How to Create a Non-Cliche Protagonist Part 2! (Or, Creating Character Personalities)

Hello everyone! It's Me! Margaret!

……

Nothing, huh? Well, yeah, that sorta figures. If there should ever be a post on keeping to a writing schedule, Amanda would definitely write it. I know it's been a while, but I do solemnly swear I look at the posts and make sure this blog exists! I edit. Maybe. Sort of. Well, I do see every post before it goes up.

Why have I not written anything? Apathy. Procrastination. Pick one. I'd win a gold medal in procrastination  and I guarantee you that I'd avoid picking up that medal as long as possible.

Why am I writing now? Have you ever felt the disapproving stare of your best friend, despite being three hundred miles away, and the only form of communication is the internet? …

….yeah.

Okay! Now to the subject of today!

The much anticipated sequel to How to Create a Non-Cliche Protagonist is finally here!

The biggest part of a character is doing their good traits and their bad ones. Their gifts and their flaws. It's a pain in the butt, really. Between making sure the traits complement each other (EX: The character is confident, but sometimes arrogant instead of the character being arrogant yet humble at the exact same time!) and balancing them out so it's realistic, it can be frustrating and confusing as to where to start!

Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

There's a cheat sheet.

You heard me. There's a cheat sheet to getting good, realistic character personalities.

Annnndd it has to do with psychology.

So, once upon a time, this old dude looked at the people around him and thought about it them and their personalities for a long time. After a lot of thinking, he came up with an idea.

What if there are a set of basic personalities that pretty much everyone in the world fits into?

And thus, the MBTI Personality Profiles were created. There's exactly 16 profiles, each one being a combination of 4 words, abbreviated to their first letter. Each of those 4 words stand for a trait, that, when combined, create a possible personalities.

And it's generally pretty accurate! My profile fits me exactly!

There are 8 words to choose from. There are two words per category. There are four categories. The categories are  basically: How are we Stimulated?; How do we take in information?; How do we make decisions; and How do we operate on a day to day basis?

In more Simpler terms, it's this:

Are you:

Extroverted OR Introverted (Do you like to interact with people or do you want to mostly be left alone?)

Sensing OR iNtuitive (Are you practical and grounded, depending on your five senses, or are you a bit more up in the air, depending less on what's just in front of you?)

Feeling OR Thinking (Are you emotional, making decisions based on your value systems and emotions, or are you logical, depending more on facts than personal values?)

Perceiving OR Judging (Are you unorganized, spontaneous, or organized and purposeful?)

You pick one from each category that best suits you. A person doesn't have to fit 100% into each one, but they mostly suit one or the other.

As an example! I am an INTP - This means that I'm introverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving. In other worlds, I'm a daydreamer that hides in corners, doesn't trust her own emotions, and is deeply unorganized. There's more than that of course, but that's the basic gist.

What does this have to do with your characters?

Well, if you can fit your character into a profile, you'll have a handy list of basic gifts and flaws, how they deal with relationships, friends, and possible careers!

It really is that simple! Of course, your character doesn't have fit the profile exactly, but even if they apply to most of the traits and flaws, that's still gives you a fantastic starting point!

It makes life so much easier than having to simply brainstorm. And, I know I haven't talked much bout cliche-ness here today, but I sorta figured it was obvious. These personalities are created for real human beings to fit themselves into. If your character fits one, then he technically has a personality like a real human being.

Cheating for the win, my friends!

Below are links for your to explore the different types. Why not try yourself while you're at it? ;)

Personality Page: How MBTI Works (If I wasn't clear enough. :) )
Personality Page: The 16 Types

How Bad Do You Want It?

It’s been about a month since my last post. Sorry about that, it’s been a busy past month. School’s started up again. So most of August since my last post was dedicated trying to finish summer homework and get my last few freedoms of summer in. It was the last summer I’ll ever have as a high school student, so I didn’t want to waste it.

Personally I don’t feel like it was wasted. I might not have accomplished as much as I was hoping to, for example I really would have liked to have finished my book revision. However, I did make some desperately needed changes and make it 2/3 through the book. I finished writing a major, soul destroying, three years in the making, total of 319,994 word fan fiction. My little sister and I developed a method of co-writing together. Margaret and I established the bare bones of a story we’d like to co-write together and maybe post here (Bare bones as in we have the basic development of two main characters and the world conception – more news will come when we ourselves know what’s going on. So it’s actually more like we have the bones, but no skeleton yet. Considering we were lucky to have a real conversation every two weeks this summer, I hope you can understand).

But school’s back, and along with it a regular schedule. I am taking a lot of hard classes this year, but I’m also a lot more determined to really focus on literary aspirations this year. If I am indeed going to have two books before twenty (TITLE DROP), I really need to get a move on, especially considering I turn 17 this month.

It also helps that this year in my AP English class we are required to submit a piece of writing every single Monday, though it doesn’t really matter what the writing is. And you can get a virtually unlimited amount of extra credit by submitting multiple pieces (as long as you complete all the other required assignments). So now, not only am I writing just because I’m a writer and that’s what I love to do, but now I can get school credit for it! Is that awesome or what?

You’re jealous, I know you are.

But enough catch up.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, I did not manage to finish my book revision by the end of summer. My new goal is that I want to have it ready to send out by my birthday. It’d definitely doable, but it might be hard, especially considering I’d like to keep my grades up and I also decided in my infinite wisdom that senior year would be a great time to all of a sudden get involved in a bunch of clubs and take all the hardest classes. Also, because I finished that giant story that I mentioned earlier, now my brain is free to go and come up with all of these other lovely, tempting story ideas that I want to write.

Last night I found myself done with my homework at 8:30, a rare occurrence – but I’m really trying to be better at getting homework done early this year for exactly the same reason that led me to working on my book instead of the most recent story that has captured my attending.

The most recent little temptress taking occupancy in my brain has been a short little fan fiction that would take a lot of explaining that wouldn't be relevant to this post. I’ve been writing it in between classes and sometimes in class when we’re done with whatever’s going on.

Last night I found myself with a few extra hours to work on my Monday Musing (the name of the assignment for English I mentioned), or in other words, time to write.

When I pulled up Microsoft Word, though, I had to make a decision about what to actually write. I could be productive and actually work on the story instead of letting it die a few scraps of paper in a notebook, or I could be even more productive and work on my book. Just as I was about to pull out the notebook I had been writing the story in, though, this thought occurred to me.

How bad do I really want this book?

I had two ways I was willing to spend my time, working on my book or working on a fan fiction. I wanted to work on the fan fiction. I wanted to write it instead of working on this blog post.

But I asked myself how bad I wanted my book. Did I want it more than I wanted to write that story?

The answer was yes, I did.

Just because I needed extra inspiration, I looked up a Youtube video. Eric Thomas’s “How Bad Do You Want It” speech set to “Time” from Inception and sports videos. The sports were kind of lost on me. Never been good at sports, and no real desire to be good at sports. But the message of the speech itself is really applicable to just about everything.

This is the first part of the speech:

“There was a young man who wanted to make a lot of money, and so he went to a guru. He told the guru he wanted to reach his level of greatness. And so the guru said: “If you want to be on the same level I’m on, I’ll meet you tomorrow at the beach.”

So the young man arrived at 4:00 a.m. He had on a suit, but he should have worn shorts. The old man grabbed his hand and said: “How bad do you want to be successful?” The young responded: “Badly.”

So the old man told the young man to walk out into the water. It was waist deep. The young man thought: “This old man is crazy.”

The young man said to himself: “I want to make money and this guy has me out here swimming. I didn’t ask to be a lifeguard. I want to make money.

Then the old man said: “Come out a little farther,” and the young man did so.

As the young man was up to his shoulders in water he again thought: “This old man is crazy! He’s making money, but he’s crazy.”

The old man said, “Come out a little farther.”

The young man obeyed, but wavered as if he might turn back.

So the old man said: “I thought you said you wanted to be successful?”

“I do,” said the student.

So the old man ordered the young man to come out even farther, and when he did he pushed the young man’s head under water and held it down. Although the young man fought, the old man would not let him up. Just before the young man passed out the old man raised his head above the surface and said: “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”

I don’t know how many of you have asthma today, but if you ever had an asthma attack before and you’re S.O.B. — you’ve got shortness of breath — and you’re wheezing, the only thing you’re trying to do is get some air. You don’t care about no basketball game. You don’t care what’s on TV.  You don’t care about nobody calling you. You don’t care about a party. The only thing you care about when you’re trying to breathe is to get some fresh air. That’s it. And when you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.

I am here to tell you Number #1, most of you say you want to be successful, but you don’t want it bad. You just kind of want it. You don’t want it badder than you want to party. You don’t want it as much as you want to be cool. Most of you don’t want success as much as you want to sleep. Some of you want sleep more than you want success. And I’m here to tell you today that if you want to be successful you got to be willing to give up sleep.

You have to be willing to work off of three hours of sleep, two hours of sleep. If you really want to be successful, some day you’re going to have to stay up three days in a row because if you go to sleep you might miss the opportunity to be successful. That’s how bad you got to want it.””

I am not telling you in anyways to ignore everything else in your life in order to write. No. I want to breathe a lot more than I want good grades in my classes, and I’m working on that as well as my book, but the point is that if we really want this, we can’t just bandy about.  We can’t just “kind of want it.”

We have to actually want it.

I’ve talked before on this blog that it’s hard. It is. I don’t even know a lot of things about what I’m doing. I’m just muddling through all of this myself. I do know that it’s hard though.

More than that, though, I do know that if I don’t want it bad, if I don’t really want it, if I don’t want it more than I want to write some other story or surf Facebook then it’s not going to happen.

If you don’t want it bad enough, you won’t work hard enough to get it.

The Youtube video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=_T1KyRtOWOc

It does NOT have the full speech. But it does have epic music. 

Force For Good

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/j-k-rowling-pens-letter-to-girl-who-survived-family-massacre/698490/

I discovered this article today and had to share it.

We've discussed on this blog before Why You Will (Probably) Never Become As Famous As J. K. Rowling, and I'm not here to rehash this. But on the 1/7 billion chance that I, or anyone who reads this does, I would like to say that that's how you do it.

There is nothing that can really make the situation for Cassidy Stay "alright". Since I belong to the same faith as Cassidy I know that she knows that she is going to see her entire family again. That this isn't the end. That doesn't change the fact that they're all gone.

It's a horrible tragedy, but I think that Rowling's actions are beyond admirable. She can't make the situation alright, like I said, but she did something to try to make it just a little better. If there's any chance that any of us could be as famous as Rowling one day, I hope that we could do something like that.

Personally that's a bit of a dream for me. If I could accomplish anything with my writing, I want to make someone's life better. Give them hope for a better day, encourage them to keep living and fighting, to make the best of everything. I want to be a force for good in any way that I can.

I suppose maybe that's why this article hit me so hard, because Rowling's doing what I hope to be able to do some day. What we should all hope to be able to do one day.

Why Do We Write?

Before I can say anything else, I would like to wish a late Happy Birthday to the Goddess of Writing, J.K. Rowling herself and The Boy Who Sold Billions of Books, Harry Potter. Yesterday was indeed their birthdays. Happy Birthday! May we all have 5% of the popularity you do.

This is our 50^th post guys! That’s why it’s coming so late, because I wanted to write something special for post 50 and couldn’t think of anything.

It came to me a couple of days ago, but I didn’t work on it right away because I was trying to finish the revision I’m working on by August (didn’t work. I made it through about 2/3s though. Only problem is that I promised myself I’d actually start working on my summer homework when we got to August. So I have a problem.)

Why do we write?

This is actually a question I’ve asked myself a couple of times.

I cannot speak for everyone. I’m only one person and I can only really tell you why I write and why I think other people do. Maybe you write for completely different reasons.

But whether there are different reasons or not, you and I both have this one crazy dream.

We want to write books.

Why?

Think about. For some reason in our society we put meaning in a couple of scribbles on a page. A couple of scribbles thrown together is a word and when you put those together it’s a sentence. A handful of sentences thrown together is a paragraph. Once you string a whole bunch of paragraphs about the same thing together it becomes a story. Why would anyone want to dedicate their time and their life to that? Mixing and matching squiggles in a way that is has some meaning?

Even if you can mix and match them really well, maybe if you get some sort of thrill from seeing them together in a sentence and a story, why would anyone put themselves through what we are? It’s hard to write a book. It’s not enough to come up with characters or a plot, you have to develop them and have a world to go along with it. You have to pace everything just right to keep people interested, you have to play to your audience, you have make sense, you have to tie up loose ends, you have to stagger your sentences, you have to make sense.

Then once you’ve done all that, you have to go back and rewrite it twenty times. And then you have to send it in to people who act like they want nothing more than to tear your fragile dreams apart and eat them sprinkled on a salad like bacon bits.

Even if you find someone who doesn’t tear them apart and in fact like them, you now have to rewrite it a couple more times and work your rear end off trying to get people to read it all so you can do it again.

Why would anyone put themselves through this?

Some people are just really good writers. For some reason those thrown together squiggles really speak to them. It’s just a fact: some people are naturally better writers than others. Those natural writers can’t really get by without hard work, but they do have a leg up on the writers who don’t. For some of those people, writing is just natural, just something that they do.

There is a lot of attraction to just doing things that you’re good at. It feels really good to be good at something, and so there are people who write just because they’re good at it.

Then again, I’m good at math but I hate it and would literally rather die than get a major in math.

For me, it actually goes back to when I was seven years old. That was when I really got into reading. I think that’s probably where it comes back to for most people. They enjoyed reading. I’ve only ever met one person who likes writing but not reading, and she was dyslexic so reading was painful for her.

My older brother and sister forced me to read the Harry Potter books before they would let me watch the movie that was coming out soon. So I did.

I can’t remember if it was Harry Potter itself or if it was the reading spree that I went on afterwards, but I knew that I wanted to be able to make people as happy as reading made me.

I feel like that what it comes back to for most writers. Most writers enjoy reading and want to be able to create that enjoyment for other people.

Over the years as I’ve spent more and more time writing, I really have been writing since I was 7 and now I’m almost 17 so almost ten years (though I would die of shame if I had to read some of my 7 year old writing. I remember I was going to write a book with my best friend at the time — not Margaret — during Recess. She used my middle name for her main character’s name and I used her middle name for my main character. They both discovered that they had magical powers and had to go off to a school to learn to control their powers. Sound familiar? I still remember the opening scene. They were going to a water park together and Beth ended up breathing underwater) it’s developed.

I don’t know if a desire to make people as happy as you are when you’re reading is enough to carry you through the writer’s block and the revisions and the rejections. But for me, the feeling of creating intricate plots and characters that breathe… that have pasts and experiences and traumas and personalities and worlds for them to live in. It’s about as close to God as we humans can play.

I can’t really think of any other moments when I feel as accomplished as when I finally come up with a solution to a plot problem, or I finally figure out a way to explain a concept that I have in my head.

Or the moment when I finally finished my first book. I don’t even know how to describe it; it’s just as awesome as that moment when you finish a book or a series that has taken you on this incredible journey of up and down and driving you nuts and making you happy at the time. And somehow it all works out, for better or for worse.

I love just the pure creationism of it. I get to come up with worlds and stories just with what’s in my head, my fingers and a computer/paper and pencil. I can explore my own ideas about controversial topics. I can share my opinion and debate it with myself with no one thinking I’m insane. I can share all my clever witticisms that I can never seem to come up with in the real life moment. I can make people laugh and cry and sit on the edge of their seats with anticipation. I get to make people think.

It’s beautiful.

There are lots of beautiful things and talents in this world. I would love to have a talent for art. I don’t. I know a lot of people who do. I think that dancers are amazing. I’m completely jealous of people who can just pick up new languages like that. The world needs people who can solve equations like breathing. We need people who can manipulate chemical compounds like we do words. This world would be a very very sad place if there weren’t people who had the talent of being nice to everyone.

All the same, I’m not sure I would trade my talent for writing and my desire to for any other talent in the world. Because it is hard, and frustrating, and sometimes you just cannot find the right word to save your life.

But I’ve never felt the same pleasure I feel from writing as I do from anything else. And that’s why I write.

Do you agree? Have a completely different opinion? Why do you write?

Importance of Opinions

This week I used some of my connections (this ladies and gentlemen is called networking, and it gets more people jobs than anything else) and managed to get a couple of people, 7 to be exact, to tell me what they thought of the title, summary, and first three chapters of my book.

This survey-ish thing has not been completed as of yet. But I have gained some valuable information from it, actually.

When each of them sent me a message volunteering, I sent them back this:

Please give me complete honesty, don’t try to spare my feelings. If you think something doesn’t fit, or it could be done better, or you just think it stinks, please tell me. That’s exactly what I need to know.

1.       You’re looking at a shelf of books and you see the title “Beguiled”

Does it catch your interest?

Yes

No

Depend on what the cover arts is (In the words of my friend “Of course I’m going to judge a book by its cover, that’s what covers are for!”)

I’m just looking for anything to read, so I’ll check out the summary

2.       Let’s say that you do pick up the book. You turn to the back/inside flap and read the summary

Erin was willing to give her life for her cause. Aviel was willing to do just about anything to prove to his father that he was worthy of his position. Unfortunately when the two first meet, she’s in a cell for trying to give her life for her cause and he has to learn why to be worthy.

The deeper the two delve into the truth behind true loyalty and honest revenge, though, the more they learn that nothing is like it seems and the only people they can trust are the ones least likely — each other.

And your honest reaction is…? If you could tell me pretty much exactly what you thought when you read it, or what you automatically assume about the book.

3.       Do you read the first chapter/couple of pages?

Yes

No

Still bored and looking for a book, so sure

4.     What if a friend had told you that they liked the book?

Still Yes
I'm bored, s/he said it was a good book, sure I'll read a few pages.
I'm hesitant, but I trust my friend enough to read a few pages
Even with their recommendation, eh.
Still no.

If yes, email me at [vinshire.sisters@gmail.com]

If no, thank you for your help! If you didn’t explain why not when you explained your reaction to the summary, please do.

The summary I came up with in like 15 minutes for the purposes of this. The last time I wrote up my summary was for the first draft before I made some serious changes.

I actually got a lot of good feedback. 

By the time I finished responding to the people who wanted to help (someone just contacted me this morning about it actually) the summary looked more like this:

Erin was willing to give her life for her cause. Aviel was willing to do just about anything to prove to his father that he was worthy to take his late brother's position as heir to the throne. Unfortunately when the two first meet, she's in a prison cell for trying to give her life for her cause and he has to learn why to be worthy.

The normal punishment for spying, the punishment all her predecessors faced, is death. Aviel saves her though, on the chance that she'll be the Rebel that will explain the reasoning behind the past five years of destruction. The explanation is nothing like what he expected — and the truth even worse.

But the deeper the two delve into that truth and the secrets behind true loyalty and revenge, the more they learn that nothing is like it seems and the only people they can trust are the ones least likely: each other.


If they responded that they would be interested enough to look at the first few pages there in the bookstore/library (which most everyone has said they would - one person said that she wouldn't if it was the first summary, but she would with the second) I sent them the first chapter with a new set of questions, the last of which was "Are you still interested". If they responded yes to that one, I sent the them the second with its questions, and then the third. 

So far only one person has made it all the way through Chapter 3, but the majority of my test subjects have responded on the first. 

The results have been very helpful. I feel a lot more confident about some of the choices that I made recently. I told you last week how I decided to add a second character's POV instead of keeping it limited to the main character the whole book. So far the responses to that have been that it fits and it's helpful. Because of the situation I can do a lot more explaining about the world and situation through his perspective than hers. 

But at the same time, at least one person opened my eyes with the comment "I kinda really want to know more background information, but ... I must have patience. " to the fact... that there isn't really much world building to be spoken of. So I realized that I really had to knuckle down and do some of that. (And I actually used one of our own articles, actually written by Margaret: World Building 101 - Margaret is a crazy insane world builder. Think Lord of the Rings world building status)

A lot of people told me that there were a couple of cliches, but for first impressions that's not what I'm totally trying to avoid.

I've also learned that friends have a lot of influence on the type of books we read. Almost every person said that they really take their friends suggestions for books into consideration. Which is probably really good for me.

We've talked on this blog before about the extreme Importance of Writing Buddies (if you don't have one, I beg of you to please find one. They are probably more useful to you in writing than anything else), but we also have to remember that for must of us our audience isn't our writing buddy that's also trying to write and is trained to notice any and all flaws so you and themselves have as few as possible... your audience is (for most us at least that are under 20) your friends. The regular people who are looking for something good to read. Sometimes they're not even looking for something good (though they should be).

Even if your book is a literary masterpiece, it's got to appeal to the audience. Maybe you're looking at the wrong audience and you need to adjust thusly. But they're the ones that will or will not be buying your book. And it your goal for them TO buy the book. So it's important to know what they're actually thinking.

We have an advantage in this over the rest of the writers appealing to our audience, because most of us actually are a part of the audience. We go to school with our audience. We know what they're actually reading, know what their actual opinions are. 

Of course that's not always true. Margaret's home schooled, she doesn't spend 6 hours at a High School with 2,000 teenagers. But for most of us, that's a big advantage. We're reading the books aimed at our audience and we know what there's too much of and too little of.

I now know from experience that it's actually a really valuable experience.

You might have a different experience than I do with this obviously. I contacted most of these people online. You might be able to do the same, if you are home schooled or don't interact with a lot of people the same age as your audience. I just posted a little ad in the other story that I write that I needed people to help me with a project I was working on, all you needed to give me was your time and your opinion.

If you do go to school, you could also very easily just print out copies of your first chapter and a summary and hand them out to people at school, asking them for their opinions (come school time, at least).

If you don't know anyone in your audience (I do realize that throughout this post I just kind of assumed that everyone here is writing for a teenager/young adult audience, but hey, maybe I'm wrong) I would definitely suggest working on that, because knowing those people and getting those people to like your writing is called a platform, and it's very important.