The Character Profile:

When blocking out a story, characters must be imagined and sculpted. Many times, the most direct route is to just write up a mini-bio of the person although it will not actually appear in the story in that form. Following is one I made up and offer as an example.

Dana Ward:

Dana Ward came from a warm and loving family. Her father, Rudy (for Rudolph) Ward was a ‘lifer’ with the Maine Department of Highways. He signed on shortly after his release from WW II and has been there ever since. A steady, family–loving guy. Her mother, Jenny, was an excellent stay-at-home mom, as was the practice in those days. She raised Dana with humor and encouragement and Dana adored her. Jenny died of breast cancer when Dana was 12.

Rudy’s second wife, Mae, was a divorcee (or, more accurately, an abandonee) struggling to raise her own two children. Rudy was not an assertive suitor but he was found and valued as a steady, decent man by a woman who badly needed a steady, decent man. Mae’s children had been battered about by their circumstances and they had not benefited from the hardening experience. The ‘black sheep’, Rodney, could not stay out of trouble. Despite all the disruption he caused, he was allowed to graduate. More of a ‘mercy’diploma to push him out so the school could get back to basic education. Much as she loved her dad, she jumped at the chance to marry right out of high school despite having academic and athletic scholarship opportunities.

Grant, the high school sweetheart Dana married, was a high school super star and turned out to be a great husband; loving, supportive, upstanding, honest. He enlisted in the Navy and worked himself into the rigorous Seal program. He took to it (no pun) like a duck to water and excelled. The pointy end of the Seals missions is ‘black ops’. Dana was immensely proud of him and supported him in every way a military wife could. They found out early in the marriage that she could not have children. Grant was not phased. He encouraged her to explore and follow her interests while he was away frequently and for long stretches.

Unlike other Navy wives who had a sisterhood centered on children and child issues, she had to reach beyond. She took whatever courses the Navy offered and classes in self defense and marksmanship. She discovered ‘distance learning’ over the Internet and gravitated to the subject of history and the concomitant discipline of research. She had found her passion. Dana earned bachelor and master degrees online. Along the way, she had become a bright, independent and sophisticated woman. The physical training had established the joys of athletic regimen and the self defense training had given her personal confidence. And, she had become an academic in an environment with little academic orientation. She was not arrogant. She simply found less and less in common with the other wives.

When Grant was killed in action in Afghanistan, she returned to her childhood area in Maine to be near family. Eventually, she applied for and was accepted as a Ph.D candidate at Bowdoin College.

Gnu Writer Speaks: Playground of the Mind

Want to write some fiction?  Don’t know how to start?  Here’s a suggestion: play.

I picked up a book by James N. Frey called ‘How to Write a Damn Good Thriller’.  Actually, I am personally into action/adventures which are different from thrillers but, I found something valuable in his book.  He provided a stream-of-consciousness monolog about how to play with his plots and characters.  It was liberating.  He would start with an idea for a plot and, after pursuing it a while, would go, ‘No, that’s not going the right direction or that’s not fun so why don’t we go over here and see where this path leads.’  Same with development of his characters.  The protagonist is a plumber, no, let’s say she is a psychotherapist.  His monolog showed some free thinking and experimentation, all mind games, all without consequences other than to probe possibilities.  Eventually, decisions must be made, of course, so the plot and characters actually do lead somewhere of interest.  But, the point is that juggling all sorts of possibilities will uncover richer connections and situations that can lead to a more interesting novel, short story or poem.

Elemental?  Sure.  But, do we do it?  Probably not as much as we should.