I’m starting a new series on LitLib called, “Craft and Draft.” It’s going to be an out-loud, unfiltered learning experience for me that I hope others can benefit from as well. It’ll be focused on the drafting and revision process and all the crazy magic-voodoo shit I’m learning in grad school!
The great thing about the contextual ambiguity and synonymous nature of the words in the title is that I can use them interchangeably to talk about writing or beer. I am so clever.
Hope you enjoy. These posts will be filed under the “Literature” and “Writing” categories for future reference.
Disclaimer: I am a 26 year old male and still have a childlike infatuation with Lego. I also take bubbles baths when I’ve had a rough day, almost cried when Will Smith (Dr. Robert Neville) had to kill his dog after it got infected, think hydrangeas are pretty flowers, and know all the lyrics to That’s What Friends Are For by Dionne Warwick and Friends.
Deal with it.
Character Counts:
As happy productive authors, we all want to be parents to our characters, raise them up right, and teach them to hate the things we hate. But characters (and to a lesser extent personal voice in nonfiction) aren’t our children. They are our creations.
Authors don’t birth them and then guide them through life, letting them form their own theories and build an understanding of the universe through empirical trial and error. Hell no. We force their beliefs onto them without even asking, telling them what they’re passionate about, what they think about certain philosophical quandaries, and how they ultimately view the world.
We’re like Christianity, but with even crazier stories.
Therein lies a problem. We have to make these characters, and for them (and by extension our stories) to be good, they have to be believable. It is surprisingly difficult to completely flesh out a character, and new writers (like me) will often create Frankenstinian abominations where we meant to create maidens fair.
Stage 1: A Hero is born, sort of
In your planning phase, you might make a character biography. At this point, your character sounds awesome. He’s got a dark, messed up past, his beard is just the right length to be manly without being crazy, and his story arc makes Luke Skywalker’s seem like a lazy Sunday afternoon cruising around in an X-wing.
You imagine your characters looking and acting like this:
This is a rare deleted scene from the ill-fated Game of Thrones vs. Pirates of the Caribbean crossover.
But when you re-read your scene/chapter/short story/cocktail napkin notes, your protagonist seems more like this:
I say there, Monstrosity! Do you know the times?
I mean, it is kind of identifiable as some sort of humanoid, but there are some major problems here. One: his period-inappropriate tricorn hat is on fire. Two: He has two heads, one of which is completely black and has no face. Three: He has a sophisticated breathing apparatus on his chest, but also has a wooden leg. Four: His left arm is not attached to his body.
This is an extreme example, but my point remains. It is very difficult to properly build your character the first time around. He’s going to come out with conflicting motivations, bad dialogue, missing limbs, and possibly even a flaming hat.
But that’s OK! Now that you’ve got your scene, and see that your character clearly needs literary medical attention, you can work on fixing him. It is a habit of mine to dump as many details as possible into exposition, trying to give the character a voice and make him seem human. This isn’t a good idea. Learn from my mistake. The more details you have, the more there is to keep straight, and the more likely your character will seem like his brain doesn’t work correctly.
Stage 2: The Hero goes on a really boring journey
The great thing about word processors is that we can erase with reckless abandon. After revising and simplifying, you character might look like this:
Now he looks a little more…is that a lemon meringue pie?
He’s starting to resemble something that could possibly be confused with a human from a considerable distance!
The hat is still wrong, but at least it isn’t on fire. The parrot was inexplicably replaced by a pie. The technology in his chest still doesn’t match his wooden leg, but at least his arm is reattached.
Better. Closer. Warmer.
Still needs work, though. No one wants to read a story about a pirate/robot/pie shop owner. Do they?
Stage 3: The Hero descends into the underworld via a very, very long escalator
As you continue to revise, your character’s personality and thoughts may evolve requiring that you change major plot points or key exchanges with other characters. This sucks, but you have to do it. Trying to mash a scene or piece of backstory into the main narrative just because you like it normally doesn’t turn out very well. Re-write, re-hash, re-calculate, revise.
You’ll probably notice that your entire plot has changed along with your character. This is normal (for me at least). Run with it. Give in to your demons. Let the story do some of the work itself.
Something that often happens when you do a significant amount of rewriting is that completely new elements and characters get added to the story, which is simultaneously great and awful.
By now, your hero might look like this:
A midget alien, a wizard-deckhand, and a pistol wielding monkey walk into a bar…
The good news is that your hero is a believable human at this point! Some of his wardrobe choices are still a bit odd, but at least now his actions are in line with his motivations, and his dialogue is setting appropriate.
The bad news is that you can’t see how sweet he is becoming, because you’ve added vertically challenged aliens and sharpshooter monkeys who distract from your main hero. Supporting characters should do just that: support. They don’t need to be as in-focus as your protagonist, so feel free to cut back on them if they seem to be carrying too much word-weight.
Stage 4: The Hero returns and brought cheap, crappy souvenirs for everyone
By now, you’re sick of revising. But revising is like running; you can’t have ripped, washboard abs if you don’t do the cardio.
As you’ve pared and simplified, your hero becomes someone readers can relate to, because he’s not a bloated ideal or a hollow husk. He’s got skills and flaws, and all kinds of interesting history that lends to his being a character people attach themselves to. He might not be a Jamie Lannister or a Muad’dib, but he’s a certifiable human being.
Well done! You’ve accomplished the hardest part of characterization: making your reader want to read because your hero is innately interesting without being archetypal.
Your finished product may look something like this:
Simple is safe. That pistol doesn’t look very safe though.
He’s not flashy, but he doesn’t need to be. He’s complete, recognizable, relatable, and lovable (or hateable).
Moral of the story: Revise until you want to vomit. Then go vomit and revise some more. It is an idealistic pipe dream to expect your work to come out perfectly in one draft, so expel that from your mind now. Keep rewriting until you understand why your first few attempts at characterization failed so badly, so you can avoid those same mistakes in the future.
Rewriting counts as writing, so don’t feel like you’re not writing just because you’re revising. Yea. That makes sense.
Tagged: characters, craft and draft, game of thrones, heroic cycle, humor, Lego, writing, writing advice
Revising is polishing. Polishing, polishing, polishing. Make it shine.
And once it shines, you can see yourself reflected on the surface 🙂
That’s an excellent way to say it. 🙂
Confession: I think I have a new writer crush.
😉
I’m a freelance writer by profession, but sadly, mine is more of the non-fiction slant. So while my characters don’t exactly look like a swashbuckling clown, I can certainly appreciate your thrust here!
Fun post. I think I might want to learn more about fiction writing just so I can follow your journey…
Don’t tell my wife! I actually write more nonfiction that fiction, but I find the latter much more challenging, thus posts like this. Thanks for stopping by!
I love the pictures! This is such a great way of explaining the rewriting process. I love it. Please do keep them comiing! : )
Thank you for reading!
I made a lego man with a jack-o-lantern head and Harry Potter hair and a cutlass, and one of those little snakes sitting beside him– a green one. I found him to be very human and believable.
He sounds pretty awesome. I think anything can be believable if you put them in the right setting and context.
Exceptionally cute way of dealing with the most redundant part of writing. I loved the pictures, the examples, and the Lego itself. Lots of fun, and a worthy message.
Thank you! Was fun to write.
I did this with my nephew all the time when he was smaller … and I love the one with the green frog head … I always enjoyed the transvestite versions we made
Hahaha yea, I have some very odd combinations kicking around. My mom gave most of my bricks to a neighborhood boy, but I kept a huge number of mini figures for, um, display purposes?
of course, one does need creative outlet possibilities now and then
Oliver, love the advice but honestly, who DOESN’T want to read a story about a pirate/robot/pie maker?! I mean, consider the possibilities! I see pies being distributed out of the robot’s stomach, flying through the air with the greatest of ease, being viciously speared and enjoyed with a satisfying “Argh” after the last bite of pie is taken.
But that’s just me.
-Chelsea (Your Middle School Friend)
Chelsea,
I will consider write a short story about a pie shop owner who is also a pirate who is also made of metal and circuits.
Thanks for stopping by! Great to hear from an old friend through a different means than Facebook 🙂
I couldn’t agree more. I would love to read about a robot pirate, who loves to bake in his spare time.
His baking could be a secret that his enemies discover and threaten to expose unless he assists them in their dastardly plans. And although our hero gives into their blackmail at the start, he manages to live up to his honour code, snare the bad guys and learn to be proud of his baking skills by the end of the story.
Or his baking can be an open secret, which just adds an additional grumpy maternal element in his dealings with his pirate crew. Imagine him with an apron and a rolling pin on his ship deck…
And once this is written can it please, PLEASE be turned into a play so I can direct it? LOL It would be such fun!
Muy bueno el blog
Mucho gracias!
Psst. That would be muchas gracias.
Everybody knows that pies are the ultimate weapon!
We’ve been jammed! Strawberry jam, too…
My son revises his lego characters continually. So intuitive.
My thoughts exactly. All those skills I picked up constantly revising, changing, and modifying are paying off now!
It’s cool to connect it with writing for him, too, because it is something he avoids at this point. I don’t really blame him, but I hope it comes around. With the pressure on for test scores, we teachers have precious little breathing room for allowing writing to be creative at all!
Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! I like how you utilized pictures of Legos to illustrate your points, which made this post both fun and functional. 🙂
Thank you for stopping by and reading! Glad you liked the pictures, they were fun to set up.
i love the pictures! 😦 😦
Thank you!
goodest picture …
Thanks 🙂
This post was enough to distract me from my daydreaming about bacon-wrapped hotdogs… and thus far today, nothing has been able to distract me from that.
I loved this, thank you!
Wow, I have power over bacon? That’s a first. Glad you enjoyed it.
Oliver, whatever you do, never, ever, EVER lose that power. That’s not a once in a lifetime thing… That’s a once in a millennium thing.
Loved the pictures…
Thanks! I wish I’d had my nicer camera available, but oh well.
“No one wants to read a story about a pirate/robot/pie shop owner. Do they?”
Well, now that you have brought it up I kind of want to read that story! (Note: there is an actual pie store in DC called “Dangerously Delicious Pies”, which seems like the title of a short story about a pirate/robot/pie shop owner. See also the concluded tv series “Pushing Daisies” which is all about the life of Ned the Pie-maker. In addition to making pies, he can bring people back from the dead and uses his abilities to solve crimes. Typing that makes a Pirate/Robot pie entrepreneur seem not only possible but likely.)
It seems that a few people want to see the Robot/Pirate/Pie shop owner come to life, so that may be in the cards when I’m a little less swamped with school work!
Watch out if that monkey gets his feet on some pirate swords too!
Yikes! I actually had him with four swords originally, but he doesn’t stand up very well when so overly-armed.
If only he had wings
Fantastic. Well said.
I am still trying to get myself past the initial draft, but the process is so monumental that sometimes I just want to hide under the bed.
I tend to distract myself by considering (and ranting) about things in literature that bother me instead, which in turn leaves me petrified of making those same mistakes, and thus turning me into a hypocrite. Ah, well.
Love the Legos. I am 28 and I still play with them.
Yea, the initial drafting phase is by far the hardest part. It took me years of beating myself up to accept that my first draft is going to be not very good. Once you do get over that, it becomes much, much easier. So don’t give up!
Thanks for stopping by.
This was a wonderful validation for me. I’ve spent hours and hours editing and revising my first novel, not entirely certain that it was the right thing to do. You’ve put into words that which has been nagging my subconscious. Thank you!
You are most welcome! This is something I have struggled with (especially when rewriting dialogue) and I definitely second guessed myself a lot. Just have faith in your ability and know that with writing, there is never a mistake that you can’t fix.
You’re absolutely right. Thanks again!
Very good read. I can definitely associate. The bets part of revising is when you know it’s needed, but not quite sure how to go about it =)
Oh yea, I know that feeling. I tend to be really judicious on my first round of revisions, then get crazier and crazier as I go. Eventually I probably get to a point where I have over-edited, but that’s why a writer should always save multiple version of the same file 🙂
Love the use of the lego characters very creative.
Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to read my piece.
Good stuff! I think we’ll always have a robot/pirate/pie maker if we show all&everything of our characters: its nice to hold back,so our readers can finish the building themselves..
A key danger is characters resembling each other.
Agreed. Too often my characters all sound the same, or have the same motivations throughout the story. I like the idea of the reader filling in the blanks. Finding that magical spot between too little and too much is the real challenge.
Coulda done without the gratuitous slam at my faith.
Thanks for reminding me that only certain groups of people that you happen to agree with are allowed to have opinions/make jokes on the internet. I had clearly forgotten.
Reblogged this on what I write about when I write about writing and commented:
I will shortlybe treading this path, so these points are very helpful!
I’m glad you could take something away from it! Good luck with your project, I’m sure it will be awesome!
P.S. I love your username.
Writing and Beer. These are two things I enjoy as well! Excellent. I have a lego figure dressed in a baseball out fit, wielding a samurai sword, next to my computer. He has such a great smile on his face 🙂
Re-writing is the hardest bit about writing, I would say. But yes, so damn important if you are to get something AWESOME
Hemmingway said it best, “Write drunk, edit sober.”
Rewriting is a necessary evil, for sure. But I’m with you; the end result is so worth the extra work.
LOL! Very cool! I will admit that I never changed my main characters. I just changed their backgrounds, so that the way in which they interacted would be stronger. I am, however, NUTS, so that may be the problem . . . 🙂 I just wrote a post about the Writing the Critical First Kiss (also known as RIP MY HAIR OUT). http://capecodscribe.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/the-critical-first-kiss/
Well, I think that works too, as long as they all merge well and have distinct voices. Being nuts is KEY to writing, I think. Hell, I just wrote two blog posts about playing with Lego. I’m right there with you. I’ll check out your kissing piece later today!
What a refreshing way to read about the writing process! BTW, my seven-year-old loved your lego creations (and we’re just coming off a weekend of marathon Piractes of the Carribean watching:)
Hooray! If I passed the seven-year-old test, I consider this post a success. Glad you liked it.
I have never seen such an apt use of legos when discussing writing. This made me wish some of my professors in college workshops would have used more legos to explain the importance of character or setting.
Yea, all those lectures and PowerPoint slides are soooo, 2001. I say we replace one lecture a week with a mandatory Lego building class. Call it, “Building creativity, piece by piece” or something.
I love this and I will keep this in mind for when my kids begin writing and revising and revising and revising. Excellent post! Do you happen to be in grad school for a teaching degree? This would make an awesome teaching lesson in a classroom. Something kids can see. Congrats on FP.
I’m in grad school for a nonfiction writing degree, but I’ve considered teaching a few times over the years. Maybe I could work with some of my friends and colleagues to create a “Lego Lessons” curriculum 🙂
Aww I miss lego 😦
MontrealDSL
Business Blog
No need to miss it, just go buy some! Target has a decent selection and even better prices. You can also get some of the old school sets on Amazon if you look hard enough.
I feel your love for Lego, I too adore the stuff deeply and i’m recently 27.
You’ve inspired me to build again, going to make the biggest city I’ve ever made 🙂 x
Do it! Post pics! Send me a link! I gave away most of my Legos (to a young lad, so it was a worthy cause) but sometimes I wish I still had them all.
Oh yeah defo, it’s a great idea for a blog, when I get round to doing it again I’ll certainly be putting it out there on display 🙂
Good perspective. I never stop the revising process. It really is never ending but most first editions of any book are usually full of errors. If you like a good laugh check out my latest e-book release. I do hope you enjoy it. Thanks again for your incite. http://secretsofabartender.wordpress.com/ (note this edition #7)
Yea, I’ve even seen typos and competencies in some big names books. No one is safe from human error. I’ll check out your e-book as soon as time allows! Thanks for reading.
That sound be * inconsistencies. I am not a morning person.
Reblogged this on Launchpad.
Thanks for the reblog!
:=)
I really enjoyed reading this, your writing style is extremely likeable, humorous and comfy, if reading can be comfy, yes I think it can any way…
Thanks for the tips. Maybe I will write a tale of pregnancy and midwifery one day (I am a midwife before you contemplate the weirdness of my choice of fiction!)
That sounds like it could be really cool! I take it you’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood? If not, I highly recommend it (especially given your experience)!
I have not, so thanks for the recommendation I will have to check that out!
What a great way to illustrate the editing process! The cute Lego characters made it even more fun 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it! Lego is so versatile. I’m finding even more uses for it now that I am an adult.
Hilarious.
And so helpful.
Cannot wait to read the rest.
I’ll have a college education, yet!
You caught me, Dr. Oliver, the Beer Professor.
I loved this post! Laughed myself silly. What you laid out is SO true. Been there, done that, in the midst of doing it all again, so thanks for the reminder. And using the legos for illustrations was absolutely inspired. I will not forget the flaming hat. Or the pie. 😀
Hope it helps! Thanks for reading.
Oliver! Total congrats on being Freshly Pressed. You totally deserve it. Great post as always!
Enjoyed your post and the photos were a clever visualization of your points! Lego was never my thing, maybe because I’m a bit older–but I do yearn for the Kenner Building sets of my 60s childhood. Very realistic structures could be made and then attacked by rubber monsters!
When I write fiction, I find characters sometimes most come alive when they do something that seems irrational or out of left field–surprising me. But often what they’re actually doing is acting like humans do–unpredictably. More than once the unexpected quality of a character’s course of action energized me into finishing a story that had been floundering in ho-hum-ness. Then I found my way.
I think the whole Checkov’s gun idea works really well in developing the characters too. A lot of times, a little, special detail you added at random becomes really important later on, as they evolve.
I’m a big proponent of heavy pre-planning before writing anything of length, so I usually have my twists and turns already in place. Those moments definitely do bring out the best (or worst) in my characters. Nothing worse than a character who doesn’t change or learn anything throughout the entire story.
Thanks for reading!
Good point, Oliver, about the Chekhov’s gun as a characterization tool and not as it’s usually thought of as foreshadowing. That Wikipedia link was interesting, thanks for sharing it. And it was reflected in the film I watched tonight after I left my initial comments–Joseph Losey’s The Prowler from 1951, wherein a character’s hobby of collecting old rocks expands into a brilliant and disturbing metaphor for other characters’ existential situation. (Beware, though, if you haven’t seen it–one of the bleakest noir films ever.)
Darn, I can never properly figure out how to link my name to my blog as well when I leave comments on wordpress. Well, I’m a wordpress guy too, at irvoneil.wordpress.com. The title is Erotica Is My Trade.
Awesome lessons in an entertaining format. Thanks for the great post!
Glad you liked it!
I’ve come to love the editing process. The great feeling of finishing the first draft is undeniable, but being able to go back through once you know all the details and to fill in those blanks, beef up your dialogue, enhance your favorite scenes… I love that part. I like what you said about rewriting counting as writing, because even if you’re not adding to the end, you’re writing more and improving content where it matters.
I, too, have grown fond of editing. I used to want all of my drafts to be perfect, so I’d spend way to long on the first draft. As I grew up, and realized that such a feat was humanly impossible, I started really enjoying watching how the story grows up almost on its own as you revise.
“This is a rare deleted scene from the ill-fated Game of Thrones vs. Pirates of the Caribbean crossover.”
I LOLed. Also, I think I’m going to print this out, put it under my pillow, and hope that if I sleep on it, osmosis will make the awesomeness of this article transfer to my brain.
…wait, that’s not how this whole writing thing works, is it?
Anyway, thanks for a beautiful article!
I wrote out a whole fight scene between young Robert Baratheon and Jack Sparrow, but I just couldn’t get the dialogue right (kidding).
If you have any lucky with your osmosis training, let me know! I’d love to know I could just leave something like Walden under my pillow for a few weeks and suck out all the good juicy bits.
oh please, you can’t just dangle a wonderful idea like that fight in front of us and then not write it!
and I’ll keep you updated on the osmosis front…
I think I may be in love! With the alien. I’m odd that way. Great post!
If loving aliens is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
I greatly appreciate this! The first half of the novel I am working on has been rewritten so many times, and with each rewrite, characters, scenes, and plot points are deleted or added. My biggest worry was that I wasn’t making any ground, because I rewrote everything every time, throwing so much away, it couldn’t really count as revision. It is encouraging to see it from a new light. While I’m not sure my main character has made it past step one of your advice, I will continue to work on making his character more believable!
And very well-written by the way, I enjoyed it immensely.
Just keep working at it. My characters take months to develop, if they ever do at all!
Love the writing and adore the lego – a great way to illustrate your thoughts!
Thank you for reading! Glad you liked the post.
Very creative way to get your point across, or is that a pirate lego holding a sword point picture in the making.
Thanks!
Revise until you vomit.
Yup, in the process right now. Which? Oh, the revising, vomiting comes later.
Write and purge, write and purge. It’s a natural cycle.
Reblogged this on cindy vermillion and commented:
I absolutely loved this article on writing and re-writing. There is something to the ‘pregnant stage’ of writing that we many times want to avoid. We want the baby born, bred and fed before it even has the proper time to properly develop. This incubation stage is primordial and we’d be wise to follow in the footsteps of this very skillful little warrior.
I absolutely loved this article on writing and re-writing. There is something to the ‘pregnant stage’ of writing that we many times want to avoid. We want the baby born, bred and fed before it even has the proper time to properly develop. This incubation stage is primordial and we’d be wise to follow in the footsteps of this very skillful little warrior. (I’ve reblogged it!)
I like the idea of the “pregnant” stage. A lot of people try to write before their ideas are fully formed, and I think you’ve nailed it with this analogy.
Keep it in the oven until it is done cooking. No one wants to eat half-cooked, half-raw word meat!
This actually makes me appreciate my Hubby’s writing style more, as he will get stuck on a part of a story, trash the whole thing and start over. I thought he was the only one who did that!
Glad you could get some insight from my piece! My wife and I, too, have completely opposite writing styles. That’s the nature of writing; do what works subjectively for you, jettison the rest.
This is great 🙂 Will share it with a friend who’s been having some character issues – I’m sure he’ll love the Lego illustrations!
Let me know if it helps him! My ultimate goal is to be a silly, indirect teacher, so feel free to share at your discretion.
He says you’ve summed up exactly how he felt about one of his characters – he thinks your post is going to help him fix that, which is awesome 🙂
Welp, that made my day.
This post made my day. Life lesson: editing is so much more fun set to Legos.
My thoughts exactly. Now I can only hope that one day Lego will start sending me free sets. A boy can dream, right?
Ne’er leggo of the Lego. Great lesson, brilliantly put. I write for business a lot. It’s more fun re- and re-revising before the client mutilates it. Bit I agree. It is the re- that makes it shine. Thanks for some great writing.
I pay my bills by writing for business (technical writers, unite!) and can’t agree more. Our blue and red team proposal drafts are hilarious.
Love the article! The Legos were an awesome addition! I recently finished editing my first novel of 92,000 words and was surprisingly refreshed by the process… It was daunting at first, but once I got into it I remembered why I loved writing it. Now, having no experience in the field, I’m trying to leap the hurdle of landing an agent. Queried a few, but put it on hold in hopes of achieving a decent following of my new blog, http://jonathansiege.wordpress.com – I started up a Choose Your Own Adventure style story where the readers can vote the decisions the characters make at certain points in the storyline. If you’re not too busy give it a look : ) “The Adventures of Elliott Galloway”. Again, thanks for the great article!
Glad you liked the post! Congrats on finishing your draft. 92,000 is quite an accomplishment. My first novel was 87,000 and I felt so good when that first draft was done.
Finding an agent can be a challenge. I wish you luck!
I’ll check it out your site when I get some free time. Thanks for sharing!
Brilliant!! Funny and informative. Made me actually want to give writing fiction a go (rather than just imagining I’d be really good at it). If I do, I’ll learn from your mistakes and avoid giving characters firehats and lemon meringue pies. Cheers for that!
Alis
http://www.alphabetteringmyself@wordpress.com
I write both fiction and nonfiction. They both have their merits and places in the writing world. If you’ve never done it, give it a go; it can be a whole lot of fun.
Please write a story about a pirate/robot/pie shop owner – I’d be well up for reading that!
Brilliant post, thank you for writing and indeed sharing. 🙂
Based on the feedback, the story is already in the works. Keep you eye out for an update soon!
Great post, Oliver! So glad you got “freshly pressed” so I could read (and now follow) you. I can see a lot of correlations between writing and directing, which is going to be very inspiring for me. Kudos!
Peace
Cat
I always thought that directing was just like writing out loud. Glad to have you as a reader! Don’t be shy with the comments 🙂
Love the legos…we are never too old for those!!
Cheers,
Courtney Hosny
Thanks! Glad you stopped by.
Pirates, robots and pie-makers out of Lego? I think this illustrates character development, and editing, beautifully. Congrats on the FP!
Cheers,
iRuniBreathe
Thank you so much!
you are amazing.
i totally cried when will smith had to kill his dog.
No, you are amazing.
And yea, I’d read the book, so I knew it was coming, but maaaaaan. Sad.
I am working on a novel; although, I haven’t worked on it lately. I have been fed up with revising. However, your blog inspired me, so I think I’ll give my novel another try. I hope I can figure out a way, that is after August is over, to balance my blogging and my novel writing.
It’s a painful truth that we have to revise. Even the most seasoned writers have to revise. Stories are too complex to come out correctly. They hide behind themselves, unwilling to show you their real power and message until you’ve proven to them that you are trustworthy.
If you do it enough, revising can actually be fun! Good luck!
This is awesome…and true! Love the Legos!!!
Thank you! I think you are awesome, too!
Actually, I think a story about a pirate/robot/pie-shop owner would be quite interesting (if crafted well). Thanks for a fun and informative read. I will now check my pirate/robot/pie-shop-owner protagonist to make sure she doesn’t have a flaming hat.
I writing the crazy adventures of Cornelius X. Robotormax (made that up on the spot) right now!
Or kind of right now! The story idea seems to be popular, so I’m pretty much obligated to write it. 🙂
Love this. The characters I’m writing all seem to have multiple personalities at the moment and are getting a bit unruly. Your wonderful lego friends have persuaded me to go back to the drawing board – thanks!
Good! Glad I could help. Just keep at it. You know who your character are, you just don’t know it yet.
What a wonderful post!
It’s refreshing to see someone cover a subject that, personally frustrates the hell out of me, in such a light-hearted and fun way. Thank you for inspiring me to rifle through my old attempts at writing something legible!
Go, go, go! Characters are the best part of a story, methinks. They are hard to articulate, but so worth it, when you get them right. Good luck!
Hilarious!
Appreciative!
lovely post. i feel inspired. what a nice way of putting things. you actually made me believe that writing is very easy but then i recalled what effort i have to put each time revising it. but i m sure next time i go back to revising, this post of yours at the back of my mind will definitely make me smile and will provide a thrust.
Writing certainly isn’t easy in the traditional sense. Even if you’ve got raw talent, it involves a lot of work, mainly in the editing and revision stage.
Glad I can serve as an inspiration. Get to writing!
absoultely loved this. Witty, interesting, and made me keep reading. Thank you 😉
I love the way you illustrated this with lego figures! Awesome, honestly! So much fun to read, too… It makes me want to write immediately.
I love it! Thanks for sharing. And Stage 3 – “Re-write, re-hash, re-calculate, revise.” – reminds me of Rule #2 of Michael Scott’s 10 Rules of Business: Adapt, react, readapt, apt. 😉
Even though I really enjoyed this article, I have to say I’m more of a fan of the whole Jack Kerouac “no-edit” approach.
It’s similar to doing illustration in some ways . Most people need to experiment and sketch out their pictures with pencils first, before putting on the final inks. But occasionally, you have others who are able to go straight to inks and still pull it off.
(( In the spirit of objectivity I have to confess I rewrote this comment a few times before posting it… ))
Oliver, I’m on to you. Sure you’re funny, talented, adept at explaining and exploring, but couldn’t this all just be a clever ruse to hide your Lego addiction? 🙂
With all sincerity, a truly exceptional post.
I never denied my Lego addiction 🙂
🙂
Reblogged this on Counting Zeros and commented:
For my fiction writing friends … (and for me too) … A fun post on creating characters (and voice)
I read somewhere that The Poisonwood Bible was rewritten 17 times before it was published. Does that make me feel better???
Sure it does! I brought this comment up in class on Monday, and my teacher told me that she’s revised her novel SIXTY times. Practice makes perfect, and all that.
Point taken 🙂 Kudos for such a hard hitting and truthful post!
Anytime you can repurpose a writing skill into a visual it’s a great day! Thanks for clarifying the importance of revision. My fav part is where you said not to forget that revising IS still writing. How true and afterwards you still get to make a check on the invisible list of things to do for a great story. Keep thinking out loud!
I will! Thanks for the encouraging words.
Nicely put. If only my characters’ flaws were so obvious on a first read. At some point, it’s helpful to get someone else to look at your legos and see how messed up your creations are before you start swapping out heads. Thanks for the great post and visuals.
Beta readers are a must if you’re serious about a piece of writing. It is so easy to get stuck inside your own head. Fresh perspective is the best medicine.
I DID cry at the dog bit of the Will Smith film, but I’m a GIRL 🙂
Not gonna lie, I cried too. Just wanted to look tough in front of the internet.
Very interesting take on characters. I wrote a similar, but shorter, and almost opposite blog recently. It was fun to read your perspective. It was clever, fun, and ultimately very, very helpful. Thanks for sharing the craft of creating characters! 🙂
Fun to read. Great to get to know you, too. Thanks for sharing your creativity with us!
Reblogged this on waywardspirit and commented:
I follow!
Typically an illustrator, I may identify more with the Lego characters more than the writing! I love this!
Lately, I’ve been writing and let’s just say, it’s been fun and makes me sick.
Come visit me at chickcando.wordpress.com. I’d love a word from you!
This makes me laugh…all by myself! Thank you!