A simple character profile is flat. But his lies, secrets and scars create an emotional journey that turns your story into a book readers can’t put down.
This is a post I found interesting in relation to the morals, values, or other belief systems of characters that can make a story more of a gripping read.
This also discusses how to detail these areas within a story and how this can help drive the story along.
on Jane Friedman site: At every writer’s conference, I see fledgling authors roll up their sleeves when told well-established truths on writing: Writing is important. Make it a priority. Schedule time for writing every day, or as regularly as possible. But when they’re exhorted to market their books? Pearl clutch. While a small group of […]
I am coming to the end of a very productive Short Story Course (https://www.writers-online.co.uk/writing-courses/courses/short-story-course-first-edition/). The course covers various areas, including ‘Shaping Your Characters’, ‘Narration and Dialogue’, ‘Writing Style’ and more. I’ve been paired with a tutor, Lesley Eames (https://lesleyeames.com/), who has been helpful and provided some very useful feedback. Several things she has advised will stay with me for as long as I write.
Amongst those things was something that makes so much sense but has never been advised to me before. That is:
The tag for dialogue is part of the sentence.
More than likely, that sounds standard to most, but it’s new to me. After the dialogue, you put a comma before the ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ part. I’ve never been told that or come across it before in feedback or otherwise. It makes sense, but I find it strange it’s never crossed my path. One of the many benefits I’ve seen from doing a course on the craft of writing. I never want to stop learning things like this.
I’ve made plenty of notes and devoured all the feedback that Lesley has provided me. But she commented just before I started my current and penultimate course unit, ‘The Writer at Work’, which covers the writer actually doing the work. She said:
This will be the penultimate assignment in the current course, but it’s possible to book some extension assignments if you feel it would be helpful to continue to receive feedback on your writing. Alternatively, you might consider the challenge of a new course such as Fiction, which deals with longer stories, or Crime Writing. Another possibility is to submit work under the critiquing scheme.
This got me thinking, where to next?
I’ve always wanted to write a story or two using all the experience I’ve gained from working in the banking sector, which is around 18 years now. The ideas have always been there. But, as I enjoy writing Fantasy and Sci-Fi related stories, I didn’t know how to mesh the two together. And I preferred to write Fantasy and Sci-Fi that in no way involved my working life and to keep things separate. I’m not sure why, but I think it may have been a way of keeping my two worlds apart.
But then, an idea emerged.
This came about when I started to write my journal. The idea revolves around the banking industry and magic. I’m still working it out, but I’m enjoying it, and I’ve started to write it each day on my writing note app Evernote. Well, it’s now almost every day, but it’s moving along nicely.
This idea got me thinking about all the other ideas I’ve had and more so the ones I’ve turned into stories of varying lengths. And what to do with those stories in particular. The one part of Writing Life that alludes to me is being published. I won’t lie; seeing my name on a book I’ve created being published on any scale would be a dream come true. But, how do I accomplish this?
This thought pushed me to sign up for another course, ‘How to Make Money from your Writing’. I’m hoping to learn a lot from this and take a big step in my writing life.
With this in mind, what further writing education have you done? Can you recommend any writing courses?Please comment below. I’m interested to hear from you.
johnrsermon 
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