Tip 2

I’m going to get to the point with this one. Bring your Characters to life. Who are the main characters in your book? What make them the main characters? What do they have in common? What makes them different? What events makes them who they are? I think you get the jest of it by now. You have to introduce your character with a flare. I saw an old movie (really old, black and white) that I thought it was really funny from the start of the movie. There was a storm going on and some guy (yes, I said a guy) screaming to high heaven, and then there it wasn’t. What???? All they showed was the foot of the monster. Yes, you may know by now, I’m talking about an old Godzilla movie. I was only able to watch about ten minutes of the movie before I turned to something else. What is it about that movie that made it the subject of this tip? It’s how they introduced their main character. Today they are still using the same technique in modern movies; they hide the identity until later in the movie. If you are writing a romance novel, you hide that cheating lover behind closed doors until the husband or wife walks in; or If you are writing a western (Rio Lobo, (Love the movie)) You hide the real Villain on a well-protected ranch until you kick the door in and start kicking some serious booteus-maximus’. What is their purpose or motivation? What is the conflict between them? And what would be the end result between the two? John Wayne’s (motivation) was to catch the traitor responsible for all the train robberies, quietly seek revenge for the death of a young lieutenant (the conflict), and the (end result) was a serious butt kicking and saving a Texas town. How will you Introduce Your Character?

Until next time

J. Lew