Welcome to the Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition III!
Round SIX of this popular event is coming your way the entire month of August 2017 and it's going to be epic! The invites have started to roll out and everyone from your all time favorite Wa...
Hello, everyone! First of all, thank you so much for checking out my post. I am so excited to be part of The Wattpad Block Party for the 4th time in a row! Thank you so much to our lovely host, KellyAnneBlount for coming up with this epic idea and her dedication keeping this event alive!
In The Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition II post back in August 2016, I presented Some Writing Tips You May Not Have Heard About. For those who have not read it, if you're interested in reading the full article, you can message me by tagging me on the comment below and I can reply back with a link where find it.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
As writers, the quest to improve our craft never ends. We're always on the look out for ways to gain more skills. We always want to know what a successful writer is doing differently from what we do. We want to know what works for them. We want to know what makes them successful. So, this season, I will be doing it again by adding a few more tips to the list that you may not have considered or heard of before, concentrating on developing characters by understanding how their mind works and their environment.
Even though our characters and settings are fictional, there is a reality happening within the pages of our story. We need to understand that people are complex beings. How individuals interact with each other and how they react to situations can vary even when they have some similarities in their backgrounds. An environment can dictate a character's behaviour, and your character's behaviour can influence the mood of that environment. Thus, you need to understand them inside out.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
How? I'll start with the obvious ones then the oddballs.
1. Research/Interview/Interact - The need to research will never go away. We need to know what we're talking about to be realistic. If we don't have first-hand knowledge on the subject, we research. That is not difficult to do as we have informationat our fingertips.
For example, if you want your main character to be a CEO of a transport company, then research what the responsibilities of a CEO are, but more importantly, how does a transport company operate? As a CEO, s/he interacts with the employees. What sort of positions exist and the type of people who are hired in this job? The questions are not limited to that. You have to understand the environment your CEO is moving in? Understand what the culture is like in that industry. Is it a male-dominated business where s/he interacts with truck drivers and mechanics? Will you describe her/his mannerisms to be refined in an environment that's likely to be more blue-collar? There many things to consider in mapping your character's profile. Their personality has to be consistent to the culture or the world they move in.
