Using Character Sheets in Fiction Writing

Writing fiction is a bit like baking a cake. You need the right ingredients in the right amounts, or it will turn out awful. For fiction, you need the right combination of plot, action, description and character development to bring your story to life for your reader.

Character development can be one of the most important things about writing fiction. You want to create a realistic group of characters to move your plot along and to do that you need to know them. But how much do you really have to know about them before you start writing?

Well, that depends on the kind of story you are writing. The length of your tale will dictate the amount of character information you will need to make them come to life. For simplicity's sake, I've broken my character sheet down into what I use for each type of writing. Your character sheets may vary.

Using Character Sheets in Fiction Writing

Flash Fiction

Writing flash fiction is one of the hardest types of writing. You have to create a story with just the minimum of words and it has to make sense. For most flash fiction, you only need the most basic character information.

Name:

Age:

Height:

Weight:

Hair color and style:

Eye color:

Complexion and skin tone:

Character's body build:

These should be enough to create a flash fiction character.

Short Stories

Short stories have a higher word count, so the characters in those should be more developed. You have more leeway with your character's descriptions and can even give background information, which will make them more real for your readers. Use the above information and add the following:

Character back story:

Identifying marks:

Facial features:

Hand features:

Scent:

Mannerisms or gestures:

Novellas and Novels

Novellas and novels require the most detailed characters because they are as much character driven stories as plot driven. Character sheets with more detailed physical description, personality traits, and an extensive background will go a long way to making your story one that pulls a reader in and keeps them reader from beginning to end. Use all of the above plus the following:

Strongest personality traits:

Weakest personality traits:

Needs of the character:

Ambitions:

Father's name:

Age:

Physical appearance:

Mother's name:

Age:

Physical appearance:

Sibling's names and descriptions:

Favorite sayings:

Interests and hobbies:

Favorite foods:

Favorite colors:

Pets:

Education:

Religion:

Financial situation:

Future plans:

Possessions this character values most:

What drives your character:

How does your character handle conflict:

What is standing in your character's way:

What is their favorite room and why:

What vehicle do they drive:

Favorite sport(s):

What are your character's prejudices:

How does your character feel about love:

About crime:

What is their neighborhood like:

What is your character's philosophy on life:

What is your character's family life like:

You also should have a rough background and timeline for this character, from childhood through the start of the story. Break it down into 5 year spans, unless your character is fairly old, then go with 10 year spans. Finally, have a profile summary, taking everything you have for the character and write up a one or two paragraph summary. It is a good way to focus your character's information, and could be used in your story.

Book Series

When writing a series of books about the same characters, it is imperative to keep some kind of record of their traits. Do not rely on your memory when it comes to writing each book. As an avid reader of series books, it is amazing the number of times a character's eyes have been dark blue in one book and dark brown in another then gone back to blue. While most casual readers won't catch that kind of mistake, your dedicated readers will. It costs you nothing to keep a notebook with your character sheets and reference it when writing the next book in your series. It will go a long way to keep the continuity of your books intact.

A note on describing clothing. Unless clothing change is crucial to your story's plot limit your fashion descriptions. You do not need to tell every single piece of clothing your character is wearing. A basic idea of their attire is enough for most readers.

Your characters are as important to your story as your plot. Developing them will help bring your tale to life, but taking the time to plan them out prior to writing is a great way to make them real to you and your reader.

Using Character Sheets in Fiction Writing
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Creative Writing - Fiction, Writing Fiction That Sells

When writing fiction, the author must rely upon his/her instincts and experiences to create a story. This article will provide an overview of 7 of the major elements of writing fiction in good form, i.e., the form editors expect.

Plotting

Plotting and characterization carry the other elements of the book. The plotting must be believable, plausible, and interesting. It is a sequence of events connected in a cause-and-effect manner. Generally the plot consists of a series of increasingly more intense conflicts, a climax (the most intense part of the book), and a final resolution. The plot must advance as the book unfolds. Usually the closer to the end of the book the climax is placed the better.

Creative Writing - Fiction, Writing Fiction That Sells

Long works like novels can have many subplots and secondary climaxes and resolutions. Avoid using subplots in order to have cliché characters. Avoid too many coincidences.

Flashbacks have been overused. A book is stronger when it runs chronologically.

Characterization

The reader should be able to identify with and care about the characters in the sense that the characters seem real to the reader. The characters must do something, and what they do must seem reasonable for them to have done it.

Characters should be introduced early in the book. The more often a character is mentioned or appears, the more significance the reader will attach to the character. Also, the main character should be introduced before setting, so that the setting can be introduced from the point of view of the character.
The nature of characters can be brought out through minimal description and the actions, thoughts, and dialogue of the characters. The author should allow the reader to make judgments about the characters; the author should avoid making the judgments for the reader. The feelings of the character should be demonstrated rather than told by the narrator.

Yet, there are some very good books in which much of the narrative voice is about a character's feelings and thoughts or in which the narration goes into great detail and analysis of a character's feelings and thoughts at some point. So one rule about writing fiction is that there are no rules, or maybe: If it works, it works.

Scene

Scene includes the place and time in which the book takes place. The scene should be described in specifics to make the book seem real, to set the atmosphere and mood of the book, to place limitations on the characters, or to help establish the basic conflict of the book. Weather can be an important part of a scene.

The scene can be used for contrast, having something taking place in an unexpected place. Also, the more unfamiliar the reader is with the setting, the more interesting the scene.

Dialogue

Dialogue makes fiction seem real. However, dialogue that copies reality may actually slow down a book. Avoid unnecessary or repetitive dialogue.

Dialect in dialogue can be difficult to read. A small amount of it can be used to establish the nature of a character, but overuse will intrude on the book. The level of use of language by the characters- pronunciation, diction, grammar, etc.- is often used to characterize people in a book. Most often the main characters use the best English.

Profanity and vulgarisms can be used where they seem appropriate. Overuse amounts to author intrusion and can interrupt the reader's belief in the book.

Too much exposition through dialogue can slow down a book. Characters should not repeat in dialogue events which have already happened in the book.

Also, one character should not tell another character what the second character should already know just so the author can convey information to the reader.

The form of dialogue should be varied to keep the reader interested. However, don't try to find too many different ways to say "said."

Interior dialogue is what a character is thinking. Dramatic dialogue is a character thinking out loud, without response from other characters. Indirect dialogue is the narrator telling what a character said.

Dialogue should be used to develop character or to advance the book. It should not be used just to hear characters talk.

Point of View

First person point of view has the main character telling the story or a secondary character telling the main character's story. Everything that happens in the book must be seen or experienced by the character doing the narration. The reader's judgment of other characters in the book will be heavily influenced by the narrator. This can be very limiting. Also, a book written in first person usually means that the main character won't die in the plot. However, first person point of view gives a sense of intimacy to the book.

Third person point of view can be objective or omniscient. An objective narrator describes actions but not the inner thoughts or feelings of the characters. An omniscient narrator can describe all the actions of all of the characters but also all of their inner thoughts and feelings as well.

Genre

Genre is the main category into which a book fits. Most stories meet the criteria for multiple genres, but you should have some focus, identifying a market before you begin writing fiction.

Narrative Voice

Narrative voice is the way the author uses language. The longer the work the less important language becomes. Above all, the author's work must tell a story. The author should not be more concerned with the words used than with the tale the author is trying to tell. Don't be a fanatic about words. The language is less important than characterization and plotting. However, a combination of a good story and good narrative voice will be a delight to read. Mistakes in English amount to author intrusion and detract greatly from the book. The most effective writing uses the active voice, and nouns and verbs so specific that they require no modifiers. The choice of words can help set the tone of the book.

Beginning authors often miss one critical fact about writing fiction. It is up to the author to please the reader, not the other way around.

Creative Writing - Fiction, Writing Fiction That Sells
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Powerful Punctuation - Misuse and Over Use of Exclamation Points in Professional Fiction Writing

Ah, punctuation!

One of the most frequently misused forms of punctuation is the exclamation point or the exclamation mark. As an editor, I have frequently told authors with whom I work that I am going to remove the exclamation point from their keyboard. Don't get me wrong here, the exclamation point has its place in writing, but it is frequently overused or misused. When the exclamation point is misused or over used, it lowers its power.

The exclamation point is most frequently used in dialog, and it is usually used to denote a strong command:

Powerful Punctuation - Misuse and Over Use of Exclamation Points in Professional Fiction Writing

"Stop!"

An exclamation point almost always comes at the end of a sentence, but occasionally, it can come in the middle when using dialog that has text tags behind it, such as:

He said, "Stop!" before he reached out to grab the file from her hand.

An exclamation point can also be used to indicate shouting.

He yelled, "I'm so angry!"

This makes a stronger impact than without the exclamation point, and clearly indicates that the person was shouting, emphasizing the point.

Exclamation points are also used to denote a surprise or a shock or something that is in some way astonishing or amazing, even when the person is not shouting.

He said quietly, a shocked expression on his face, "I can't believe he actually jumped out of the airplane!"

When used this way, exclamation points are a very important part of punctuation. However, there are two consistently misused instances of exclamation point abuse regularly seen on the internet that should be avoided in professional fiction writing:

Multiple Exclamation Points and the Exclamation / Question Combo

Let's look at multiple exclamation points first:

The window on his car was broken. "I can't believe this happened!!!!"

Many writers believe that multiple exclamation points will indicate that the comment preceding the exclamation point was very important, very loud, or had a lot of emotion behind it.

Unfortunately, this is a sign of an amateur writer, and a big tip off to editors in the publishing field that the author is inexperienced. We see multiple exclamation points all the time in blogs and personal writings, and I even use them on my own blogs, but multiple exclamation points are not acceptable in professional writing.

A good fiction writer can convey the additional emotion or loudness of the exclamation in their writing along with ONE exclamation point, and multiple exclamation points are simply not acceptable.

That sentence above could be rewritten to say:

He was completely shocked and dismayed to discover the window on his car was broken. He screamed, "I can't believe this happened!"

Not only have you drawn a better word picture of the scene to your reader this way, but you no longer need the multiple exclamation points. Of course, you may come up with even better descriptive than the example here, but it makes the point.

The other problem exclamation point usage is the question/exclamation combo.

"What?!" he asked. "I can't believe this. How could this happen?!"

This is a NO-NO for professional fiction writing. If you need to let the reader know the person is yelling or astonished, then do it in the dialog tags and descriptive text, and then only use the question mark in the actual dialog.

"What?" he screamed. His voice rang out in clear shock and disbelief. "I can't believe this. How could this happen?"

In a novel, the only time you should use an exclamation point is in dialog, unless it is written in such a way that the novel has a narrator speaking to the reader or the novel is written in first person, present tense (sometimes past tense works too), memoir style, and this is not the traditional, common writing style and a very hard one to sell to a publisher, not impossible, but hard. Placing an exclamation point in the text of a fiction novel that is not dialog is one example of something known as 'author intrusion', where the author is trying to lead the reader to what they should be able to clearly see by the words and description.

In a professional articles or writing other than fiction, you simply should not use an exclamation point, ever!

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. When the writing is technical, professional, newsprint, non fiction, you should not use an exclamation point. However, when writing with a more casual style, such as web content or opinion pieces, an occasional exclamation point to emphasize a specific point in the writing is acceptable, but you want to limit their use, never use more than one exclamation point in the same paragraph, and never use the question mark / exclamation point combo.

When an exclamation point is overused, the meaning of the exclamation point, what its purpose is, gets lost. Save you exclamation points for casual writing or dialog and only when you really need it to make a point, and the power of the exclamation point in writing will not be lost.

Powerful Punctuation - Misuse and Over Use of Exclamation Points in Professional Fiction Writing
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Writing the Flashback in Fiction

Flashbacks are tools for the fiction writer to add depth and interest to a story, as they can be a part of any piece of writing in any genre and type. Flashbacks are important for the drama in the story, because they bring the reader into the life of the characters on an emotional level and let him enter the characters' thoughts, feelings, and expectations.

The main obligation of the flashback is to take the readers back in time when that time or place in the past matters greatly to the storyline and to the present and the future of the characters. By the same token, the flashback has to aid the reader's grasp of the story. The reader's grasp usually matches the writer's understanding of his characters and their situations. If a writer has not fully fleshed out his characters in his mind, the flashbacks may run the risk of being irrelevant to the story.

Let's say, in a very short story, a character named Mike eats a quart of ice-cream in one sitting and remembers, in flashback, his mother serving him ice-cream. Then Mike goes to his job with the CIA and discovers his best friend is a mole. After a few incidents, he proves who the mole is to his bosses. Here, the ice-cream incident and the flashback that come with it have nothing to do with the discovery of the mole, so it shouldn't be included in Mike's discovery-of-the-mole story, even if the writer may imagine it helps to bring out the soft side of this character.

Writing the Flashback in Fiction

One way to bring flashbacks to a story is to give them in total in the beginning as a prologue, an introduction, or an introductory chapter. The advantages of the total flashbacks are:

o Total flashbacks allow the telling of the story without stopping the action.
o They give the story a chronological order.
o During the storytelling, the critical backstory data serves to give depth to the story.
o Writing the total flashback is easy on the writer. After he is done with the backstory in flashback, telling the real story becomes uncomplicated.

The disadvantage of the total flashback in the beginning of a story is that it can bore the reader with the long past, instead of pulling him into the story's action and the story's present time.

Another way to insert flashbacks in a story is to give them in several large chunks inside the story. The film industry can use cut-aways for this; however, in writing straight fiction, large chunks work better only in slow-moving stories. If the writer is telling a fast-paced story in any genre, he needs to avoid the large chunks of flashbacks.

In addition, this type of flashback is best used by signaling its beginning and end in some way or possibly putting the flashback in italics. As to the dialogue in a large chunk of flashback, it can be summarized, if possible.

A third way of inserting the flashbacks in the story is to insert small pieces of flashback, possibly in one or two sentences wherever they are needed. The advantages of this technique are:

o The writer has flexibility in telling the story, as to how to tell it and how much he will let the reader know.
o The writer can weave in critical information and background material at any time he wishes.
o He can use it to increase suspense or to attract the reader's curiosity
o He can create layered characters during the writing of the real story.

On the negative side, if not handled well by the writer, this technique may cause the reader to confuse the past with the present.

A few points to pay attention to while creating flashbacks are:

o The contents of the flashback should not be more exciting than the real story.
o A flashback works better if it follows a strong scene.
o The writer should orient the reader at the start of the flashback in time and space. If the transition of the flashback is not adequately written, past and present may become a jumble in the reader's mind.
o During the revision process, it may be necessary to leave out the least important incidents in the flashbacks and trim down the existing ones.
o As to usage, the writer may want to make use of the verb tenses to signal a flashback's beginning and ending. If the story is told in the present tense, the entire flashback can be in the past tense. If the story is told in past tense, the flashback may begin with past perfect to signal the change, then the flashback may continue with the past tense again, in order not to overuse the weighty past perfect. Then the ending of the flashback can be maneuvered into past perfect again before continuing the story with the past tense.

Some caveats concerning flashbacks are:

o The writer should not make the contents of the flashback more interesting or longer than the real story.
o The writer should not introduce the flashback as the first real scene in the story. This doesn't always work.
o Flashbacks within flashbacks run the risk of confusing the story and the reader who is reading it, unless the writer is as highly experienced as John Updike.
o Too many and too long flashbacks tend to turn a story into an epic. If that is not the intention and there is a limit to word count, the writer must be careful with long flashbacks.
o It works better to use flashbacks sparingly and with discretion since they do tend to slow the pacing. An experienced writer will not use flashbacks past the three-quarters of the real story.

Writing the Flashback in Fiction
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Writing Science Fiction

When writing science fiction, the writer has to go further than fiction to the plausibility of science. Science fiction (SF) is theoretically plausible and can be set in a world of the author's creation. The protagonist should struggle but have a fair chance to succeed and overpower the antagonist or antagonists, whether they are visitors from another planet or beings or humans in an alternate or future reality.

To win high accolades for the creative writing, the author should refrain from depicting man as a weakling who can be subjugated or taken as a pet by the aliens. When writing science fiction, the antagonist may be strong, but the story will falter without a worthy protagonist. The futuristic elements of sci-fi are an attractive choice for writing. It makes for great screenplays and novels.

Fiction

Today writing science fiction is both lucrative and personally satisfying. The readers of sci-fi span age groups young and old and come from diverse parts of the society. Whatever is dealt with in sci-fi should have sound backing in science and technology. Vampires, ghosts, demons and the like may be left out of sci-fi novels because no amount of rationalization is going to give these unearthly creatures an explainable form. They are more aptly suited to fantasy writing. The one thing that makes writing a SF screenplay compelling is the fact that it gives the audience the illusion that what they are viewing is real. Whether the setting is on another planet or the characters are non-human, science and technology can provide a plausible explanation for their existence.

Writing Science Fiction

The use of aliens resembling human beings is a commonplace penchant when writing science fiction. The genre is neither religious nor mythical or magical and must not seem absurd, however outlandish the idea may actually initially seem. The integral dependency of sci-fi on believable science sets it apart from other genres. Writing science fiction involves merging fiction and science in the right proportion with clear congruity between the two.

The open-ended universe and the what-if facets of SF draw imaginative crowds.

Anything that is accomplished by human beings is science and what they dream is fiction. In totality, human history was at one time deemed SF. Much of sci-fi writing penned long ago has come to fruition in today's technological world. When writing science fiction, writers have the option to work with or hire a ghostwriter to help create the story and provide feedback.

Writing Science Fiction

Contact professional SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS to help write or edit your horror screenplay, novel, or short story.

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Creative Writing: How to Start Your Novel

When I was in the eleventh grade, I took a creative writing elective with one of the most brilliant teachers I've ever met. She was brutal, honest and highly creative; I don't know why she hadn't graduated to teaching college courses. In any event, she gave me the best writing advice I have ever gotten:

"The worst way to start your story is with a 'dark and stormy night'. It's been done. Other than that, the sky's the limit."

Fiction

I took her advice to heart, and the stories I wrote for her class had the most creative beginnings I've ever written.

Creative Writing: How to Start Your Novel

Most beginning (and even veteran) writers struggle with how to open their novels. Dialogue? Action? Witty prose? How you start your novel with decide how many people buy it off bookstore shelves. Captivating your reader should be the first priority, but how do you know if it's exciting enough?

How to Start Your Novel with Dialogue

I rarely start novels with dialogue, mostly because I can never think of anything important enough to say. However, sometimes dialogue is the best way to get your novel off to a running start. If your characters are in the middle of a fight or if there's something you want to get right out in the open, dialogue can thrust your reader right into the opening scene of the novel.

That said, you have to be careful. Resist the urge to start your novel with dialogue like, "How are you feeling today?" If you plan to open with dialogue, it must be intelligent and important and captivating.

My only real advice for starting your novel with dialogue is to have only one line of speech before you insert some explanations. Even if the characters are in the middle of a conversation, don't confuse your reader by failing to give details.

How to Start Your Novel with Action

Obviously, action is the most popular way to start a novel. It's exciting, intriguing, and it lures your readers into the story before they even know what hit them.

This is especially true with mystery and suspense stories. In those genres, readers expect to be hooked from the get-go, and they want to be shocked from paragraph one.

How to Start Your Novel with Prose

In this case, "prose" really refers to description. Some of the most powerful novels of all time have begun with languid and lyrical description:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

"A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories..."

- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Description is my favorite way to start a novel because it eases the reader into the storyline. There are no expectations, no assumptions; your reader becomes immersed in the fictional world that you have created, and at your own pace; no one else's.

The only problem with this method is that you must find a unique way to describe the opening scene. My advice is to think about the characters and the setting and to pick out a remote object on which to comment. This takes your reader from a very specified place - the object - and into a more complex scene - your opening. For example, one of the books that I ghosted several years ago began like this:

"In a room filled with beautiful antique furniture and ancient artifacts from Egypt and Rome, the digital clock radio stuck out like a sore thumb. It's flashing green digits called attention to the clock as if to say, I may be new, but I'm still important. It struck me as odd that someone as refined and as old-world as Cunningham Thompson III would rely on such a technological timepiece." By drawing your readers' attention to something mundane, they will be twice as captivated when you get on with the plot.

Creative Writing: How to Start Your Novel

Laura J. College is a professional ghostwriter with more than ten years' experience writing fiction and non-fiction manuscripts. Her work can be found all over the Internet, and she is currently accepting ghostwriting clients. Check out her website at [http://www.laurajcollege.com]

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Secrets to Writing a Sad Story

My dream, from the time I developed an obsession for writing stories, has been to write one that can make people cry. Well, my stories, I hear, have moved a goodly number of compassionate souls.

But really, what are the odds that stories can move a person to tears? Has the written word got such power? The answer is a resounding yes!

Fiction

Have you ever read a story of an individual who goes through so much adversity that you are touched to the point of shedding tears? Maybe not, but I am sure that you have read something that is so touching that you feel the tears squeezing to burst out...

Secrets to Writing a Sad Story

However, compared to television, the written word seems to pale in its power to move people's emotion. Television sends a flood of information to the viewer's eyes. Vivid images of the plight of the actors and their evident anguish flash before their eyes. If you have watched a sad movie, you will agree with me that the screen can easily move someone to tears. With mournful music playing in the back ground, even the most callous of souls are sent into sniffing.

Let us borrow one or two lessons from the movie industry and use that to write moving stories.

Firstly, television sends clear and vivid images of the plight of the actors. No one needs a special education to understand what he is seeing.

The same should be true of your writing if you want it to move people. Your writing should be clear and understandable to your target audience. Furthermore, use graphic language that creates vivid images in their minds. Help them visualize what the characters are going through and their feelings. Choose the right words. Your choice of words is, ultimately, what will determine whether your story will have an effect on your readers or not.

Secondly, the movies industry appeals to the compassion that is inherent in humans. All of us have a degree of compassion to those that we care for. So the movie industry moves to make the viewers develop a certain relationship with the actors, so that in the end, the viewer not only likes them but loves them. Therefore, she feels their pain and sorrow.

Employ the same in your stories. Make your readers develop a relationship with your characters. Let them identify with them. Make them love your characters. You'll do this more effectively if you develop your characters in such a way that your reader seems them as real people with real problems. In short, develop the human side of your characters.

It is important to make your character a compassionate person too. Very few people will feel anything for a villain-unless you develop his humans side; if you show that in some situations, he loses his hard, callous side and reveals real humane emotions. People tend to love a good person, and in time, they will feel for him. So if you are writing a sad story, don't make your main character a callous villain. When he suffers adversity, your reader will be like:

"He surely got what he deserved!"

Finally, the major trick of the movie industry: a twist in fate. You are there watching, and you are quite liking where everything is going, when BLAAAAAAM! Your favourite character experiences terrible misfortune, tragic loss, or even death. And since at this point you have developed feelings for the actor, you are moved to tears.

This you should do too in your story. Just at the point when everything is going fine and your reader is quite liking it, i.e. feeling the joy and happiness the character is feeling, BOOOM! tragic and heartrending misfortune attacks. At this point, since your reader has developed a relationship and hence affection for your character, she may be moved to tears....

I hope that the lessons we have learned from the movie industry will help you write better sad stories. I can't wait to read them and be moved to tears!

Hey, happy writing!

Secrets to Writing a Sad Story

Michael Sinkolongo

http://www.writing-lovers.com

Visit my site above for great and exceptional articles on fiction and non fiction writing

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