The Little Writer's Group

Promote Your Books ;)

Hello writer's I hope you are having a magnificent day and hopefully you are excited to finally be reading another week. Sometimes writers want to tell others about the books they're writing, share ideas, and maybe even give away spoilers because we can get too excited. Writing can be tough, but when your story feels like it's webbing itself together or your mind is spinning with extraordinary ideas it can be thrilling. However, sometimes you feel there is no one to talk to about your story or else they don't really know what you're saying, but try their best to humour you. For this week I decided we can chat about our current books we're working on and our characters because I believe that even if we writers write different in genres and styles we can understand one another.

I'd like to tell you about my story and I would love to hear about yours as well! (I'll try my best not to give away any spoilers and don't steal my ideas.) Snow in the Sea is about a boy, Aspen, who lives in the snowy alps and reads a book about a girl, Merial, who lives by the sea. Merial's father is a sea captain and has been absent for three years leaving Merial and her family to care for themselves. Merial knows the captain is slaying sea monsters to protect the island, however her friend Finnian thinks he's up to more than protecting the island. After many adventures Merial creates a crew and sails out to sea on a stolen ship in search of her father. A member of the crew, Tarian, is searching for his grandmother's killer and he tells Merial of the evil fairy who has been corrupting the minds of the sea men since the dark battle of Vaspoera. The sea is dangerous and they will encounter many problems and plot twists.

While this is happening in the book Aspen discovers that when he imagines having conversations with Merial in his imagination, it appears as he reads and describes him as inside the book. My book is my idea of what it would be like if the reader and character could interact. Whenever Aspen closes the book the story continues without showing up as words and whenever he stops reading everything in the book freezes. Only Merial can see and hear Aspen. She isn't too keen on being inside a story for someone to read about at first, but she feels comforted by Aspen who is the only one who truly understands her. If you have any ideas you would like to read in a book like this, please tell me about them because I want to write a book people want to read. How can I make this story engaging, full of tension, and beautiful?

Now I'd like to tell you about my character Merial and afterwards I will share my favourite ways to character build. Merial is a fourteen-year-old determined, stubborn girl. She has long, wavy red-brown hair, tanned skin, and light hazel-green eyes. She is a natural leader and is extremely hard to hold back once she has her mind set on something. She is always outside and hates being contained inside especially in antique shops, boutiques, and her older sister's sewing groups. She homeschooled which she is happy about because she doesn't get along with the girls at school. They gossip, spread rumours, and give her a hard time about something she did years ago even though she had never agreed to doing it in the first place. When she is not doing school work, she is working on ships in the harbor to earn money for her family and one day save up for her own ship. Merial's dream is to sail out to sea and no matter how much people tell her how dangerous it is and the impossibilities she is too determined to give up. That's about everything I know about her.

When creating a character, I often begin with the basics of appearances and/or personality. Searching for character inspiration or else going for a walk and finding people with eye catching appearances as I've suggested in an earlier chapter is helpful. I make pinterest boards for my character's aesthetic which helps give a visual. Then I pull out my handy-dandy notebook and write absolutely everything about that character (ex. likes, dislikes, posture, nervous quirks, habits, daily routines, hobbies.) I also journal about my day and write a self-introductory as if I were that character. Finding names is especially hard if you don't have an idea of what their personality is because often times names reflect on who they are. A couple great name finding websites is nameberry and behindthename. If you're really crazy about character building, you can create a playlist for them, but spending your time making a playlist for all of your characters most likely means you are procrastinating. Speaking of procrastinating... I am technically writing this week instead of writing my story.

Now it is your turn to share your story ideas and favourite characters! You can also ask questions of what others would like to read in your own story. Knowing what people want to read is a great step to writing an enjoyable book.

Question of the week: what's something you are afraid of?

Thank you for joining another week, hope you had loads of fun!