Young Writers Society

I always seem to have a problem with this, even when I'm writing from just a single characters perspective. I always feel like my writing is extremely choppy and doesn't flow like when I'm reading a book or a very good fan-fiction. I consider writing to 'flow' when actions, thoughts, feeling and descriptions move together without abrupt change, throwing the read into a new state of mind.

Am I rambling again?

Does anyone here have any tips for making a character's story flow together better?

The best way to get a character to flow is right about them. Set your novel aside and just write. What would they do if this happened to them. The thing is, you have to get to know your character. Who are they. There past will affect everything. So, maybe you need to start from them beginning. To really know a character really know them you have to know what they think about random stuff. Am I rambling? The more you know about them the better your writing will flow. Does this help or did I go way off track?

Another thing to help the flow is just write. But, try not to go way off topic. The best way is to just practice. The more you write the better you will get. Maybe show us a few paragraphs of your writing. You might just be paranoid about your own writing.

Hope I helped,

A. S.

P.S. Don't compare yourself to others! It will only bring you down.

Interesting, usually I do a massive profile sheet. It contains birthday, likes, dislikes, desires, goals. Everything I can think of. I build their personality here.
Then I Imagine what they would do in an everyday circumstance. For example, if you were hanging out with your friends what would your character do at a certain time? Keep them in your mind and get to know them, crack them open like a nut and look at their insides like you're dissecting something. Really, you need to understand your character's goals and ambitions, what he/she wants and hates in order to realize what type of person they are. Then, apply it to your writing. Otherwise if you just make up a guy named, "Harry Crawford" and start a story with him about a love affair between him and his childhood friend's girlfriend, you really have no foundation to work with, right? Ahaha. No, Harry Crawford, don't! D:
Well, keep writing, as Calli already mentioned, it's good to randomly write about them too.
Hope I helped.

-Shear

Figure them out, act like them, write down dialogue, write a million sheets on them, make sure it's all unorganized and fret over it, consider suicide, wonder about Kafka and giant cockroaches as a means for inspiration, read Kierkegaard to cheer yourself up (and only accomplish depressing yourself more), reconsider the basis for the story, write only from the character's perspective, stay up and never sleep (thinking your mental state will help the creative juices... ), and then write over 9000 drafts. Then revise just as many times.

It's a shot in the dark, you just need to love all of your characters and develop them like the art they are. Writing is not a science. That's nonsense. Unless you're Koontz or some joke author, it's an art of being honest and creating personalities.

[quote = "MMM"] It's a shot in the dark, you just need to love all of your characters and develop them like the art they are. Writing is not a science. [/quote]

I absolutely agree. I disagree with the thought that you ought to figure out facts about your character. Are you close to your Mom or Dad or relative of any kind. Would you know all those trivial things about them? What's Nate's favourite colour? Do you really care? What's Percy Jackson's favourite colour? Or Pip's, from Great Expectations. Yes, it might be fun to know, but you have to realize that 57% of communication is body language, 39% is voice tone and but 5% is the words you use. It's the same ratio for writing.

For example, this is from my novel prologue:

"And you insist that you can really do all these things the newspapers claim?" asked Larry in that monotonous tone he has - a degree of unsettling wit hidden behind those innocent looking grandpa glasses. A degree of unsettling wit that you only understood had you talked to Larry as his guest, face to face, live and in the flesh. Justin understood.
"Yes. I... I can. I have," stammered a man dressed rather informally for Larry King Live - a cheap ragged old beret that reflected the dirt smudges on the man's cheek.

Be subtle, but not obscure. Judge the above how you will.

Anyway, I think personality is mroe important than bare facts. Contextual questions always dominate Contentual ones, in my opinion. They require more thought. Everything has a reason. You can't write essays on contentual things. I mean, even the fact that he likes red has a psychological reason. So rather than worry about grains of sands like the finer details, worry about the beach - personality. Rather than say the guy's favourite colour is red, alude to it by the amount of red clothing he wears, his urge to be a leader (If you're aiming for a younger audience, Power Rangers has basically stereotyped all the colours in and out of existance ) etc. Personality affects specific things. But now to contradict, the best way to explain personality, is by finer details.

So, if you want to get to know your character, give them a personality. Here's a list of traits they can have, it's awesome. http://www.superheronation.com/2008/06/ ... teristics/

If you want to explain your character's personality to the reader, use finer details. That's where making a large character profile comes in. But first you need to tackle the personality. If the person is very business, then they might eat cold cereal in the morning and a cold sandwich, all the while staring absent-mindedly at the beautiful garden while thinking about that contract they have to score.

Anyway, hope that helped.
TheNewHero

How to make characters flow? Write about them. Get to know them like you know anybody else, you have to know them because only through you can anyone else get to know them. Let them talk to you and show you what to do. Give them basic personalities, and let them take it from there. As your story goes along add little quirks to their personality or let them add quirks themselves, because everyone has a little quirk that sets them apart from someone else.

Bear in mind though that there are times when you cannot connect to a particular character. If you can't, drop them. Don't write when there's no connection, when you're not interested enough to want to tell their story through your writing.

And remember not to deliberately base your character off someone else's (except in fan-fiction, but then if you're good after a while the characters become your own anyway). The story just won't work. You won't have any feel for them and you won't know what to do with them.

Anyway, good luck writing about your characters. I'm sure you'll do well with all these tips and hard work.

TIGERSPRITE

TheNewHero thanks for the link, now you got me addicted to that site. As for characters, try getting someone to draw them out for you. Sometimes it helps to have a picture of them to look at. And then you can imagine what type of person they are by how they look and how they dress.