"I didn't want to put the book down. I was afraid the characters would do something while I was away." Reader of THE YEAR OF THE SAWDUST MAN by A. LaFaye

"It's not going well at all. The characters are all acting out, putting me into places I don't know how to write my way out of." A. LaFaye's response to a "how's it going?" question while writing NISSA'S PLACE

"When you talk about your characters, it sounds like you're referring to real people." A common response to A. LaFaye talking about a book she's writing.

I have a friend who is pretty convinced I channel my characters. I don't plan them, they just appear on the page and evolve as I write the book. Does that mean my characters exist or existed somewhere in the ether and I'm tuning into the cosmos to bring them onto the page? Not hardly!

My characters emerge from my subconscious as a unique amalgamation of invention, observation, and character cultivating with figures in books, TV shows, and movies. I'm always on the look out for character traits, motivation, and compelling backstory. I'm often inventing all of them while watching a TV show or movie so that I'm not bored by the storyline being played out. It's the character building I do when I'm not writing that fills my subconscious with the raw materials for my characters. This means that when I sit down to write, there's often someone there waiting to come out onto the page.

Sound a little crazy? I'm sure it is. After all, there's a fine line between insanity and creativity. In fact, the most creative people are those who are willing to think outside the boundaries of things. At the "carbon" level of it, creativity is simply the recombination of known facts in unusual order. If that's the case, then I've known all of my characters before -- bits and pieces of them are drawn from people I've met, read about, or seen on the screen. The secret to making them compelling, organic, and unique is the way in which I combine the character bits I've seen into unique individuals.

And how do I do that? An intense study of character development in fiction and film, a lay person's understand of psychology that goes a little deeper than your average armchair shrink, and a healthy dose of fascination with the human condition.

How does that translate into the craft of building a character? You can easily get some great advice on character building in THE PRIMED MIND, but you can also feel free to ask me questions here. I do love a good question.

In the meantime, might I suggest that you start, or more likely, continue to collect character bits as you go through life. After all, you may need them later. And who knows who may show up for the story you write next. Have fun!

"What's your angle?"

That's a common phrase in the writing world. It's the slightly jaded way of asking, what's unique about your approach to the subject?

THE PRIMED MIND has several elements that make it unique in the genre of books on writing... it looks at the role of morality in writing without taking the "moral high ground" that turned a lot of readers away from ON MORAL FICTION by John Gardner; it looks at revision and critiquing; as well as developing a writer's lifestyle-- all elements that are often only minimally addressed in books on writing.

I also try to take a unique look at the different elements of writing fiction including character development. I certainly don't want to give away all my "secrets" in my updates, but I thought I'd give you a small teaser on my chapter on character development—“Don’t Do Anything While I’m Away: Characters Who Live Beyond the Page.”

One aspect of this element of craft that crosses over into questions of voice when you have a first person narrator is the importance of worldview.

Worldview is a character's personal way of seeing the world that shapes everything from motivation to dialogue. If you know how your character sees the world and why s/he sees it that way, then you can make that character truly unique from the back story that shades his/her view of the present to that character's particular turn of phrase.

A character raised in Kentucky who took her first hunting trip at age eight is going to have a completely different take on showing up for a dinner party where venison is served than a vegan raised in Seattle who feeds deer in her backyard.

Seems logical enough, doesn't it?

That leads to the question of craft; how do you go about approaching worldview as a writer? How do you work it into your character development in a natural and compelling way?

I bet you can guess my answer, can't you?

Yes, that’s right, I'm going to be like the person who gives you the kind of book teaser that has your fingers itching to turn the page and find the answer, then says, "You'll have to read the book to find out." Unfortunately, that’s case here too.

As your waiting for the results of this funding drive and, hopefully, the eventual publication of THE PRIMED MIND, feel free to leave a comment on other craft topics you’d like me to address in my updates.

And here’s a worldview exercise to get you started:

Pick a location with a group of people – a party, a classroom, an office meeting. Let a news item come up that sets everyone to talking. Show how each person reactions through their dialogue, body language, and internal thoughts. Be sure that the reactions are grounded each character’s personal experience.

I've often found the old adage "Show don't tell" to be what they call "a false binary." It offers an either/or where there are actually more choices. I'd rather see the use of time in fiction as a continuum. Chapter 8 of THE PRIMED MIND looks at that continuum. For a unique taste of that chapter, I thought I'd offer an exercise from the chapter.

To prepare you for the exercise, I'll include definitions of the major points on the continuum from the glossary.

TELLING: Is the direct description of an element in a story. This approach is straight exposition that describes an incidental element of the story or sets up something that is fully dramatized later.

DRAMATIC TELLING: Narrative description that uses concrete details to “show” habitual action, conflated time, or condensed description. This approach provides concise descriptions while giving the illusion of showing. This approach uses strong verbs and concrete description with strong imagery.

DRAMATIZE: The use of full or partial scene to show a character’s discovery or a pivotal point in a plot. Dramatizing a fictional event allows the reader to enter the moment and experience the discovery along with the characters.

Chapter 8: Time to Tell
Learning to Tinker to Develop the Art of Telling Time in Fiction

Temporal Exercise 1: Knowing Your Time: Telling, Dramatic Telling, and Dramatization

Analyze: Choose a literary selection and examine when and how the author uses telling dramatic telling and dramatization in a short story or a pivotal scene in a novel. Explore how the author uses each element of time and analyze why each one is used in the particular way they’re employed.

Apply: Write a passage about a character in a place where s/he feels most at home. Let someone enter this place who is in conflict with this character. Once you’ve written the passage, go back and consider how you used time in the scene, feel free to make a few changes to fine tune your literary clock.

Internalize: Compare and contrast how various authors approach the use of time in their work. Pay careful attention to how they use each element of temporal pacing. Notice what distinguishes each other’s approach to the different elements to give yourself multiple ways of approaching them. As you study these elements in the writing of other authors, what you learn will settle into your subconscious and re-emerge with your own approach added in. It may take some time for your own unique approach to become fully realized, but the more you study these elements, the more you’ll absorb about how to execute them in your own work.

If you have any questions about this exercise, feel free to e-mail me at alafayebooks@aol.com

Here's a plum picked from the Primed Mind approach to writing-- a little bit of fruity advice-- "Never write yourself dry."

Your subconscious knows so much more than you're consciously aware of and, even better, it's open 24/7. That means that it can work on your writing even when you're washing the dishes that have piled up or finally watching that Netflix DVD that arrived six days ago. But the key is, you have to give it something to work with-- think of it this way:

You're writing along, picking the fruit of your creativity and slicing up into wonderful writing-- you write a page, then another, maybe a whole chapter lays out before you on the proverbial plate, then you have an idea for the next scene,but you have no clue what the next slice of story will be--STOP.

Lift your fingers off the keys and walk away. The first few times you do this, you might want to scribble down a few notes-- a few pruning tips--on what that next scene will be, consider that the seed that you're planting in your subconscious.

Then while you're off doing the things that have piled up while you were writing or procrastinating or taking the kids to soceer, piano practice, and the fourth birthday part of the month , your subconscious is fertilizing that seed, watering it, and watching it grow into a tree, so that when you sit down to write again you have a whole new growth of fruit to pick from.

The moral of this fruity tale -- never squeeze all of the juice out of your creativity, leave a little left to nurture the seed of your next scene and your subconscious will tend it until it's ready to bloom into new scenes, new pages, and new chapters.

If you find this post helpful, please share it with others and let them know about THE PRIMED MIND project. Thank you so much for your support.

Alexandria LaFaye