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    Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing
    • Home
    • About
      • About
      • Facilitators
      • Testimonials
      • Contact
      • How to enrol
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      • Events calendar
      • Venice Writing Retreat
      • Creative Writing Course
      • Stow-on-the-Wold Writing Weekend
      • A memoir weekend and a writing retreat in the Karoo
    • Shop
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    Tag Archives for: "how to write original characters"
     Monday Motivation: How empathy helps you create better characters
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted April 8, 2019

    Monday Motivation: How empathy helps you create better characters

    Writing fiction requires that you deliberately trigger out-of-body experiences. You create characters whose consciousness you attempt to inhabit, so that you might the better be able to describe, [...]

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    The many jobs that the setting of your story can d The many jobs that the setting of your story can do Tip 3/14 Personification: The place itself becomes a character, with its own personality and influence on the plot. Think of The Overlook Hotel in King’s The Shining. It’s much more than a setting – it’s a malevolent character with its own desires and agency. "The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact that it was now cut off from the world.... Or was it?" The Overlook is depicted as a grand, isolated structure in the Colorado Rockies. King describes it as an imposing presence with a long and troubled history. The hotel is portrayed as more than just a building - it seems to have an evil consciousness of its own. Its corridors are maze-like, its rooms full of dark memories, and its very walls seem to breathe with sinister intent. Whether you’re writing the most frivolous of romances, or something as dark and malignant as King’s Overlook, you can use your setting to galvanise and animate your story. . . . #StorytellingTips #WritersRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #StorySettings #Venezia #StephenKing #TheShining
    Writing Wisdom from Venice 3/16 Time for your wri Writing Wisdom from Venice 3/16 Time for your writing will not magically appear. Don’t wait till ‘next year, when I’ll have less on my plate’. Carve out time for your creativity and guard it fiercely. Lie, if necessary – if those around you don’t respect your creative time. #WritingRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #Creativity #AmWriting
    The many jobs that the setting of your story can d The many jobs that the setting of your story can do Tip 2/14 The place can reflect the character. The environment mirrors or contrasts with a character's internal state. A bleak, winter landscape might reflect a character's depression, for instance. In The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt’s character, Theo, is sent to live with his estranged sister in Las Vegas. Tartt describes the landscape as follows: "Desert, empty as the surface of the moon... Apartments and shopping centers and residential neighborhoods wholly indistinguishable from one another... Terero was a treeless place of temperature extremes, where dust devils danced in a constant slow whirl." This bleak, monotonous environment mirrors Theo's sense of loss, isolation, and emotional barrenness following his mother's death. There’s no need to say as much; after all, the landscape in which he is trapped, says it all. . . . #StorytellingTips #WritersRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #WriteInVenice #StorySettings #Venezia #donnatartt What can your setting say about your characters?
    Morning walk #venicewritersretreat Morning walk #venicewritersretreat
    This morning we did our 'Rialto Walk'. An hour and This morning we did our 'Rialto Walk'. An hour and a half soaking up all that Venice has to offer as it wakes and gets ready for another day. For a writer it's most definitely time used well. It sets us up for the day. Writing Wisdom from Venice 2/16 Time is like money: we value it more if we have less of it. That means you need never despair if you don’t have swathes of writing time. An hour, used well, can be just as productive as a five-hour stretch, in which we make six cups of tea and tidy the linen cupboard until inspiration strikes. . . . #WritingRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #WriteInVenice #CreativeSpace #AmWriting
    The many jobs that the setting of your story can d The many jobs that the setting of your story can do Tip 1/14 Create instant atmosphere with the weather: You can use the setting of your story to create a mood or atmosphere to enhance the story's themes. Dickens did this superbly. He opens Bleak House with a description of a London fog: "Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city..." It’s at one and the same time a literal description of the city, a metaphor for the opacity and confusion of the legal system; it creates a mood of gloom and claustrophobia; it foreshadows the moral and social obnscurity that the characters will have to navigate; and it immerses the reader in a sensory miasma… . . . #StorytellingTips #WritersRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #WriteInVenice #StorySettings #Venezia
    Writing Wisdom from Venice Life and creativity: t Writing Wisdom from Venice Life and creativity: they feed each other, yet wage constant battle. We’re all haggling for creative space in a world that places endless demands on our time. It takes effort to clear the physical time for writing. That’s why we’re here, on retreat in Venice. The time and inspirational space it provides might be a luxury – but it’s good for us, body and soul. . . . #WriteringRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #WriteInVenice #CreativeSpace #AmWriting
    Place: Stories play out in all sorts of location Place: Stories play out in all sorts of locations. You might think of those venues as a stage, where characters collide, declare their love or spit their vitriol. The stage itself seems to play little role in those narratives. It's the unnoticed backdrop to the action. Occasionally, though, writers draw locations into their stories, using them to accomplish a range of other goals. Over the next two weeks we’re going to explore, ever so lightly, what you can do with the locations in which your story takes place, whether it’s a hospital ward, or the Egyptian pyramids. We’re in Venice, which stands exceptionally high in the pantheon of notable literary locations. Its fading beauty, which combines grandeur and seediness; magnificence and the whiff not just of the some time stagnant seawater sluicing through its canals, but of some much deeper corruption, a decay that eats not just into the bricks and stones of the city, but also the souls of those who have misgoverned her. So, you might say: you’re in Venice, it’s easy to use Venice as a backdrop. It’s Venice, for goodness sake! I’m in Dayton, Ohio, or Bedford in the UK, or Nimes in France or Stanford in South Africa. It’s not quite Venice, is it? Well, there are two things you could do: 1. You could pencil in these dates – October 1 to 15 2025 – and join us in Venice next year (and see for yourself) And if you book before we wrap up this year’s retreat, we’ll charge you this year’s prices for next year’s delights. 2. Or/and, you can use the Venetian-inspired tips we’ll be posting every day for the next two weeks and turn them to good effect on your places, wherever they may be. 👉 Hit that follow button and join us on this creative adventure: #14VeniceWritingTips . . . #StorytellingTips #WritersRetreat #VeniceWritersRetreat #WriteInVenice #StorySettings #Venezia
    #venicewritingretreat #writingcommunity #venicewritingretreat #writingcommunity
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