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Ground Your Characters with All Five Senses

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When I’m writing—these articles, for example—I often compose a kind of first draft in my head, and I usually do it when I’m out on a long walk with the dog. For this article, I knew I wanted to get across the idea that writers can introduce elements from one or all of the five senses to make settings and characters more realistic. So, on my walk, I thought about how I could approach this.

Then I noticed my dog, Dexter, was nowhere to be seen. This is very usual. We both get caught up in our thoughts as we wander along and lose track of each other, the time, the place…you get the idea.

He wasn’t far away. He rarely is. He’d got stuck sniffing a single blade of grass. I wondered what was so interesting about it, and how he was perceiving what seemed to be a single blade of grass but which was clearly much more to him.

I remembered reading or hearing somewhere that dogs might be capable of “seeing” smells, that their brain interprets scents in much the same way as our brains interpret light. Were they still colorblind, I then wondered. And this made me think of my own colorblindness, and I thought about the time at school when I got into big trouble from the teacher for coloring the grass brown. (I went to school in Scotland where, regardless of the time of year, the rain makes sure the grass is never, ever brown. Brown grass was a foreign concept to even the teacher.)

I then realized that this had nothing to do with the article I wanted to write. My mind had done that thing that all minds do—wandered off, just like Dexter and I do. No big deal. Dexter soon got fed up with his blade of grass and joined me again, and we were back on track. [Read more…]

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Writing Characters with Trauma

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The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too” – Vincent van Gogh There’s no escaping the fear and fury these days. It echoes in every news report and flashes in the eyes of neighbors, our faces masked as we scurry about our strange new lives. From our DC condo, we sometimes hear downtown protest chants and helicopters zipping across the night sky. Two weeks back, we felt the stun grenades as forces cleared Lafayette Park … [Read more...]

Learning From Pinocchio: Creating Characters Who Are Fully Alive

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Who hasn’t heard of Pinocchio? Originally released in 1940—the second of Disney’s animated films, following Snow White in 1938—Pinocchio was re-released in theaters seven more times between 1945 and 1992, on home video in 1985, and on DVD in 1999. I can remember watching it in a movie theater when I was a kid, and at home with my own kids years later. Maybe you remember it too. Pinocchio is, of course, the story of a wooden puppet who wants to become a “real boy.” To become real, Pinocchio … [Read more...]

A Simple Guide to Symbolism in Stories

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It seems we cannot get enough of pandemics. Dean Koontz’s novel The Eyes of Darkness jumped to number three in Amazon’s charts, with a reported increase in sales of 3,000%. It’s about a virus, a biological weapon, developed by China, called Wuhan-400. Spooky, right? Especially since it was written in 1981. Maybe it’s mostly conspiracy theorists buying that one. But what about Albert Camus’s The Plague? His 1947 novel has seen a sales boom, too, these last weeks. Here, though, the plague is a … [Read more...]

For the Love of Moira – The Arc of a Memorable Character

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You are blind to reality and for that I am most proud.” – Moira Rose, Schitt’s Creek Five years ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Company premiered a sitcom conceived by Dan Levy, son of renowned comedy legend Eugene Levy. The story revolves around the trials and tribulations of the wealthy Rose family who, after an unscrupulous relative absconds with their fortune, are forced to relocate to their only remaining asset, a rural town with the unfortunate name of "Schitt's Creek," which the patriarch … [Read more...]

I’m Not Above Spying, Part 2

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My first post on Writer Unboxed was eight years ago next month! In that post, I wrote about how I spy and snoop on people around me to get story ideas. Now, the long-awaited sequel. In Part 1, I gave the basics: How to successfully gather information from people and things around you, and the tools you need to do so (iPhone or recording device, paper and pen, etc.). In this post, I’ll make it even simpler. I’ll help you spy on yourself and your nearest and dearest. In short, all you need is … [Read more...]

Create Conflict in Your Characters

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There are no murders, no kidnappings, no killer robots, no evil wizards, no spies, no ghastly villains, no wars and not a single shot fired in Sally Rooney’s 2017 debut novel. In fact, the title pretty much describes what this book is about: Conversations with Friends. And yet this is a captivating page-turner of a book. The kind where, when you finally look up from the pages, you realize it’s an hour later and your coffee is cold. It’s that good. So how does she do it? How does she take … [Read more...]

To Absent Friends

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Within the last week, I’ve had two clients with the same problem, a sign that I’ve found a good topic for an article.  (They’ve given me permission to use them as examples – thanks, guys.)  What was tripping them up was that they both had to keep the focus on a key character when there was no easy way to put that character on stage. One of the manuscripts is a historical novel set in the early 14th century and centered on two women.  One is Margaret, a noblewoman who’s left in charge of her … [Read more...]

The Worst-Case Scenario

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This past fall, I went backpacking for four days in the Canadian wilderness with a good friend.  It will be an adventure, I told myself as we planned the trip, when I read online about the “rugged,” “challenging,” “demanding” trail. It’s good to get outside your comfort zone. The trail included “steep climbs,” and “boulder hopping.” I’m tough; I can push myself. It didn’t occur to me to question whether pushing myself was a worthwhile goal; it was what I always did. What happened was that I … [Read more...]

Manipulate Your Readers’ Point of View

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After seeing lots of hype in the media, I’ve been catching up with the HBO series Succession. The writers are there are expert at manipulating their audience. Their basic message is straightforward and not subtle. The main characters – members of a family that owns a multinational media and entertainment empire – are horrible, selfish and self-absorbed. They treat everyone with contempt. But they reserve their true disdain for those outside the immediate family, in other words, those who are … [Read more...]

What Really Drives Your Characters?

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There’s a lot of writing advice that tells you to find your characters' goals. If you can work out what drives them in their lives, you can use those goals to drive the story. Most of this advice will tell that your character should have two goals: internal and external. The alcoholic detective’s external need is to find the killer while his internal need is to get over the loss of his wife, which is what drives him to drink. The young student at the school for magic needs to combat evil … [Read more...]

Writing is a Labyrinth of Choices

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Your phone rings. You check the screen. You don’t recognize the number. Do you answer it? The cars in front of you on the highway slow down, their brake lights glowing. The traffic is gridlocked up ahead, but there’s an exit just before. Do you take it? Life is full of decisions, apparently simple choices that could take you in a whole different direction. Fiction, as a reflection of life, is the same. In the hero’s journey – a template for stories found all over the world – there is what … [Read more...]

Writing from the Heart – Lessons of Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”

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“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” – Ernest Hemingway A few years ago, I undertook a private education of sorts, reading classics I had missed in my youth. Apparently, my college engineering studies had cut short an otherwise promising literary foundation. Imagine that! At any rate, at some point during my remedial studies I picked up a copy of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which I devoured in one sitting. Fortunately, the … [Read more...]

Capturing Real: Beyond Two-Dimensional Character Building

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If you want your characters to seem like real people, they must present on the page as more than tokens that run through a plot point obstacle course. You already know, I’m sure, that real people are complex. They don’t always know who they are or what they want or why they behave as they do. But you, as a creator, must know these things about your characters. Allow them to reveal their story as you write; don’t presume to know it all. Knowing a character in full form before you write your … [Read more...]