Tag Archives: Writing

Write Characters Your Readers Fall in Love With

Write Characters Your Readers Fall in Love With. Happy Valentine’s Time. This is the month of love. The month to be in love yourself. The month to guide others toward love. Especially the month to make your readers fall in love with the hero character of your story.

My Name is Alice and I have a Mission. My mission is to help you write the story agents and editors and readers look for. The story that stars The Best Hero You Can Possibly Imagine. This blog is all about how to create that hero. Don’t forget our heroes are gender neutral.

Make Us Care to the Max about your Hero. Caring ties your reader emotionally to your hero’s fate. We hope for only good things to happen to her. When you have that hope-hook planted in our reader psyches – what’s next? Now you must frustrate us by frustrating our hope and hers. The course of this frustration – your hero’s frustration – is the plot of your story.

Circumstances Block your Hero. She is not allowed to get what she needs. She confronts circumstances that are physically and emotionally scary. As creator of this story’s world you must become a bit of a villain. Put your hero into Trouble and Danger. Force her onto a Roller Coaster Ride. Put your readers on this thrill ride with her.

Up the Emotional Stakes by Introducing Loss. Make your hero suffer a loss – or the real possibility of a loss very soon. Something she truly cares about is in jeopardy or gone. Life as she knew it is or could be tragically diminished. She must make up for the loss or prevent it.

Only your Hero can Prevent this Tragedy. The outcome of your entire story depends on the lightning bolt of boldness that makes her – and you – heroic. So wonderfully heroic that your readers are irresistibly drawn to her and to your story. This is how to Write Characters Your Readers Fall in Love With.

This Irresistible Character makes Your Story Irresistible. This hero and what happens to her – and what happens because of her bold actions – make your story Intense and Dramatic and Powerful. And that is what makes your plot a Page Turner with agent-editor-reader Appeal. A page turner must be Intense – Dramatic – Powerful.

Let’s Look at Your Specific Character in Your Specific Story. What intense dramatic powerful things happen to her? How can you make these occurrences more so? What is at stake for her in your story? What does she have to lose? How can you raise those stakes higher? How can you make the threat of loss even greater – even more excruciating for both your hero and your readers? What could thrust your hero into deeper and deeper trouble?

What Does Your Hero Do? You create conflicted and difficult and dangerous – maybe even life threatening – circumstances in your story situation. Despite the looming catastrophe all of that can inflict upon your hero – she struggles to do the right thing. Is she a Superhero? Not unless that is the genre you are writing.

Why Does Your Hero Struggle so Hard to Do the Right Thing? Because she is Decent – Decent – Decent. That decency is her Internal Motivation. The dire circumstances of your story – the elements that make your story Intense/Dramatic/Powerful – are her External Motivation.

Congratulations – A Toast To You. You Have Done It! You made your belovable and beloved hero’s life impossible. Then you made it worse. You placed her in the path of devastating loss. You forced her through extreme adversity to become her very best self. This is somewhat sadistic of course. But it is also how to Write Characters Your Readers Fall in Love With.

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

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. Alice blogs for writers at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com. Featuring “What A Character!” Find out how to create characters that live and breathe on your pages.

Alice’s novel A Year of Summer Shadows Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – has a hero you will fall in love with and is available HERE.

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 available HERE.

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.

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Writer’s Life Resolutions – What A Character!

Writer’s Life Resolutions – What A Character! Let’s start with simple and easy. Resolve to write something. This series of posts is about creating characters. Let’s start with specifics. Resolve to Create A Character.

Resolve to Create a Character with Lots of Story Potential. When your reader experiences this creation of yours she is bound to think – What A Character!  Because this character lights a fire under your story. This character makes things happen in your story situation.

Resolve to Create a Character who Makes Things Happen. How does your character happen to make things happen? An event occurs at the opening of your story. An event with possible disastrous consequences. Your character sees this or learns about it somehow.

Resolve to Create a Character with Inner Conflict from the Start. She recognizes the disastrous possibilities. Trouble is brewing. She can avoid that trouble by remaining uninvolved. The wise choice might be to walk away. But somebody must Do Something!

Resolve to Create a Character who Must Make a Choice. She is faced with a dilemma. There is a clear path for her to escape. All she has to do is nothing. All she has to do is decide that this situation is not her problem. Or – that it is her concern. She must choose.

Resolve to Create a Character who Takes a Bold Leap. This trouble could run very deep. She decides to hold her nose and jump in anyway. Why does she do this? Her motivations may be many and various. She is your creation. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. And your Writer’s Life Resolutions – What A Character!

Resolve to Create a Character who Takes a Bold Leap for Noble Reasons. This is one storytelling possibility. Your character understands that her life will be complicated by this choice. She jumps in anyway simply because it is the right thing to do. P.S. Most readers will love her for doing so.

Resolve to Create a Character who Continues to Make Things Happen. She decides to act. She chooses a risky path. You as storyteller – and the genre you are writing – determine the extent and the specifics of that risk. Your character’s decision to act causes the story action to begin.

Resolve to Create a Character with Inner Conflict throughout Your Story. Your character has indeed catapulted into trouble. Obstacles arise one after another and must be overcome. Barriers must be surmounted. She is repeatedly tempted to turn tail and run for safety.

Resolve to Create a Character who Remains Bold when she No Longer Feels Bold. She struggles. Then she is forced to struggle some more. The odds are great. It looks like she will be defeated. In fact she is all but certain she will be defeated. She keeps on struggling anyway. Maybe she has a helpmate – maybe not.

Resolve to Create a Character whose Fate Determines how Your Story Ends. As storyteller you decide how all of this turns out. Some heroes are defeated. Some heroes triumph. P.S. Most readers love the latter. We love Writer’s Life Resolutions – What A Character!

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

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. Alice blogs for writers at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com. Now featuring “What A Character!” Find out how to create characters that live and breathe on your pages.

A Year of Summer Shadows Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – has a hero who keeps her writer’s resolutions and is available HERE.

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.

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.

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

 

Ebenezer Scrooge – What A Character!

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 InnRiverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3Available 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.

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http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
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