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ave the reader incredibly unsatisfied i don t want to leave ya ll unsatisfied so i ve been tooling over this story for a week or so trying to figure out why it s not quite coming together and finally i realized that i m telling the story with the wrong structure here s what i mean by that i ve been working so hard to wrap up all the loose strands that i lost focus on the individual story taking place in the watchmaker s daughter instead of being a standalone story about a mother losing her daughter i sped through the emotional bits from a pulled out bird s eye view and robbed the story of all its emotional impact this is a problem fortunately it can be fixed learning that the structure of your story is flawed sucks but it s better than wallowing in the muck of why how do we fix a broken structure you go back to the beginning and relay the foundation for the watchmaker s daughter i ve reoutlined the story based off what i now know about it fitting in the emotional landmarks that the first version lacked and cutting out the parts that skim over the pain this is one of my least favorite sorts of fixes to make because it amounts to a lot of work and throwing away many already written words but hey we write until the story is right note to new writers listen up i ve outlined some of the ways your story might be going off track but ignore all of this advice until you ve actually finished your first draft as a new writer it is more important to take the editor cap off and simply write to completion everybody hits the 1 3 mark in their story and thinks this is absolutely horrible that s normal you have to get comfortable in that zone and learn how to push past it if you stop mid way through a first draft to go back and fix it you re unlikely ever to actually finish it so finish that first draft no matter how horrendous it is then go back and tweak and revise but not a moment sooner note to advanced writers you should also finish that first draft before going back and implementing the tweaks i ve laid out why for the same reasons i gave the new writers nobody regardless of skill is immune to the stalling out point i don t care if it s your first short story or thirtieth novel finish that first draft before going putting the editor cap back on stop arguing just do it here s a picture of a cat to make it all better cheating your way to likable characters writing workshop july 17 2015 july 18 2015 antvicino 6 comments some of you may remember that i ve already talked a bit about writing likable characters if you don t remember that post don t worry it s probably just your early onset alzheimers cropping up again here s a link over to that post by the way i m a link click me now in that post i spend a lot of time talking about writing likable villains why because if you can make your bad guy both despicable and likable then writing a likable hero is a cake walk quick aside what the hell is a cake walk in my mind i imagine one of two scenarios 1 like walking the gauntlet but instead of getting spanked with leather straps and pelted with beanie babies the person performing said cake walk is getting cakes of all sizes and flavor frisbee tossed at his or her face 2 the ground has turned into one massive cake sort of like those games children play where they pretend the ground is hot lava anyways that was a huge digression my bad let s get to the reason ya ll stopped over today i want to give you five easy peasy ways to make your characters more likable let s stop beating around the bush and hop right in 1 relatable we enjoy stories because they let us live vicariously through other people as they experience dangerous novel embarrassing awkward situations without ever leaving the comfort of our couch and underwear now with that said we don t want to live vicariously through somebody too different from us there s a barrier to entry if we can t pinpoint something in your characters that feels somewhat familiar and relatable if that happens we re likely to put down your story rule of thumb have a range of traits from really broad generalized suzy is a girl and some specific ones suzy loves soccer for instance mgroda the thirty two thousand year old sentient fart floating around the oort cloud with the rest of his gaseous brethren is not even remotely relatable to most humans namely because the idea of a sentient fart is just so weird and outlandish but that doesn t mean we can t make him relatable we just have to work harder at it for instance did you know mgroda has been living in the stinky shadow of his older brother a gaseous emission that everybody mgroda s parents included just think is the coolest flatus singular of flatulence around this is something most people can relate to even if they don t have any siblings we can go deeper how about the fact that mgroda dreams of someday gaining financial independence from his over powering father by opening his very own cheese and ice cream parlor perhaps you don t share the same entrepreneurial ambitions of young mgroda but you can understand what it s like to have goals ambitions and dreams 2 kindness nobody is a dick all of the time even house that curmudgeonly irreverent doctor we all love to hate isn t always a dick there are two ways you can play the kindness card in your story actually there may be more than two but these are the first ones that come to mind so i m going to pretend like they are the end all be all 1 show your character doing something nice early in the story mgroda steps outside and sees young billy ryder so excited by his new ice cream cone trip on the curb he falls skins a knee and loses his ice cream along with what remained of his pride mgroda s reaction tells us a lot about his character ah billy mgroda said offering the boy a hand are you okay billy snivels something barely intelligible about his ice cream here mgroda said flagging down the ice cream truck before it could pull away let s get you another one gee whiz billy pogo sticked back to his feet like a gopher on adderol that would be great we end up liking mgroda a bit more than if he d simply kicked billy in the face that goes for most of us at least there are a lot of sick jerks out there see that s a jerk nobody likes 2 show your character grow the other way you can use kindness in your story is a bit different in the above example mgroda starts the story as a good person this means we re likely to root for him as the story progresses but let s say he didn t help billy perhaps he didn t go so far as to boot him in the face but maybe he s so wrapped up in his own issues that he blows right past the crying boy without a backwards glance well that seems pretty heartless but it gives his character a lot of room to grow this is the classic christmas carol scrooge progression watching characters grow gives us warm and fuzzy feelings because it gives us hope that we too can grow 3 real life concerns if mgroda walks right past billy because deep down inside he s a hitler loving cloud of gas then we re probably going to hate him on the other hand if he walks past billy because he just got a phone call from the police department saying his mom was in a car crash and they need him to get to the hospital asap well then it s forgivable we ve all been there perhaps not getting tragic calls from the police but we have all been so wrapped up in our own thoughts and concerns that we failed to notice the world people around us let s go deeper before mgroda gets the phone call he just gets off the phone with the bank who denies his small business loan oh no now he ll never get his very own ice cream and cheese parlor time out let s take a second and reflect on a couple things one mgroda is a peculiar character operating in a world i m too lazy to really sit down and figure out he s a sentient fart but we re pretty much treating him as though he were human sort of like alf deal with it two based off what we have so far we don t really know what the focal point of mgroda s story is is it his relationship with his brother his dreams of owning a business is this going to be a tragic drama following the death of his mother nobody knows least of all me and that s okay when you start your story you want to get to the point of it all really quick your readers need to have a good idea where you re taking them but remember your story is not happening in a vacuum unless you re really basing it in the oort cloud in which case your characters did not spontaneously spawn into existence the moment the story began they were alive yesterday and the day before that presumably unless you re writing an apocalyptic tale that world will keep on spinning tomorrow what this means is that the world and all its problems do not magically disappear once your story gets going maybe mgroda s story has nothing to do with any of the things we ve talked about thus far that s fine but those things we ve already talked about his strained relationship with daddy fart his mom in the hospital bawling billy ryder and a no go on the business loan don t magically disappear keep those elements playing in the background and you re character gains a layer of reality readers like real characters 4 give them a friend the title of this blog post references the fact that you can cheat your way to a likable character so far there hasn t been anything sleazy about the previous tips this tip and the next one however are sort of like writing an escape hatch into your story they may feel a bit contrived but listen writing by it s very nature is contrived as the god of your story world you are constantly cheating conveniently manipulating people to your whims this is no different give your character a friend even if you re writing a loser loner type still give him a friend why because everybody out there has at least one friend if you re character is absolutely friendless then you re reader is probably correct in assuming there is something wrong with your character there are three types of friends relationships probably more but again i m lazy superior friend the friend is way super cool and it seems like she s slumming by hanging out with your mc your character can have self doubts about why her friend is there in the first place but you as the writer need to make it clear she s there because she sees something in the main character that nobody else does this gives our mc social proof an incredibly important concept for our little monkey brains best example of this i can think of is sherlock holmes and watson the books are told from watson s perspective so he s our pov but perhaps not our mc maybe a better example is fonzie and everybody else shrug oh yeah the fonze is way cooler than you equal friends this is the idealized friendship we all seek out a great example of this might be harry potter ron weasley hermoine granger they all bring something different to the table though the story is ostensibly about harry you d be mistaken to think that ron and hermoine aren t equally as important inferior friend this is the sort of relationship where our mc is drastically cooler than his friend great examples of this are jon snow and sam turley from game of thrones or even better might be tom sawyer and huck finn guess which one is the cool one hint it s the one with nicely quaffed hair anyways friends are great because you can learn a ton about a person by watching how they interact with people they trust like do yourself a favor give your character at least one good friend it ll make your job so much easier 5 underdog we love underdogs it s the reason rocky did so damn well there s something about the david standing up to goliath that sets our hairs on end we root for the little guy because we all see ourselves as that little guy the world is big and scary and mean and we are small poor weak by comparison when we see a character personifying all these traits we instinctively relate to them and therefore root for them now that s not to say you need to write a story where your mc is fighting impossible odds at every turn though personally that s precisely the sorts of story i like to tell but you should go out of your way to make us sympathize with your mc a great way of doing this is by showing us your character in those situations where she is inherently powerless whether that is a teenager dealing with her parents or a middle aged businesswoman confronting her boss or even a little old lady going up against the city council who are trying to evict her from her home of fifty years so that they can build a spiffy new condominium show us your character being powerless but then show her taking back that power bit by bloody bit that s the sort of character we get behind that s the sort of character we like alright get down to the comments and tell me about some of the characters you like most and why then if you re feeling really spunky tell us about the characters you don t like and why details matter the writing lab july 14 2015 antvicino 7 comments details are a storytelling spice if done correctly they add to the complex flavors of your already scrumptious story if done incorrectly well i m sure we ve all accidentally added a bit too much sea salt to the guacamole at one time or another and can remember how that bastardized concocti ah crap getting a parking ticket as we speak be right back puts on some soothing elevator music sorry i was gone a bit longer than expected had to hide the body of the parking enforcement officer that ll teach him to ticket m oh wait you re not reading this in real time so you have no idea how long i was gone disregard back to the spices try and focus sheesh details add a layer of authenticity to your story and i m all for that but lately i ve been seeing a lot of stories which are suffering from one of two problems where details are concerned 1 superfluous information 2 incorrect superfluous information let s tackle that first point we all have that one friend the guy who talks about his work hobby sexual fetishes etc in excruciating details because to him those things are the bee s sneeze different and way cooler than the bee s knees of course everybody is interested in hearing about all the hijinks and foibles your dungeons and dragon s feather mage keeps finding himself in an why wouldn t i want to hear about your ingrown pubic hairs how much goat milk do you put in your morning coffee please do tell inquiring minds need to know tmi translation too much information for those of us not born in the early 00 s is one of those surefire ways to make me hate you or your characters now that s not to say you should hold back on all inane specifics but remember just as with heroine and methamphetamines a little goes a long way if you re the type of person ladling spoonfuls of cumin into your story i m gonna gag and probably stop reading at some point but hey i may someday forget that blistering taste of minutiae and try another one of your stories...