How To-11: "How to Create a Convincing Character For Your Story"

How to Create a Convincing Character For Your Story

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit


An editor has suggested that this article be merged with: "How to SpecialCreate Believable Characters" Per the merge policy, if these topics are determined to be similar but distinct, then the articles will remain separate. Please comment on the discussion page. Notice added on 2008-02-27.
When writing a story, a convincing character is a must. Make sure you know your character before you start your story.

Steps

1. Get a file folder for your character. You want to know everything about her/him.
   
2. What does she/he look like? Look online for 'face makers' or, if you have a Sims game, make your character on that and take several screen shots. Put pictures of your character in their file.
   
3. What are the essentials? What is very important in their life? If you can, make a fake birth certificate for your character. It's fun, and its a good reference for the person's birthday, time of birth, etc.
   
4. Once you have the essentials down, start interviewing your character. How does she/he look at the world? If you're basing it on someone, use their answers. Or, if you're just not good at creating people from scratch, use a combination of several people you know.
   
5. Make sure that all the aspects of your character have been written up and stuck into the folder.
   
6. Start your story with a strong, convincing character!
   

Tips

• Don't do it all in one day. It can take weeks, maybe even a month, before you well and truly know your character.
  
• Make your character believable. For instance, a grandmother wouldn't say 'That's cool' or 'Sweet!'. She'd say 'That's nice'. etc. Believable characters would not always be mean, or happy or sad. Use a variety of feelings and traits.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Develop a Character
  
• How to Create a Fictional Character from Scratch
  
• How to Create Great Characters
  
• How to Create Believable Characters
  
• How to Write Fiction
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Create a Convincing Character For Your Story. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-10: "How to Write a Children's Story"

How to Write a Children's Story

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Writing a children's story requires a vivid imagination, enthusiastic creativity and the ability to put yourself in the mind of a child. For many writers, writing children's books successfully will require some effort to step back into the shoes of the very young and to see the world from a very fresh and curious perspective. For those who are always young-at-heart, writing children's stories can be a very satisfying craft. And if you are a child author reading this article, (and many child authors have published stories), then these characteristics will be second nature to you but you will still benefit from the steps on how to write a children's story well.

Steps

1. Brainstorm story ideas.The story is perhaps the most important aspect of a good book. Consult some of your favorite books (children's or not) for examples, but try to be original. Choose a story that fits your interests and talents, such as action, fantasy, or mystery. Smaller children enjoy stories with a play on words or a repeated phrase like, "No, no fat cat. Scat! Scat! Scat!"
   
2. Develop your characters. In order to have a good story, you need some interesting characters. Who is the main character of the story? Is there more than one? Are the characters human, animal or fantasy, or do they include elements of all three? Before you begin, it is best to make an outline of the characters and how they fit into the story.
   
3. Make a story outline. Use note cards, draw it in picture form, or write a standard outline. The important thing is to have a general understanding of the beginning, middle and end of the story, and of how the characters will interact and evolve. A good story usually has some sort of conflict or obstacle that the main character has to resolve, after which everyone lives "happily ever after". Here's the breakdown:
   • Introduce your characters with descriptions of physical and personality traits, their surroundings, and those with whom they come in contact.
   • Create a problem/conflict. This could be between two people, an internal conflict, or one in which the main character overcomes an obstacle in the outside world.
   • Write the climax of the story, which will include the main character(s) coming face to face with the conflict.
   • Show how your character(s) resolves the problem, and what happens next.
   
   
4. Add some pictures. Everyone loves pictures. They can add to the interest level of the story and make it easier to follow. You may like to include a few funny cartoons or pictures in your story. Make sure that you use bright happy colors or sad dark colors depending on the mood of a story.
   

Tips

• Keep it simple. Depending on the age group you are trying to engage, you don't want to make your story too complex and difficult to follow, because younger kids will quickly lose interest.
  
• Use some humour. We all have it. Focus on the 'silly' things that will have both the child and the adult reader laughing together. Use made-up words and rhyme: Dr Seuss knows, it's much easier and more fun to read aloud.
  
• Whenever possible, show the character's personality through speech and actions, not bland statements like "Sally is selfish". Try to differentiate between different characters by having them react differently to the same situation, for a start.
  
• Make sure your diction (level of word usage) and storyline are audience-appropriate:
  Age 3-5 years: Slightly larger storyline. More complex sentences explaining the motivation behind actions shown on the page. Adventures. Getting lost and finding your way home. Fighting. Being brave in spite of fear. Telling the truth. Thinking of others before yourself. Explaining how you feel. Learning to spell. Learning to add. Telling parents if someone hurts you or makes you feel bad. How to resolve arguments (though they still need a lot of help at this age, they can be introduced to healthy argument resolution, especially the idea of sharing and thinking how others feel). Disappointment.
  Age 5-7 years: overcoming challenges. Learning new skills. Understanding good reasons to do something and bad reasons to do something. Magic. Confusion. Books long enough to read over two or three nights. Use bigger words but be careful to explain them, so as not to frustrate new readers.
  

Warnings

• Avoid using slang words or inappropriate language/situations for younger readers. The writing should be of the best quality, to encourage young readers to love their language and to want to read more.
  
• Try not to give the characters long names, or name them similar or even starting with the same letter. This may confuse the child and make the story harder to follow.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Write a Good Story
  
• How to Write an Outline
  
• How to Become a Freelance Writer
  
• How to Brainstorm Children's Picture Book Ideas
  
• How to Write a Novel
  
• How to Avoid Plagiarism
  
• How to Create and Publish a Novel As a Teenager
  
• How to Clean a Book
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Write a Children's Story. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-9: "How to Add Emotion to a Story"

How to Add Emotion to a Story

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Ever write a story, but find it's still missing something? Like you write a sad story, but still no one cries. You write a comedy, but still no one laughs. Or, you just write a story, but no one really can see what you're trying to describe. If so, this article is for you!

Steps

1. Understand Keywords or Key Phrases. Key Phrases are phrases in a story that triggers the waterworks. They are sentences that make people cry. Such as, a pet dies. You could write, "Goodbye, Old friend." A Key Phrase could also be an action. Such as, there are two pets. One pet dies. The other pet tries to sleep with the other one by cuddling up to the dead body.
   
2. Add a lot of relationship between the one who dies and another character, whether that is a human or an animal.
   
3. Add comedy to the story. You can find several joke books at book stores or at your local library.
   
4. Do some research about your audience. Find out what makes those particular people laugh. A guy who slips on a banana. Kids may not get adult jokes, and adults may think kid jokes are crude. Either way, research whatever makes the person the books intended for (children, teens, or adults) laugh.
   
5. Add a couple of twists to the plot. Make something seem like it's going to turn out bad, but doesn't. For example, someone's grandmother is in the hospital, and the doctors think her life is over. Then, by some miracle, or just by luck, the grandmother turns out OK. That, or she recovers. Be creative, and never give up hope.
   
6. Paint a picture with your words. Visualize the scene you are describing. Be there. Taste, feel, and sense everything around you. Now open your eyes. Try to describe that picture. Make sure to sprinkle your sentences with plenty of word tools, (examples: Metaphors, Similes, Personification, Alliteration, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia). Instead of saying, "The wind blew through the trees." You could say, " The biting wind howled and moaned as it rustled through the tree's icy limbs, and shook the tree straight down to the core." Make sure it's not a run on sentence either like "Sally went to the mall and shopped for shoes and then for a dress, that was a total of 13 inches in length and then she went to mcdonald's and ate a burger with fries and then met a girl named Jinny who had a dog named frisky who liked frisky dog biscuits and peed on the couch and then went home." Draw a word picture. The text of a book is a portal to an imaginative world.
   

Warnings

• If you just try to use cliches or things you've read to make people feel emotions, your story may fall flat. It's hard to make other people feel something if you don't feel it yourself. Think about times when you've felt happy or sad in real life, not just when reading other books. The more you put yourself into your story, the more real emotion it will have.
  

Things You'll Need

• pencil/sharpener
  
• paper
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Write a Song With Good Emotion
  
• How to Read Emotion
  
• How to Tactfully Ask Emotional Questions
  
• How to Write a Book
  
• How to Write a Comic Book
  
• How to Start a Book Group
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Add Emotion to a Story. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-8: "How to Write a Dark or Sad Story"

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Are you writing like Dr. Seuss? Or are you just not writing well, or dark enough? Well, here's how to do it.

Steps

1. Get an outline. Come up with images in your head and make words to go along with that image.
   
2. Wait for a day where it's Heavy rain. And just walk around. So that you get some sort of serious or dramatic feeling or inspiration.
   
3. Read some dark literature.
   
4. Get a feel going. Play a very sad or depressing song.
   
5. Write in a place where you're all by yourself.
   
6. Try to get the feel of what you're writing about. If you're main character is a patient with terminal cancer, then go visit someone who has terminal cancer. If you can't find one, go online and look up some journals.
   
7. Dim the lights when you write. You don't want any light to blind your sight into the words of your mind.
   
8. Write as if you're taking all the sadness, desires, hate, frustration, and hurt in you and turning them into words. This can be immensely cathartic.
   
9. Use good punctuation. Full stops at the end of sentences, and if you're not sure about the commas, then have someone with the eye of an eagle and the heart of a grammar nazi look it over for you. Don't overuse ellipses.
   

Tips

• Don't get distracted.
  
• Be sure that your work makes sense... read it a hundred times over if you must.
  
• Give your readers an idea of what you're writing.
  
• You don't have to be a serious person to be a serious writer.
  
• And you don't have to write on paper. With a typewriter or with a computer is just fine.
  

Warnings

• Don't copy other people's work.
  
• Don't mock your own work.
  
• Don't get too detailed!
  

Things You'll Need

• Story.
  
• Outline.
  
• Emotions.
  
• Dictionary.
  
• Thesaurus.
  
• And yourself...
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Become a Writer
  
• How to Be a Good Writer
  
• How to Free Write a Book
  
• How to Come up With a Topic to Write About
  
• How to Give Your Room a Creepy Look!
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Write a Dark or Sad Story. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.