Not sure your story is up to par? Need writer friends? Need critiques? Do it all in one place! Get paired with a member each week and pick up some new writing tips and skills :D
Join Bookworms United!
Read how to apply inside!
Welcome to Week 40 at BUBC! I hope you all had a nice spring break. I'm well and ready to pick flowers and put on frilly dresses. The weather never actually changes here, but spring is still my fave season. :)
What's yours?
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
If you have any suggestions for the club or Question of the Week, feel free to leave them here ---> (Please help, there's only so many times I can talk about description XD)
On a scale of 1 - 10, how would you rate your partner's characterization? Are the characters distinct and memorable? Could they be improved? How so?
Characterization It can be defined as a writer's tool, or "literary device" that occurs any time the author uses details to teach us about a person.
Here are some tips on characterization:
1. Describe the physical characteristics of your characters in a natural way.
In the first few chapters of a story, it's common to want to let the reader know what each character looks like. After all, we want the reader to have a clear image of our MC or the love interest, yada-yada.
This being said, we should introduce these descriptions in a natural way.
Avoid this: Timmy walked over and dropped his tray on the lunch table. "What's up, Tammy?" he asked me.
Timmy was my best friend. He was 5'9". He had blue eyes and tan skin. He had freckles, but you couldn't really see them unless you were standing really close to them.
When we see someone, we don't list off their predominant traits like we're preparing a police report. Well, neither would a character.
It's better to address physical traits if they're somehow involved in the scene. For example, Timmy walked over and dropped his tray on the lunch table. "What's up, Tammy?" he asked, winking a blue eye my way.
He bumped against me as he took a seat. "Hey!" I yelled, but he paid no mind to my words or my pointed glare. Instead, he reached a tan hand toward my tray and stole a handful of french fries.
I chose to leave out the height in this scenario since it didn't seem relevant to the scene. You don't have to reveal all the traits at once or sometimes you don't have to mention them at all. You could always leave some details to the reader's imagination.
2. Introduce backstory when it's relevant, and avoid going off on tangents.
This is similar to the previous tip.
All too often, I see writers include a heap of backstory for the MC or a secondary character just as they're being introduced. For example,
Avoid this:
Lisa was cleaning the kitchen. She'd just made dinner for her five children, and was left with a tower of plates to clean. It'd go by much faster if her husband was still alive. Unfortunately, Jacob had died two years ago in a terrible car accident. They had just had their fifth child at the time, so Lisa was left to tend to a newborn and four other growing kids. Their names were Jacob Jr, Lisa Jr, Mel, George, and Harry. They all missed him terribly.
A reader should feel like they're just jumping into this character's life. If you take this approach to backstory in the first few chapters, it can take away that feeling. It almost feels like we're interrupting the story to give you a lot of details that are not entirely relevant to the scene.
It might be better to write something like: Lisa dried her hands on her apron after she finished washing the dishes. Only to have them get wet once more as she wiped her brow of sweat.
Being a single mother to five children was no easy task, but she believed it was all worth it. The sound of the kids laughing and running around upstairs brought a warm smile to her face. With a solemn look out the window she whispered, "Oh, Jacob. If only you could hear them too."
The death of her husband can be insinuated. And, for now, I didn't think the reader needed to know the details of the death. Same goes for the children's names. These are things that can be addressed later on.
I'll leave it at those two tips for now, since they're pretty long. Hope they help!
_____________________________
Remember that after reading and commenting on the 3 chapters of your fellow bookworm, you have to let me know you're finished, in the comment section of THIS chapter.
