Category Archives: Storytelling

Holidays Gift a Writer with Characters

Storytelling, ,

Holidays Gift a Writer with Characters. One of my favorite holiday family movies is Home for the Holidays with Holly Hunter and a host of other talented actors. Still – family dynamics star the show for me. Whether blood-related or circumstance-related they come together with a bang.

At the Center of Every Family Story is a Family Character. Even among a gaggle of outrageous outliers one individual outdistances the rest. In Home for the Holidays Aunt Glady – played brilliantly by Geraldine Chaplin – is that standout for me. Because her character serves the storytelling so well.

A Bit of Misdirection Cannot Hoit. Chris Radant’s short story. W.D. Richter’s screenplay. Jodie Foster’s direction. All conspire to disguise Aunt Glady as anything but the center of the dynamic. She is not even onstage until well into the action among a houseful of scene stealers whom we are already deeply involved with by the time she appears.

Eccentricity is Accentuated. One look at Glady and we recognize the stock goofy secondary we find in many family comedies. Or so we think. From tamoshanter askew atop her head to… are her stockings really rolled down? She is costumed strictly for side laughs. Or so we think.

The Suspense Sort-of-Silently Builds. Glady indulges in more than just holiday spirits. She dithers from goofy to giddy. But there is so much else going on. Family melodrama from every seat occupant at the table. We are misdirected yet again. Holidays Gift a Writer with Characters.

Then She Blows Everything Apart. At the nearly offscreen edge of the gathering Glady pulls the pin on one of the most potent plot exploders ever. The emotionally charged secret from the past. And this secret has to do with sex! Let the showstopping shrapnel fall where it may.

No More Details until You Supply Your Own. Dip into the memory bank and withdraw family holidays from your own history. Or get-togethers where you were a guest rather than family. Those offer a degree of objectivity. You can take it all in without being taken in yourself.

Pick a Participant – Any Participant. As long as they have story revelation potential. Like Glady. Not necessarily center stage at first. Unique in one or several ways but not necessarily shocking at first. Not necessarily explosive at first. But they can get there.

Build a Story Around this Person-turned-Character. From unobtrusive entrance to knock-your-rolled-socks-off climactic moment. Brainstorm the gradual climb toward catastrophe. What could happen? To THIS person? Do not edit yourself. Worry about believability later.

Pick a Genre – Any Genre. Your character may grace a comic scenario like Home for the Holidays where the only casualties are red faces and uncomfortable explanations. Or your plot product may be bodies in the back yard. Possibilities reach as far as your imagination.

A Concluding Cautionary. Deepen your character’s disguise. You began with reality but you must end with fiction. Unidentifiable fiction. Change details. Appearance. Job. Habits. Even gender. Consult your inner surreptitious Santa. Holidays Gift a Writer with Characters.

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur. Alice Orr https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know about how to discover the strongest story characters you have in you? Ask your questions in the Comments section at the end of this post. Alice will answer.

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 14 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. She blogs for Writers at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Celebrate the Season with Alice’s holiday novel A Vacancy at the Inn – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3. Available HERE.

Praise for A Vacancy at the Inn. “Grabbed me right away and swept me up in the lives of Bethany and Luke.” “Undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.” “The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authentic touch that demonstrates Alice Orr’s skill as a writer.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”

All of Alice’s Books are available HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Ebenezer Scrooge – What A Character!

Storytelling, , ,

Ebenezer Scrooge – What A Character! Scrooge is the writer’s ideal holiday gift. He comes with the kind of bountiful writing that unwraps straight into your creative heart. That is why Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of the best known and most popular stories in the world. Ebenezer teaches us how to get a dusting of that magic on our own storytelling shoes.

Ebenezer Scrooge has a Universal Theme. He is a holiday sparkling example of “How the Mighty Have Fallen.” Many of us create such characters ourselves. Dickens – the master storyteller – shows us how and why to move even deeper. Past a character’s downfall and on to “How the Mighty Have Fallen then Been Dragged Back Up Again.”

Ebenezer Scrooge is All About Redemption. In fact his story is one of Dramatic redemption because of the depth of the depravity pit into which he has plunged himself. His personal brand of human depravity has to do with compassion. He doesn’t seem to have any.

Ebenezer Scrooge Appears to Be Irredeemable. His perpetually scowling face. His heartless behavior. How scornfully he regards the caring world as a humbug. All are keys to his reader appeal. The more seemingly impossible the character’s redemption – the more dramatic the story. And drama – plus power and intensity – is the wellspring of storytelling success.

Ebenezer Scrooge is the Poster Boy for the Character We Love to Hate. Deep-down mean. Unrepentant. He betrays his beloved sister by disowning her son. He abandons his devoted fiance. He all but freezes his hardworking clerk out of their threadbare counting house. Nonetheless Dickens creates a believable protagonist – not a cartoon. Ebenezer Scrooge – What A Character!

Ebenezer Scrooge is Old Buddies with a Ghost. Not a happy and harmless Casper type ghost. A chain-clanking – shrieking – terrifying horror named Jacob Marley. Dead set – pun intended – on rattling Ebenezer out of his complacency into awareness of the doom he inevitably faces.

Ebenezer Scrooge Must Change. This is his story goal. It is also his problem – his inner conflict. He does not want to change. He is absolutely committed to his bad old ways. Dickens must dredge up some mega-dramatic story twist to reach Ebenezer’s darkly damaged soul and tell a powerful tale.

Ebenezer Scrooge is Haunted. A Christmas Carol is a redemption story but it is also a ghost story. Our heartless hero is forced by phantasms to witness himself. His past retreat from human feeling. His present coldness. How he affects other people and his world. The dire consequences ahead for him. Meanwhile the ghosts guide Ebenezer through fear to remorse and his own humanity.

Ebenezer Scrooge Rackets Us Relentlessly Forward. We tumble through tumultuous adventures at a whirlwind pace. We barrel toward a foreboding future – the vision of an untended grave. We race to keep up. All the way to the redemption of our formerly fallen hero. The perfect storytelling payoff.

Ebenezer Scrooge Does Not Disappoint. He gives us story satisfaction to the max. Joy so unrepressed it transforms his stony face into laughing eyes and a glorious grin. Generous deeds. Goodness and light. Life celebrated in every direction for everyone – including us. To which I say. Ebenezer Scrooge – What A Character! Thank you Mr. Dickens and “God Bless Us Every One.”

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill. “You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.” Alice Orr  https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know about how to discover the strongest story characters you have in you? Ask your questions in the Comments section at the end of this post. Alice will answer.

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 14 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. She blogs for Writers at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Celebrate the Season with Alice’s holiday novel A Vacancy at the Inn – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3. Available HERE.

Praise for A Vacancy at the Inn. “Grabbed me right away and swept me up in the lives of Bethany and Luke.” “Undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.” “The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authentic touch that demonstrates Alice Orr’s skill as a writer.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”

All of Alice’s Books are available HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

 

What A Character! How to Succeed as a Writer of Stories

Storytelling, , ,

What A Character! Publishing success for the Storyteller – especially the Commercial Fiction or Memoir Storyteller – is all about the characters you create. Which includes the character that is You in your memoir. Storytelling success is all about how much you can make your readers care – deep in their beating hearts – about these characters you create.

Are You Working on a Novel Now? If so – do you have a single main character? A specific character who is your hero? Most successful stories have one main character hero who gives your story focus. Agent-Editor-Reader interest is best captured by a single strong hero. By hero I mean a character who is gender variable – male or female or nonbinary or whatever.

Are You Working on a Memoir Now? There are many reasons to tell your real-life story. First among those reasons is to introduce us to your Hero. You are the Hero of your memoir. You are the center of your story which definitely deserves to be told well.

Have You Named your Hero? Name your main character up front – at the beginning of your story’s creation. Naming gives your character substance and makes her more real for you. If you have not yet named your character – do so as immediately as you can. A strong hero requires a name. The strong hero of your memoir is a character named “I.”

Why is a Strong Hero So Important? Because of what happens when we read about a strong hero’s joys. Because of what happens when we see her hopes and dreams and determination in action. Because of what happens when we witness her admirable qualities in practice.

We Understand that She will have Something Important to Lose in this Story. We do not want her to lose this important thing. Why? Because her strong portrayal leads us to identify with her. We are tied to her – as one human to another. In her strength we see the strength we strive to possess in ourselves.

Identifying with Your Strong Hero Makes Us Care about Her. Specifically – we care about what happens to her. Why? Because she is who we hope to be. She is who we are on our very best days. Her fate could be our fate if we lived her story. And – What a Story! that is.

Why is this Caring So Important? Because when we care about your character and what she wants – we have become emotionally involved in your story. We have an emotional stake in what happens in your story. Especially in what happens to your main character – your hero. In your memoir we must care about your hero named “I.”

Our Caring – Our Emotional Involvement – has Hooked Us into Your Story. Making your reader care is the most powerful story hook you could ever create. And the more we care – the more solidly your story hook is set in us.

Your Job as Storyteller is to Create a Character We Care About. A character we care about not just a little but a lot. A character we care about Intensely. That is the first and most important step you must take if your goal is to write the most Intense and Dramatic and Powerful story you have in you. And what better goal could a storyteller possibly have?

My Job is to Guide you toward that Electrifying Story. Which is why I will follow this post with many more about this very topic. Why? Because I believe there is nothing more crucial to your writing success than having readers say about your hero – and each of her companions – What a Character!

Alice Orr Says – You Possess Storytelling Magic. Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know about discovering the strongest story characters you have in you? Ask your question in the Comments section at the end of this post.

Alice Orr has published 14 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her novel – A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – is available HERE.

Amazon.com/authors/aliceorr

Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows: “Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows has moved up to one of my favorite books.”

All of Alice’s Books are HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/