Monday, February 4, 2008

Steinish Writing Exercise

Stein says to ask yourself, "How alive is my main character?" He says it's one of the most important factors in whether or not people will want to read your book.

Here's an exercise meant to flesh out a main character.

Think about a movie you watched or a book you read. Insert your main character in the place of the main character of the movie or book. What would your main character have done differently? How would the plot have changed as a result? How would your character have related to the other characters in the movie or book? If you feel stumped, go back to developing your main character into a multidimensional, likeable, flawed person. Or at least a character you can imagine in settings other than your manuscript.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on winning NaNoWriMo! I am an instructor at Misque, a juried writer's retreat for authors with complete (or nearly complete!) novels, who want to take the next step and prepare it to be sent to agents and editors. Space is limited to twenty people and writers must submit a chapter to be screened for quality. From your blog, it seems you really have the drive to succeed at a writing career. I would love to invite you to join us.

If you think you might be interested, check out misque-writer.com or email me at misque-writer@misque-writer.com

Kristy Powers said...

I won't be able to accept the invitation to join you because I don't have $6,000+ allocated to pay for a writers retreat.