Creating Memorable Characters

Tip of the Day: Check out Literary Agent Kristin Nelson's vlog on the difference between YA and MG.


I've been researching how to create memorable characters and finding snippets of information that I think would be useful to share. 


Easy on the Names


Like from this site the author Lee Masterson says, "The name must not only suit the character, but must also be easy on your intended readers. If you decide the name Xzgytgml is the only name that suits your character, bear in mind that the reader is forced to stop and stumble through the unfamiliar word, which means he is no longer engrossed in your story." And, yeah, this happens to me all the time when I'm reading. I can't get past some of these crazy names and they pull me from the story each time.


Use Tags


Glen C. Strathy says we should use tags to make our characters stand out. "Tags are things which identify a character and set him or her apart from other characters."


"Tags can include physical traits, clothing preferences, hairstyles, habitual mannerisms, facial expressions, speech habits, noises the character makes, or even scents - anything, in fact, that a person interacting with the character would notice about him. The combination of a character's tags should set him or her apart from all other characters in the novel."


This is a problem I've seen in various novels (including my own) where the characters might talk too alike or use the same lingo or have the same ticks. It confuses the reader and might pull them from the story to backtrack and see who is talking.


Show, Don't Tell


Author/Agent Mandy Hubbard wrote a great blog post about creating memorable characters here. In it she talks about how we need to discover a character like pulling back the layers of an onion, a little at a time. " For instance, if your character is shy/awkward, please, please do not have her think, “I do not feel comfortable in crowds. I would like to avoid them. I am a shy person.” Instead, have her wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans. Let her stomach lurch when the teacher calls on her in class."  I ran into something like this just the other day when I was compiling a reading list. I was reading the first few pages of a particular book and the main character said on page two, I have ADD and that means I have a hard time sitting still and paying attention to the teacher and so on. I gave up on the book right there. I knew I wouldn't be able to sit through a whole book with a character just telling me things about himself.


Make Your Characters Three Dimensional


Susan Denard makes a great point that we must not forget about our bad guys in our books. They need to be memorable too. "The key to crafting a good villain is all how 3-dimensional he/she is–the villain isn’t simply bad to be bad. He’s bad for a reason, and readers need to understand what that reason is."


Avoid Cliches


Libba Bray talks about avoiding the typical stock character everyone's seen a million times. "Question assumptions, stereotypes and stock characters. Round characters aren’t black and white. Villains don’t think of themselves as villains. They aren’t all good or all bad."


Know Your Characters Inside and Out


Lucia Zimmitti says, "If your readers don't care about your characters, you're sunk. Readers don't necessarily have to like all of your characters, but they have to care about what happens to your main character, or there's no reason for them to keep reading." And it's the truth. It doesn't matter how awesome your plot is, if the reader doesn't care about your character the book won't be memorable. That's why it's important to work on the backstory of your characters and know as much as possible about them. There are character charts all over the Internet but Lucia has some interesting exercises to try once you're tired of the charts.


Kristina, Miss Author in Action

Reviewing Trends (or Coping with Mental Problems)

Tip of the Day, Librarian Edition: Please silence your cell phone and remain disconnected from it when inside the library. Nobody wants to hear what you're planning for dinner, what time your son needs to get picked up from hockey practice, or how much you hate your ex.

While reading the February 2012 VOYA, I noticed something in the reviews of realistic fiction: Five of them featured teens in mental hospitals.

I read one prior to seeing this month's VOYA:
TRY NOT TO BREATHE is a lovely YA of friends, family, health, truth, and healing. The main character is already released from the mental hospital when the novel begins, but he has a connection to two friends he made there and flashbacks to his institutionalization.

The other four VOYA reviewed novels contain characters visiting their friends in mental hospitals, girls recovering from OCD, etc. Different approaches with a similar theme.

As a teen, I loved GO ASK ALICE and other books that explored mental health issues, especially since I liked to diagnose myself with hypochondria, OCD, and whatever else was in the news. I'm sure teens today think about the same things.
But do we need five new titles with this theme? Maybe we do. Or is the mental hospital setting just another avenue for the dark, realistic contemporary YA novel that sells today? Is it a "trend," or is the market just ready for these novels to simultaneously hit the shelves? Is this simply the progression from all of the books with MCs seeing shrinks a couple years ago?

Some other patterns I noticed in VOYA were:
--teens getting ready to graduate from HS who have plans for their studies/futures (often involving the arts), but a death/break-up/parental decision throws them off course and they don't know what to do with their lives.
--not much realistic historical fiction at all (there is more in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror section)

What patterns are you noticing on the shelves? And do you find the themes "worthy?"

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

I want you...and your voice!

Tip of the Day: just wishing a very Happy Birthday to my husband today!

Voice is everything in your writing. It helps brand you as an author and helps your books come to life.

What would it be like if all of Sarah Dessen's books were written in Meg Cabot's voice?

They both use humor and focus on romance. But they have a very different voice. Cabot loves the funny one-liners and fast paced books, whereas Dessen focuses on secondary characters with quirky personalities to deliver her humor and her books usually move at a much slower pace so you get to enjoy the depth of the characters and marvel at her amazing writing ability even more.

If these authors stood on a stage and read their works to a backward facing audience--much like the contestants on The Voice--you’d be able to spot the differences in their books immediately. Yes, they are both awesome storytellers. But both have their own unique literary voice that is easy to tell from the moment you crack open the book and read page one.

And even though I love them both, I know several people that are Sarah Dessen fans that can't stand to read a Meg Cabot book (shock and horror, I know!).

So if someone doesn't get your voice, don’t get upset. Just like with writers, there are also a lot of singers on The Voice that half of the judges don't get. While the other half think they are brilliant.

But if you aren't unique and stay true to your own voice, then chances are pretty good you won't get noticed at all.

And who doesn't want at least one person to turn around in a chair that says "I Want You" on it?

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

Wait, What's Dystopian Again?

Tip of the Day: I have an article about story in the Winter Rhemalda Opus. Check it out at http://opus.rhemalda.com/.

There are so many dystopians on the market these days, the word is losing its meaning. Check out this Goodreads list named Dystopia! It's kind enough to provide a definition: "no singular catastrophe may have occurred but things have somehow still slipped into a horrid state of paranoia and oppression."

I like that definition a lot. Unfortunately both history and modern politics provide us with ample states where paranoia and oppression rule. So when looking at a dystopian, the question is how does this compare to Stalin's Siberia or modern-day North Korea? A shortage of consumer goods and rampant disease do not a dystopian make. Hunger and pestilence are humankind's eternal companions. We keep them at bay for only short periods of time throughout history. In other words, a dystopian requires more. It's a heck of a lot easier to research history than to create an entire world.

Looking at the list, we see people arguing over what novels are really dystopian. Catch-22 is on the list. Nonsensical power structure that leads people who follow the rules to death? Check. Rules that bring about extreme paranoia and oppression? Check. And yet isn't it historical fiction? It's a novel about a specific place and time in history. 

The Adoration of Jenna Fox is on the list too, and I'd like to protest that. It takes place in the future, and horrible things happen to some specific characters. But in general, society seems to be a kinder place with great advances in medicine and education. Look, bad things have to happen to your main characters or nobody would read your story. But that doesn't make it dystopian.

Here's a tough one: Watership Down. Dystopia? I don't know! Horrible things happen to several societies of rabbits. Each society has a particularly awful way of dealing with life's harshness. There is a way out, but it comes with a huge price attached. The stakes are life and death. Of course, it's about rabbits in a field in England. What do you think? Dystopian or not?

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Editing the Indie Novel, Part Two

Tip of the Day: If you haven't read my books, enter to win them on my website through Saturday at midnight. I'm also giving away more than 20 other ebooks too!

Today I'm going to touch on content edits. A book that ignores this step is probably doomed to failure.

First you should tackle editing content. This is where my friend Angela Carlie comes into play (as I referenced in my last blog post). Yes, she tells me if my commas are in the wrong place or if I misuse a semicolon, but the bulk of what she does is examine my style choices and plot.

Let's talk style first. Characters have their tics, just like we do. They tend to talk in ways that are indicative of their personalities, or react physically in certain ways. Bella, in Twilight (y'all have heard of that book, right?), was really, really clumsy. It was a character tic.

Where could that tic have gone wrong? If Edward was always walking into walls or Jacob stubbed his toe every time he turned into a wolf. Then it becomes an author obsession with clumsiness and not a character trait that makes Bella special. Just imagine how silly it would have been for both Bella & Edward to be in a cast at prom!

I know, I know, you think that's so obvious and no writer would ever do that. THEY DO. It happens. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's subtle. That's why you need fresh eyes to read your book.

Okay, let's jump to plot. In Chapter Two the author introduces a character named Jimmy Joe. He interacts with the main character, indicates he has a piece to the mystery she's trying to solve ... then she solves the mystery on her own and Jimmy Joe never makes another appearance.

This requires editing. It's very common for a writer (especially a pantser like me) to introduce characters, get swept up in the story, and then forget they totally exist. This is another huge issue that content editing picks up on. Someone who isn't intimate with the story will notice it right away and let you know before you publish your book. Imagine if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Watson to Holmes, then never mentioned him again. Lame, right?

What else goes into content editing? Sentence structure (make sure it's varied and interesting), chapter-to-chapter flow (end with a cliffhanger, start with a bang), continuity (make sure the facts in a sequel agree with the facts from the previous novel), word repetition, etc. I could go on for ages - but there are books dealing with this topic. Read them.  (Manuscript Makeover by Lyon; Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne & King; The First Five Pages by Lukeman to name a few.)

Bottom line: Don't stress about punctuation until you've done a full and complete content edit of your book. Why? Trust me, when you revise those big issues, you'll flub up your punctuation again. You'll type 'first' instead of 'fist' and your 90-year-old grandpa will find it when he reads it (yes, that happened to me). Deal with the content - then deal with copy edits.

Go forth and revise! (Then do it again and again and again!)

Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber

Perfect Young Adult Books for Valentine's Day

Tip of the Day: If you're a teen in the western suburbs of Chicago, come see me at this Valentine's Day event tonight.

It's almost that time again...Valentine's Day. Are we yay or nay? I used to be more excited about Valentine's Day but now it seems like an endless flow of kid's valentine's and filling them out and buying treats for their classmates. That's for 103 kids. Nuts right? But between my four kids...sigh. But anyway, I need some good Valentine's reads to perk me up and thought you might too.

Felicity Walker believes in true love. That's why she applies for a gig at the matchmaking company Cupid's Hollow. But when Felicity gets the job, she learns that she isn't just a matchmaker...she's a cupid! (There's more than one of them, you know.)

Armed with a hot pink, tricked-out PDA infused with the latest in cupid magic (love arrows shot through email), Felicity works to meet her quota of successful matches. But the path to love is not always a straight shot...

Find it on Indiebound, B&N, or Amazon.

When a blizzard threatens to ruin Valentine’s Day, three seventh-grade friends make and distribute fortune cookies to their lonely neighbors—and confront the secrets they’ve been keeping from one another.

Confident Kate doesn’t notice much but the latest gossip, and shy Georgia can’t say out loud what’s always on her mind. They’re joined by observant, careful Olivia, whose epic, single-minded crush on PBJ (real name: Phillip Becker-Jacobs) is starting to frustrate the other two. Using fortune cookies that mysteriously always seem to speak directly to the person who opens them, the three girls try to work together to bring some love to their building, while reminding each other why they’re such good friends to begin with.

With all the right ingredients to appeal to tween girls, this is an irresistible confection from an emerging talent.

Find it on Indiebound, B&N, or Amazon.

What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all: the world's most crush-worthy boyfriend, three amazing best friends, and first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High—from the best table in the cafeteria to the choicest parking spot. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life.

Instead, it turns out to be her last.

Then she gets a second chance. Seven chances, in fact. Reliving her last day during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death—and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

Find it on Indiebound, B&N, or Amazon.



Do you have any suggestions for good YA Valentine's reads?

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

Been There, Read That (or Tired and True Tropes)

Tip of the Day, Librarian Edition: February is Love Your Library Month! Ask your local librarians what you can do for them!

All of us writers trying to sell books know that it is a tough, competitive market for YA. What can we do to stand out in the slush piles? One idea I plan to implement is to work harder on coming up with unique angles to introduce characters and plot points. No more taking the easy, tried and true way!

Based on the over 100 YA novels I read in the past year, scenarios I will be avoiding are:

--a new boy at school who immediately connects with the MC and is a huge part of her destiny, paranormal or realistic. (New setting besides the school intro, please.)
--the MC starts at a new school and immediately connects with a guy there who is a huge part of her destiny, paranormal or realistc. (Twilight.)
--the MC has a dead brother/sister/boyfriend/girlfriend and connects with the deceased's living brother/sister/boyfriend/girlfriend in order to heal from the loss. (This has been done beautifully in the recent past, and I'm ready for another fresh way for the MC to heal.)
--strictly defined cliques, including the obviously popular/beautiful girls who are cruel to the MC. (If I never see this again, I will be all too grateful. Why can't the ugly girls be the cruel ones?)

In a first draft, these elements are fine. But as you revise, brainstorm new ways of showing the relationships between characters. Dig deeper. Writing is hard anyway, so work a little harder and make it all worth it.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing