*sigh* Does It Get Any Better?

I don't believe there's anything quite like the harmonies these 2 can do together.
One of my ALL TIME faves--and so rarely performed.

I should have been at this show, dammit.

Mohegan Sun's 3/26/10 show:  Never Say Goodbye

Building Characters

I've been in the FanFiction game longer than I've been involved in the regular writing groups deal. I've always loved to mold an existing character into my wants and needs--even tweak him/her as I see fit.

But what about the character you have to design from scratch? What about the protagonist, or the heroine, or even the bad guy? How do you find that note of creativity and believability when you don't have an established RL character to work from?

A lot of us in the FF realm will make the heroine in our stories a little too close to our own image. And that's great--for our first story. Write what you know, right?  But what about when you have a cache of stories and your heroine is starting to sound the same every time?

How do you change it up?

How do you make people care about your character?  It's an important question and one that you should think about before you start writing a story. Far too often (ESPECIALLY ME) I start a story with an idea, but I don't think far enough ahead about what the story will become and the story starts to stagnate, to drift into that boring sort of static character that no one gives a crap about.

So tell me writers...how do you make your heroine stand up to the men we write about. This could be the Jovi Fiction that I'm most familiar with, or even another band--a TV show--whatever.  When you've got a living, breathing character like the lead singer of a band, or the lead guitarist, how do you create a female counterpoint that can hold up?

Discussion anyone?

Life Lessons

A friend sent this to me at work. It suited what's been going on in my life for the last 4 mos. Life lessons really suck, but they're lessons for a reason.  As a writer, I know to put them in my story to make my characters grow, as a person--you prefer not to have to learn them.

My mom was one of those amazing people that should have been on this earth far longer than I had her. How could she leave before everyone knew just how amazing she was? But when I was standing there in the receiving line for the wake, I realized that there were SO many people out there that knew. I can't express how much easier that made things for me.

Yes, I cried when I saw certain people. Yes, the pain was unspeakable. Yes, I wouldn't wish this kind of thing on anyone, but the only good thing that came out of this were the lessons learned. My mom was one of those amazing people that never had a bad word for anyone. I saw that, but the number of people that came up to me and told it to me gave me a lot of peace.

They knew. It made it a little easier to deal with losing her, knowing that so many people would remember her.

She left a legacy that I hope to live up to.

Wordless Wed