Notes on Writing Science Fiction

Chapter 3/Characters

Characters are the bedrock of any story.

RK What have I/we discovered? We like sassy main characters - they are fun to write.  It's a bit of a cliche in romantic fiction that the central female character is weak. Strangely when we try to reverse this with a man between my crosshairs the book bombed.  Are strong women unrelatable  as characters as much as people say? Becoming strong is one thing, but starting out strong? Perhaps strong confident women don't come over as having any obvious flaws? ( Which Zoe did BTW ). For the next book we're going back to the trop.

Let's see what the experts say.

Surely Game of Thrones has the solution to all problems. ..

More Ellen Brock.  You have the problem the agents say they  Don't connect/relate/care about the character. 

You're not conveying the character's personality. 

1. You're not conveying the character's personality. 

 2. You're talking about what the character is like but you're not showing it. 

 3. You're showing your character's least flattering traits without giving a reason for why they are that way. 

 4. You're not conveying what the character wants. 

 - why can't they get it ? If it's too big for the first chapter then make a smaller auxiliary one. 

 5. You're not showing the problem preventing the character from getting what they want. 

 6. Your character is a stereotype or built on tropes. 

 7. You're not including sensory information to place the reader in the character's shoes.  

RK - It's got to get over in the first chapter. You need to show personality not tell it ( as well ways) I loved breaking this rule in the first chapter  Cyborg's pet.  Zoe the assassin from The man between my crosshairs failed really badly but also broke these rules. On the other hand 

It's OK to have negative traits but it must be hinted at ( some hint of motivation).

New method 

Attractive Talent -==

Room for growth .

Clear Goals ( what do they want )

Stakes - What can they lose if they get it wrong.

This is a must watch video

A few bold traits. 

Trick - compare your first person self to a family member ( when available ) 

Don't do it early on in an action scene 

Do it early on or not at all.  

Make it interesting 

Flaws more interesting than positives. 

Uniqueness

Appearance ( ie. use a physical description as a way of telling not showing personality ) 

Again you will notice Divergent ignores ALL of the cliche bans and does every one of them. 

We don't show our emotions much ( avoid Melodrama - to much showing ). We need to show emotion but hard to do it again and again. So other problem of telling ( scared.. scared  ).  Avoid obvious emotion. How are they handling scared? nail the introspection.  

Character Flaws

This should be something in the character's past ( back story )  which made them make a particular decision which will now create problems for them in the novel. 

Can't think of this for the divergent series. Help me out here.  

Character Arcs over the series 

You need to seed character flaw in previous books. 

Physically Describe Characters in Your Novel

1. No one will remember. People invent the only imaeg 

2. Lighter descriptions. Don't spend a lot of time.   ( unless it's romance! ) 

3. Work description into action.  

4. Never describe you're central character in a mirror. 

1. Do describe your writers ( controversial ) 

2. Do this as soon as possible. 

3. Keep the metaphor down. 

Face pumage ... new word