By Shayne Sawyer
In the words of Ace Venture, “All righty then,” it’s time for me to get down to business and write my first blog. No pressure. No problem. And nary a succinct word in my head. The curser’s winking at me and if it had an eye, I’d poke it. It’s not that I don’t have any thing to say; I do! It’s finding the perfect beginning then resisting the urge to hit the ‘Backspace’ key. I can hear Hermione Granger in my head, “Honestly! How difficult can it be? Just do it. Besides, you have Quidditch practice at half past three and you don’t want to be late.”
There! It came to me as I wrote that. Writing fiction is all about the characters in your head. For me it’s about the endless conversations I overhear, the facial expressions I see, the grunts, snorts, snickers, the sarcasm, the turns of the head. You know – the real life stuff. It’s in us, all around us. We’re a part of it.
I’ve mooned over my characters, allowed them to act out their lives in my head, to process their own thoughts and feelings, to cry and laugh, and curse. I’ve learned as I’ve watched their stories weave in moody arcs and splashes of brightness. Like watching a favorite movie over and over and over (yes, I do this) until I can recite the dialogue. (You know what I mean! You do it too.) No matter how many times I watch ‘Waking Ned Devine’ on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, I never tire of the characters brought to life by the brilliant actors. I shout the dialogue with an Irish accent and laugh to tears at the end.
So dream your characters into being, let them live in your mind, let them lead you around, let them age like single malt Scotch. (Well, maybe not that long…but you get the metaphor.) Then give your characters the forum to reveal their personalities through dialogue. And my final tip: Read the dialogue out loud. No. Seriously! Out loud. Bark it in an Irish accent if you have to. Bark it until you grow tired of it. If it rolls off your tongue and makes you laugh, you’re on your way. If you have to catch your breath in the middle, then it’s probably too long unless your character’s a preacher or a politician.
Happy dreaming, my friends.
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