Welcome to stop 104 of Elana's Great Blogging Experiment!
(Eeeek! I am totally intimidated by the large number of people who are also blogging about this very same topic possibly at this very same moment...)
How many times can The Hero's Journey be original?
(Eeeek! I am totally intimidated by the large number of people who are also blogging about this very same topic possibly at this very same moment...)
How many times can The Hero's Journey be original?
How many times can The Love Triangle be original?
How many times can The Forbidden Love Story be original?
Answer: not many.
So why do we keep going back for more?
Answer: because of the characters, the people.
They are different every time, and so the story is different every time.
Life is all about relationships. You can have things, you can have success, you can have status, but we all know that it means nothing without people. So when we read a book - or at least, when I read a book - one of the main things that makes it or breaks it for me is the characters.
So... Having not really thought about this much before the Great Experiment, here is my take on things...
1. Get Real
Very important. If I'm reading a book and keep thinking, "There's no way anyone in real life would ever say/do/be something like that," then I'm not interested. You need characters that readers can relate to.
2. Get Interesting
Everyone has a story, or, to use the correct terminology, backstory. This is what fleshes your characters out, gives them depth and possibly mystery and intrigue. What has happened in your characters' pasts to make them the way they are?
3. Get Talking
Dialogue rocks! One of the easiest ways to show what type of person a character is is to have them interact with other characters. In both my reading and writing I'm not so keen on the descriptive parts (don't hate me!), but dialogue makes me happy :-) I love seeing how characters interact. Plus it moves the story forward.
4. Get Motive
In both reading and writing I constantly (yes, it gets annoying sometimes) ask myself, "Why is this character doing this?" And there has to be a good enough reason, or else the character isn't believable anymore. Why is my character going on this dangerous, difficult, life-threatening journey? Because they just felt like it? Not likely!
5. Get Change
In real life, change is scary. In stories, no change is BORING! If your characters manage to get to the other side of their journey/tumultuous relationship/fight to the death with a fire-breathing dragon, it must have changed them somehow. For better or worse, there's got to be change.
Thanks for stopping by! Next on the list is Writing from the Wrogan...
So... Having not really thought about this much before the Great Experiment, here is my take on things...
1. Get Real
Very important. If I'm reading a book and keep thinking, "There's no way anyone in real life would ever say/do/be something like that," then I'm not interested. You need characters that readers can relate to.
2. Get Interesting
Everyone has a story, or, to use the correct terminology, backstory. This is what fleshes your characters out, gives them depth and possibly mystery and intrigue. What has happened in your characters' pasts to make them the way they are?
3. Get Talking
Dialogue rocks! One of the easiest ways to show what type of person a character is is to have them interact with other characters. In both my reading and writing I'm not so keen on the descriptive parts (don't hate me!), but dialogue makes me happy :-) I love seeing how characters interact. Plus it moves the story forward.
4. Get Motive
In both reading and writing I constantly (yes, it gets annoying sometimes) ask myself, "Why is this character doing this?" And there has to be a good enough reason, or else the character isn't believable anymore. Why is my character going on this dangerous, difficult, life-threatening journey? Because they just felt like it? Not likely!
5. Get Change
In real life, change is scary. In stories, no change is BORING! If your characters manage to get to the other side of their journey/tumultuous relationship/fight to the death with a fire-breathing dragon, it must have changed them somehow. For better or worse, there's got to be change.
Thanks for stopping by! Next on the list is Writing from the Wrogan...
