Monday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

WHO ARE YOU REALLY? 52 QUESTIONS TO GO DEEPER WITH CHARACTERS

By: Laurel Garver

Characters ought to be more than a name and job title, like Joan Bunderson, special operative or Kyle Kowalski, hockey star. To breathe on the page, your characters need to have an outer life that's relational beyond work and an inner life of passions, drives, attitudes, memories, wounds, and fears.

Below is a fairly exhaustive list of questions to brainstorm when developing a new character, especially the protagonist. Obviously you don't need to know all these things about him or her to proceed with a story. However, wrestling with some of these questions might open up new avenues for inner and outer conflict to arise, or suggest interesting plot or setting elements you hadn't before considered. So choose a few from each menu or tackle them all, your choice.

If interviewing is your favorite research method, you might find it beneficial to find real people with similarities to your character and ask them a few of the questions. Even if your character is quite different personality-wise, a peer of your characters could give you helpful insights.

I suspect some of these questions might be useful for getting to know just about anyone if you're ever at a loss for conversation ideas.

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Read the full article HERE!

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If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. How to Know If Your Book Marketing Campaigns Made You Money - BookBub Unbound http://ow.ly/K4htW
2. Update to Page Like Counts | Facebook for Business http://ow.ly/K4in7
3. 5 Psychological Blocks that Stop Bloggers Going from Good to Great : @ProBlogger http://ow.ly/K4lkX
4. 5 Tips for Photographing Your Everyday - Click it Up a Notch http://ow.ly/K4q6Z
5. Anne R. Allen's Blog: How to Write a Prize-Worthy Short Story: A Step-by-Step Guide http://ow.ly/K4Eyd
6. Self-publishing lets women break book industry's glass ceiling, survey finds | Books | The Guardian http://ow.ly/K51XC
7. You Wrote a Killer Love Story…But Did You Romance the Reader? by Angela Ackerman | Romance University http://ow.ly/K51Zx
8. The Ten Commandments of Writing Failure | http://ow.ly/K5248
9. Writer Unboxed » Simple Promo Tip: Call Your Book By its Name http://ow.ly/K526J
10. Two main impact characters? http://ow.ly/K52hS
11. 5 Ways to Improve Your Writing Style | Writing Is Hard Work http://ow.ly/K52lD
12. Children with Divorced Parents | motivation for moving beyond your writing habits http://ow.ly/K52Ch
13. Use Attitude When Introducing Characters - Elizabeth Spann Craig http://ow.ly/K52Eu
14. Who are you really? 52 questions to go deeper with characters ~ Laurel's Leaves http://ow.ly/K52FH
15. Blood-Red Pencil: Using Click to Tweet http://ow.ly/K536z

Happy writing and running, Kathy