud the Barber in Cheney, Washington but his place wasn't open. Bud the Barber is a unique guy; survivor of 14 throat cancer surgeries, still drinks whenever, about 70 years old, loves chasing women and cuts hair at $14, then gets the loose hair off you by using a shop vac hose. Yep, that's right, you get a hose sucking on your skull after he cuts your hair. And he's in Cheney, Washington sitting there on Main Street during most days except Sunday or Monday. Why he wasn't there today was disappointing but let's hope he wasn't going for surgery 15.

The hair stylist I spoke with had a funny manner about her. Everything was a rat-a-tat style that appeared as if she were operating a verbal machine gun. Then, I found that she was from the South (Georgia) but trying to cover her accent because "fellas-arounds-parts-here-ain't-got-no-tolerance-for-outsiders" or so I believe she said.

Notice how much character is in a little conversation. She built herself into a personality as much as Bud the Barber, but with less detail.

Bud is the type you see at the casino sports bar with a whiskey straight who tells you that while he uses a feeding tube to eat, he likes to drink and attempted to put beer in the hose and inject it into his system. Beer foamed up and he had the farts for two days after.

Now that is a character.

But the stylist is the type to tell you how she managed three haircut places at once, moved fellow stylists around if she didn't like them and favored others, but still said "customer-first" whenever there was a complaint. She had an employee yell at her and told the woman that "my seven-year-old knows timeout, if you want to keep your job, you're standing in the corner for the next ten minutes" and indeed said the woman did so. Imagine seeing a twenty-five year old get "timed-out" by her manager. I like it, but am sure it violated some stupid HR law.

And that is a character too.

There is a style, a grace to who each character is. They don't merely function, with no purpose. When you witness characters going through the plot without any quirk or personality, it tells me that the writer is using them as a crutch to push the story along. That's not good writing, and it's not great writing.

And if it's just good-enough writing, why do it?

Relationships in manipulation of story development

I had a good example of manipulation today. It started off simple, but became more drastic as the day wore on. In three hours, I felt every single emotion (happiness, anger, contentment, rage, frustration, indifference) and I learned something from the example. I wasn't the one who manipulated anyone. In fact, I wasn't even the person that the manipulation was targeting. But it was there, I learned from it, and I figured it was something to share with the group.

The manipulation started with reading over facts. I believe Vin Scully is correct when saying that statistics can be made to show whatever it is you want them to say. So are rules. In fact, by looking through the rules, several are contradictory and in fact cancel each other out. That's because with as many rules as are created, there are years of people forgetting those rules, making up new rules which conflict with the old ones, and new ones to counter things that people have considered or done which have violated the original set of rules.

Basically, everything gets screwed up the more that you follow the rules.

So, the facts were read, they were decided, and someone got upset. Sounds simple, but it gets more complex. Because nothing that is ever a great story ends with simple. In fact, it grows, as all good stories do, because the interest from those surrounding or are involved in the story increases. There has never been an uninteresting story. Just uninteresting people attempting to tell it.

The course of the day pushed into a new kind of manipulation. The people involved got to watch the manipulate be placed upon them. The rules were used to change the system to the benefit of one person. Everything in the discussion, in the decision-making, was pushed by the one person who manipulated the system.

It was basically a good lesson in stupidity.

Story developed farther by manipulation is always interesting. At least, to me, it is.

You see a lot of people who claim that they bent the system. Well, I believe that's possible, but you have to have a lot of accomplices who help you, even unwittingly, to manipulate the system. Whether they realized or endorsed the manipulation or not. We were all party to it.

So, if a main character (antagonist) bends the rules. It takes the protagonist to help cause the manipulation to take place.

Example from Die Hard with a Vengence:

Antagonist calls in a bomb threat to a school after blowing up a subway under the financial district. Creates a panic.
Protagonist attempts to find bomb. However, this leads protagonist away from the financial district where the antagonist is stealing all of the gold.
This is very watered-down version of what happened in the film. However, it shows how the relationship between the protagonist and antagonist are a yin-yang in character development and story progression.

So, what happened with the manipulation that I witnessed today?

It worked for the person, but only sort of. They didn't get who they wanted hired. But they also didn't get the person that they didn't want hired. Instead, the manipulation caused the group to decide to hire a person who the manipulator was indifferent to. In a way, it was a total backfire of the situation.

I love it when a plan comes together. Or doesn't.

Character Creation Beyond Cardboard Cut-Outs

I have been considering a lot of options lately in terms of what to write about in short stories. Sometimes, characters and their personalities speak to me in an instant. Other times, I get them by virtue of a second draft. You see them a lot more clearer when you have to sit down, hunker into what you've got after that initial vomit draft, and the material finds itself coming to you. The other example is not so much fun as it means that everything is a struggle, that you don't really see who the character is until the last draft.

It's creepy how well you can see a person that you created. Especially when you've got a good burn on and you are writing an entire book or story with the person in mind. Their actions may alter some of their character but then again, everything is a composite of what several people would look like, combined into one.

Comparisons to characters fold themselves into each other depending on the actions and verbiage they provide. Everyone has to have experiences which makes them different. You can make a racist person just be a racist, but that is cliche. So is the thinking hero who pines for true love. I see every character, even the side ones, as complex creatures. No person is merely an animal in how they react to things. They are influenced by the actions of others.

Plans are not formal, but complex alterations which sometimes happen on the fly depending on the reactions of other people.

In fictional stories, why do accidents not happen to others for no reason whatsoever? No given plan or point. Just an accident.

Coming to the bar today to watch the NHL playoffs (Bruins got 2 goals in 33 seconds, hot damn), I saw a person pulled over for a speeding ticket. Or maybe it was something else. But why is that not something that I would see in a fictional story? Not as a plot point, but a decision of mundane behavior in which we all have some point of experience? If you are writing relatable material, I believe that the mundane becomes interesting because people can understand how it happens. It makes characters more real in terms of how readers react to them.

People focus on flaws, but are those the only things which make a character relatable? I went to a person's home recently and saw two photographs of orphans in Africa that the person was sponsoring. What struck me was that my attention was never put there by the person attempting to prove their charity. It took me seeing it by accident to witness the kindness of the person who had done that without the need for acclaim.

I was told by a person that they appreciated my passion for a project at work. That I didn't appear to come to work with the intention of doing less than my job. What amazes me is how many people run around an office, attempting to tell everyone within earshot how hard their job is, how much credit they deserve. This is a character too, whether they notice it or not within themselves.

The key to character development is to recognize this. Even if it does not progress the story as much as it does the people experiencing the plot.

Character options may also alter the plot to a certain extent. Some movies, books don't allow for this. The characters are beholden to continue the plot, regardless of whether they would in real terms. I don't have any idea what tomorrow holds for me, aside from the basics of going to work, things on my calendar, etc. But that doesn't mean that I am soaked into a plot so much that I wouldn't be able to get out of those commitments if I needed to. Especially if a terrorist was holding my family hostage. Yes, I would call in and request a sick day for that.

One of the more annoying things about side characters is that they are servants to the plot without any thought to who they are. Guys who follow you when they shouldn't in order to push you toward the goal. Other people who call the detective to say "come by so I can reveal what's really going on" but by the time the detective reaches them, that "confessor" is dead. These are not only bad cliches but bad characters.

I don't think it keeps suspense going to have someone not reveal what's going on when they already know. That type of writing got stale ever since twitter and facebook became the rage. Even when the Pakistani know this. Look up the guy who accidentally twittered the raid on Osama bin Laden's palace but didn't know it. People don't function as they used to in terms of communication. Everything is so instant that if there is information out there, people have it.

And according to AT&T and Verizon, I should be able to get cell phone "bars" just about everywhere. Except in Whitman County, Washington. Trust me, I've been there with a flat tire by the side of a dirt road. The tallest thing around besides an evergreen tree was a combine going through a field of wheat. But the perception plays on reality that you will get reception everywhere instantly. So readers aren't going to buy the idea that you aren't going to get cell phone reception (even when it's actually true).

Or my favorite. The talking killer or the silent killer. The guy that either chats your ear off or says nothing, points a gun, fires and you're dead. That is cliche even though it is hard to find a medium. But there should be a medium or a change of character which makes the reader interested. Otherwise, you bore the reader, yourself and your writing. I've read some passages of my own work that sounds boring (that's why it doesn't see the light of day).

Characters don't have to be cardboard cut-outs anyway. Maybe the person who is abusive actually is a good person, they just don't know any better. Perhaps they were conditioned to abuse out of fear. There is something original. The idea that people don't purposely cause harmful actions. Because the majority of the time, they don't. In fact, the majority of people willfully attempt to avoid causing harm to others, and end up doing it anyway.

An example:

A newspaper photographer is on assignment and needs some photos of a the city zoo at night to show the harmful conditions that the animals are living in. If he does not get them, the editor-in-chief will fire him and his girlfriend, the reporter, will not get her story printed above the fold. It may cost him his relationship with her, and hurt his aspirations to work for National Geographic.

He goes to the zoo at night, careful with his camera. But there is risk because the zoo doesn't allow unauthorized photographs. He finds a guard willing to take fifty dollars to let him into the cages, just for a quick shot or two, enough to get what he needs, then get out. The photographer takes snaps some shots, no worry, then does one of the gorilla cage. No worry even though he wakes up the gorilla who gets upset. He and the guard leave, but the guard doesn't set the gate to the gorilla cage correct.

A few hours later, the gorilla goes through the gate because he can. He rages through the zoo, kills the guard, and escapes into the city. Now, there is a gorilla loose. This is a large problem. People are hurt, dying, and there the National Guard are called out. A maniac General who is about to be forcibly retired for his lunacy arrives in a helicopter and takes command of the situation (he is compared to Gen. LeMay for his advocation of nuking Iraq to stop the insurgency).

The General decides to declare martial law until the gorilla is captured, ends up killing civilians who resist. He remembers a battle in Viet Nam where the citizens were helping the Cong kill soldiers and aims to thwart that before it begins. His ideas were never accepted by the brass, even when he became one of them. This is his chance, now that his wife, Martha, is gone. He has a division of men, mostly National Guard with a few enlisted soldiers who are loyal to him.

The General believes that the gorilla's release was part of a terrorist act. If people were following the law, they would not be out on the street. Now, he is indifferent as the gorilla goes loose. When they catch the gorilla, it wouldn't stop the accidents. After initial gun down, everyone may calm for a moment, but you still have the problem of citizens who have been shot. The General keeps martial law in effect, ordering the troops to find a tape that he believes the citizens have.

This tape would show that the General ordered the death of civilians. Stood them up in front of a wall, had them shot to death because they defied his orders. Another soldier finally stands up to stop the General, he at first attacked by the other troops as being disloyal, then fights them until they see his way, forcibly. The lone protagonist gets the General under arrest, is thanked by his government, but never trusted by his fellow troops again as being disloyal.

Now you have a large scale problem. This was not caused by someone attempting to do harm to anyone. They just screwed up. The pressure created by side characters was not to hurt anyone. It just happened. Everything was an accident which compounded an accident. This goes into the idea of a traffic ticket. There was no "plot" plan. Everything happened and dealing with it as a result is what is recognizable to the reader.

Now look at that example. I fashioned that out of thin air with the idea it was just a gorilla I was going to talk about. And then, what happened? It became a microcosm of the escalation of an isolated incident into martial law, people's rights and the use of fear. And who watches the gates.

The General in this could be a guy who drinks, sure. But he has been dealing well with the death of his brother who looked just like him. His niece can't deal with that fact, because it reminds her of looking at her father when she sees him. Aside from that, the General has always been a good man but felt ignored by the top brass. He is essentially a horse-holder at the Pentagon who graduated second in his class at West Point. He feels after three theaters of war, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, leading command divisions through each, that he should be respected. That his opinions should be heard.

But he made the wrong enemies. He is out-spoken in his beliefs and it has cost him. You see that every time he sits down to dinner with someone. His wife pretends not to notice as he rants about this or the other. This is the cause for many of his problems. His tirades and tangents about nothing that meant everything to him.

Maybe what I've written about the General is a cliche offers some idea of personalization.

There is a lot more than you could add.

This synopsis would help you further in a story understand who the character is. What the story explains beyond what you have in mind currently. That's the beauty of writing. Until you put your figurative pen down, the story keeps growing...

The NFL Draft and Character Construction

I had an interesting point of contention with someone on road construction. The point that was made was that you could repave and change an entire area, yet the results would not be cosmetic. My argument is, if you can't see it at all, why does it take a year or more in order to do it? Sounds like an issue that will not be solved by me or the other person, but that brings up a good point. If you make references that are not cosmetic but people don't notice them, are they even references at all? Things are rather shaky when you think about what is noticed by the reader and what isn't.

One of the issues regarding details is that sometimes, you can make things mundane and bogged down by providing too much or too little detail. I've read a lot of books by Stephen King and Elmore Leonard. So when they make a reference which is to another book they have written, I understand it. But what if that reference is read by a person who never reads another one of their books? Does it fly over their head, prevent their desire to read further into the story because it appears confusing or simply appear as if it was written badly? King writes a lot about a clown with silver dollars for eyes which make confuse those readers who never read IT.

This type of layering of plot is interesting to the insider who wants to write in detailed fashion. Some details are extraneous in nature. I find that some of the more detail that I provide ends up being lost by the reader. Why? Because most people are half-reading anyway. They are looking for plot, following a story-line or a character. A lot of them may focus on the green potted plant if it becomes a part of the story-line, but that doesn't mean they will care if the storyline doesn't include the plant at all beyond that sentence.

The NFL Draft is tonight. A 96 hour marathon where guys names are read off. Then the analysts go over every detail of the player's life story. This is supposed to tie the viewer to the team decision, and also why they selected the player. But some of the details that the NFL teams focus on are absolutely ridiculous. How a guy scored on the Wonderlic test is extraneous information. So is how many times he ran a four-two-thirty in the grand scheme of things. None of things speak to the heart of a player or how what their threshold of pain is when someone hits them.

Characters are build through layering. But not merely gimmicks which suggest the guy smokes without cause. He smokes with a reason, doesn't he? Otherwise, he would have put it out when the first people asked him to. In the film, Sexy Beast, Ben Kingsley's character refuses to put out his cigarette on an airplane when the flight attendant asks. He suggests he put in out in her eye. What does that tell you about his character? He's an ass, and a scary man who is tough.

Some of the details are cosmetic but suggest more about the character than simply, "he smokes."

If he smokes, it means something. If he beats his wife, it means something. If he gets beaten by his wife, it means something too.

Too much construction of a character, scene or page focused on the internal without giving enough personal details that you should notice when reading. Whether it is the first time you've read that author or the fiftieth. That means when you go by that construction side, you should at least notice that the curb has ADA compliance or new white paint. If you don't, it can suggest that there isn't enough there to look closer.

Let's make characters that act human instead of merely look like they are

Characters have their own personalities. I learn this more as I write. Sometimes, they speak to me through how they do things. The little qualities which make a person, even someone who appears common, to be unique. Everyone is not the same, but that isn't an opinion focused merely on looks. Habits can be another way, but the way that a character phrases comments or thinks about something can build who they are better than other attempt.

Character building for me starts with a person I know. I ask myself what they would do in a specific situation. When I haven't attempted this type of "in this person's shoes" character, my story usually fails. Why? I believe it has to do with the fact that I trust the plot too much and don't let the characters face adversity of each challenge in their own, individualistic way.

An example of a story common character who is merely doing what the plot wants: Guy moves forward, puts his hand on the door, opens it to reveal...

I have a friend named Mike. This is what I believe he would do in that same situation: Mike would see the door, grab a bat, back away from the door, then move close toward the door. No investigation, no need for explanation. Get the hell out.

That makes him more realistic. The only reason he would go through the door is if he saw someone hurt and wanted to help.

A horror story example:

The movie "House" - Guy shuts a door as a thing that looks like H.R. Gieger's Aliens tries to come through the closet. Afterward, the guy sets up cameras, trying to capture the thing on film to prove that it exists.

Mike gets the door shut, burns down the damn house. The last thing he does is try to investigate anything. Mike, who is a Viet Nam vet and has faced a lot of heavy stuff in his time, would say: "Investigation done" and light the match.

Whether this story is a gigantic, fantastic story or not, it needs human characters who act human in order to survive.

Otherwise it is a common story that doesn't work that the audience does not fully identify with.

Warm Diet Pepsi and Orbitz Gum

I have a weird habit of drinking cans of warm Diet Pepsi, which is not that noticeable unless someone touches the can.

The Orbitz gum habit is much worse, much more noticeable. It is getting out of control. I go through about a pack a day if I am out at a bar. The only time I don't chew gum is if I am at the office. And I favor the peppermint brand (because bubblemint is gross and wintermint loses its flavor after 2 minutes & makes my nostrils burn).

This made me think about character. Writers can be focused on micro or macro habits when it comes to quirks. But they never talk about simple addiction. Not a character flaw that can be cracked or has to have an intervention (such as meth which can cause tooth, hair and friend loss).

I wonder how many times characters in books or films have had an annoying habit that they just won't break. I've had people who step into my truck comment about all of the gum wrappers in the cab. That and the packs of unopened Orbitz peppermint gum (3 packs bound together for $2.13 each at the local Walmart). They kick them with their feet, my friend Andrew always mentions it, but still it never gets to a crisis situation.

The warm Diet Pepsi only rears its ugly head when I explain it to people. One or two people in the office have drank warm Diet Pepsi when I offer it, mostly because they are quirky like me. How did warm Diet Pepsi happen? It was my childhood of too many kids, and making sure no one wanted to devour what I could before I had a chance to eat it. Which is why I eat my food really fast at dinner (that is another annoying habit).

Colorful characters are considered the oddballs who inhabit these types of addictions, but is that necessarily true? I knew a woman who liked to squeeze her cell phone case but never talked on it (a nice expensive stressball with a two-year contract). Was she an oddball, or did that merely symbolize her as an individual?

If Jerry Springer has revealed anything to us, it is that not everyone looks like a supermodel. In fact, there are many more of the dysfunctional people than "normal ones." Maybe that's why Elmore Leonard is so cool in his writing of character. He happens to write who people are, rather than the idealized notion that the public wants to see them as.

Sleep, Muses and Ideas

Funny how some ideas come to me in my sleep. I had a friend show me a lot of ideas he had which came from his sleep, which reminded me more of the film Mulholland Drive than anything. That's because our dreams are mismashes of ideas, jumbled at such a rate that we only remember one or two of the periods within the dream.

I had a muse last night which gave me a huge idea. But that wasn't the point. The muse was an interesting person with a dynamic I can't explain, but the ideas were free-flowing. I probably have enough for a big story because of it. Luckily, muses don't have copyright protection on ideas they merely dance around.

Ideas: I keep them in note form. A lot of different ones on my IPod touch or various computer files. Sometimes it is a saying or some instance that I found humorous. I saw a man on Saturday night which I created a fiction for, and it really clicked with the story I was drafting at the time. I love when that happens.