Creating Realistic Characters

By Katie DePoppe

After mastering the basics of grammar, punctuation, and diction -- and then navigating the uncharted waters of rules you're allowed to break -- comes what I believe is the second most daunting task in writing: creating realistic characters. 

How do you even begin?

Here are a few ideas to reflect upon that may help in building meaningful and layered characters.

Study Personality Types

Researching Jungian psychological types or archetypes is a good place to begin.The Myers-Briggs (based upon the theories of Swiss scientist, Carl Jung), the DISC assessment (which includes both positive and negative personality traits), and Strengthsfinders (the assessment and explanations are within one book) can help you gain insight into how a certain character may logically react in specific situations, interact with others, handle conflicts, etc. Let the personality type act as a sort of skeleton for the character, and use it to jump-start the creative process as you begin building a fictitious person.

Think About Their Life Before the Story 

Think critically about the main characteristics of characters that you're attempting to convey, and why they are the way they are. Say a character is ambitious or anxious or merciful or lacks in self-esteem. We don't become that way overnight, and neither should a character. What led them to that point? Why does this character seem to make the same mistake over and over again? Or why does this one never say what she means?

Even if there's a part of a character's growth that falls outside of the book or story's timeline, creating a sort of linear timeline of personal or emotional growth (or lack thereof) of a character in your notes can be extremely beneficial in creating a person who is realistic.  

Keep a Spreadsheet or Notebook

Are there regional sayings you love? Or witticisms from someone in your life that are too good to be lost? I keep files within my email, my Evernote account, and my commonplace book (more details on that in a later post) with uncommon or otherwise potentially characteristic words or phrases that could belong to specific characters. By keeping a record, not only do you remember clever, nostalgic, or memorable terms or phrases, but such notes can help you find and control aspects of language that may cause confusion or dilution of an otherwise memorable figure.

Study Acting 

This is purely anecdotal on my part, but it makes logical sense to me: Writers who have either studied acting or who have experience in script writing, seem to have an upper hand in creating believable characters. An acquaintance of mine suggested reading Constantin Stanislaski's book, Building a Character. He tells actors they should be able to answer one question at all times: "What would I do if I were this character in these circumstances?" If we ask ourselves this same question when we're writing, it certainly seems it would help to realistically shape both the scene and the people in it. 

Katie DePoppe is the founding editor at large for Azalea, a magazine that celebrates the lifestyle, history, and culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. She is the curator of and a contributor to Azalea's blog, The Azalea Room, which explores Southern culture as a whole. Join her Facebook group, The Southern Lit Project, an extension of her blog series, The 50 Books Every Southerner Should Read. An aspiring author of Southern fiction, Katie is a member of Word Weavers International, ACFW, and is a life-long member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Connect with Katie on Twitter @KDePoppe or follow her on Instagram @katidepoppe.

Tech Tips for Managing Information Overload

By Katie DePoppe

When I began my career in the literary world, my first job was as a book publicist. While that was before the onset of the social media marketing frenzy we see today, at that time, we were on the cusp of new and creative ways to use technology to push new books into the mainstream.

Although my career has taken a few turns from my previous job (I’m now on the production side), I’ve kept abreast of tech strategies and have enjoyed, over the last 7 years, watching as the PR/marketing world strives to find the next best thing. The creativity and strategy behind it all is exciting to me.

I’m a researcher at heart and for many years, I’ve subscribed, pinned, bookmarked, saved, filed, and printed thousands of articles, blog posts, studies, and analyses on many areas of interest: social media marketing, productivity and organization, and writing tools and strategies, to name a few.

Through my work with digital media, I’ve also had the chance to attend a number of conferences and seminars where I’ve made connections with people in these industries who have logged way more hours than I have. Those opportunities afforded me the chance to discover people who are doing incredible work churning out valuable information for writers that encompass a number of areas that we are now expected to master: writing, editing, marketing, public relations, and the list goes on. The responsibility of the writer has grown. We now, more than ever, share the burden of helping to cut through the noise and get our messages heard.
 

With that said, here is a list of some of the tech resources  that may be of help in your writing journey, whether you’re in the process of drafting a manuscript, building a platform, or getting the word out about a finished product. This is just an explanation of my personal system and resources. Please leave comments with your own tips, suggestions, and links to your favorite blogs. The internet is a big, big place! 

For Managing Blogs, Articles, & Research Overload

Feedly
Feedly is my favorite. I believe its design is intuitive, and it offers an organized way to keep track of posts and articles you may not have otherwise gotten a chance to read. I especially like the design aesthetic: uncluttered, simple, and customizable.

Part of my job is to keep up with trends and current events. I do this, in part, by reading lots of blogs. This helps me to see everything in one place and has been a tremendous help in uncluttering my inbox. I used to assign an email folder to each blog to which I subscribed, but that became quite cumbersome and time-consuming. Now, I only subscribe via email to a handful of my favorite blogs that I’m sure to read every day. The others go through Feedly, and I check them at my convenience.  

You probably already know that there are many blogs out there for writers. I’ve listed a few of my favorites below. If you need help managing all the great content you’ll be getting when you subscribe, give Feedly a try.

Pinterest
Most everyone now knows that Pinterest is a sort of giant bulletin board, and it is an extremely valuable tool for those like me who tend to see my to dos or ideas as “out of sight, out of mind.” I’m also a visual learner, and when I can see everything in one place, grouped with imagery that jogs my memory about the content that lies within it, I think clearly.

Pinterest comes in handy when I’m gathering ideas for projects, stories, and articles. Often times these ideas are sparked by something I see in a blog. In those instances, I may take a specific post that I’ve already saved via Feedly and cross-post it to one of my Pinterest boards. My Pinterest boards are alphabetized and are given simple names that are easy to remember.

Evernote
Also intuitive and user-friendly, Evernote is ideal for storing information on the go and for easy accessibility. It allows for easy organization and is available as an app or via desktop.

For Storing Information & Content

Scrivener
For years I’ve had a very imperfect system made up of notebooks, my Evernote account, and myriad of email folders, but very recently my husband and I have tried to combine everything into the writing software, Scrivener. I’d heard of this a while back (and it may not be news to many of you seasoned writers out there), but only after I began to research project management software for a database that I was building, did I realize that Scrivener a lot more than I thought. Not only can you organize long-term projects like novels, research projects, etc., but it’s ideal for holding all of your content – blog posts, notes and ideas, podcasts, scripts, etc. – in one giant collection. Take a closer look here. 

Blogroll of Tech People Who Know More Than I Do

Amy Lynn Andrews – I met Amy at Allume last year. She’s amazing. Just subscribe to her Useletter. You won’t regret it.

Kat Lee @ How They Blog – A secondary project by this Inspired to Action mom blogger, How They Blog features interviews with bloggers of all levels and asks them about their processes. Each interview includes a list of quick links to blogger/writer resources.

Jeff Goins – Jeff is a writer for writers. Just subscribe. Every blog post and newsletter is packed so full of valuable information, you’ll need a nap after processing it all.

This is rather long, so I’ll stop there for now. What are some of your favorite writing tips, tricks, or resources?

Katie DePoppe is the founding editor at large for Azalea, a magazine that celebrates the lifestyle, history, and culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. She is the curator of and a contributor to Azalea's blog, The Azalea Room, which explores Southern culture as a whole. Join her Facebook group, The Southern Lit Project, an extension of her blog series, The 50 Books Every Southerner Should Read. An aspiring author of Southern fiction, Katie is a member of Word Weavers International, ACFW, and is a life-long member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Connect with Katie on Twitter @KDePoppe or follow her on Instagram @katidepoppe.

The Ache

by Katie DePoppe

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. - John Steinbeck

Last week, as I laid in bed with my 4-year-old son, he asked me to tell him a story from when I was a little girl. We’ve discussed that I used to ask my mom the same thing, so while he nearly always chooses a book over the old-fashioned oral story-telling tradition, I jump at the chance when he requests stories from my childhood.

We talk a lot about using our imagination and being creative at home, and he’s great at coming up with his own stories, but when he asks for ideas, I have to admit that I re-live my childhood vicariously in 5-minute heart-swelling increments. I’m not ashamed.

So, on that random evening last week, I was more than willing to share my “stories” with him. Most were just snippets of great memories. One of those: explaining to him how I would wait all week for my mom to take me to the Home Video each Saturday to rent one of Shelley Duvall’s Fairy Tale Theater classics. My favorite? The Six Dancing Princesses, an old classic complete with mystery, an invisibility cloak, and a secret passage way.

I watched as my little boy’s eyes widened as I told the story.

“I am so excited,” he said, and then his little face fell for a moment. “I just want to be in the story so bad, Momma.”

I told him I understood. I know that ache. More than he knows.

Over the years, there have been those stories – you know the ones – that affect you. The ones that linger long after you’ve read the last line, a shadowy friend who follows you as you go back to everyday life; the ones that seem to wrap their hands around your shoulders and pull you through the pages and hold you there for a while.

As a child, there was a storybook I spent hours poring through because the illustrations were so beautiful; I decided I wanted to live there and spent hours of my early years trying to draw pictures like those. I still remember, with great nostalgia, my eighth grade self, tucked into bed in the wee hours of the morning, brought to tears for the first time by a novel. And I could write all day about the works that I’ve read as an adult that have shaped my heart in some good way or opened my eyes to a new way of thinking.

What’s the point of this, you ask?

This post isn’t meant to teach or tell you something you don’t already know. Rather, I thought it might be nice to have a reminder interspersed amongst all the well-thought strategies and professional advice – a reminder of why we do what we do.

I hope I write something that will one day put that ache in someone’s heart, that ache I know all too well and which my son felt for the first time at 4. How easy it is to forget that literature has the power to change the world.

For more information on the power of literature and a recent study on the power of fiction, visit http://teachthemdiligently.net/blog/2013/10/power-fiction/

Katie DePoppe is the editor at large for Azalea, a magazine that celebrates the lifestyle, history, and culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. She spends her days working in the library basement of a local university and her nights tinkering with words she hopes will eventually appear on her personal blog, The Southern Apothecary (currently under re -construction), or in the pages of a Southern gothic short story collection. She lives with her husband and son, five dogs, twenty chickens, four peacocks, and a plethora of strays on her grandfather’s land near Charleston.  She is a member of Word Weavers International, ACFW, and is a life-long member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Connect with Katie on Twitter @KDePoppe.

Finding Your Writer's Voice

by Katie DePoppe

Sometimes one of the most difficult and elusive tasks when editing is pin-pointing a writer’s problems that go beyond grammar and syntax—style issues that we can’t necessarily say are right or wrong according to the proverbial book. Most specifically, I’m talking about the elusive problem of “voice”—the personality and life-perspective of the person who is telling the story; the special rhythm in which you as a writer relay what is most important to you from your unique place in the world. Voice is the single most important tool in captivating the reader.

A friend of mine who is attending seminary recently shared with me this quotation from Tim Keller: “When you listen and read one thinker, you become a clone…two thinkers, you become confused…ten thinkers, you’ll begin to develop your own voice…two or three hundred thinkers, and you will become wise and develop your voice.”

Isn’t that fantastic advice?

While Tim Keller is speaking to budding Christian apologists, without knowing it, his advice falls in line with what I’ve found to be the most tried and true advice for writers everywhere who are still fighting to find their voices:

Read the works of those whose writing you admire and try to emulate it.

Read long and read wide. Start with those whose works you most admire. Read contemporary literature. Read the classics. Explore writers from beyond your comfort zone. With each, write down what you like best about each unique writer’s voice. (I aspire to Hemingway’s minimalism; to C.S. Lewis’ succinct, power-packed philosophical explanations, to Melanie Shankles’ comedic timing, and to Ann Voskamp’s practical poesy.)

Write in between your reading times with this ongoing list in the forefront of your mind.

And eventually—and sometimes without even realizing it—your voice will begin to emerge.

To learn more practical tips on finding your voice, check out Jeff Goins’ article "10 Steps to Finding Your Writing Voice."

Katie DePoppe is a co-founder and the editor at large for AZALEA, a magazine that celebrates the lifestyle, history, and culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. She spends her days working in the library basement of a local university and her late nights  tinkering with words she hopes will eventually appear on her personal blog, The Southern Apothecary (currently under re -construction), or in the pages of a Southern gothic short story collection. She lives with her husband and son, five dogs, twenty chickens, four peacocks, and a plethora of strays on her grandfather’s land near Charleston.  She is a member of Word Weavers International, ACFW, and is a life-long member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Connect with Katie on Twitter @KDePoppe.