***I have a number of writing
deadlines coming up over the next couple of months so I have decided
instead of stepping away from my blog completely to concentrate solely
on my writing, I will bring back an encore performance of my WRITERLY
WISDOM series from three years ago. WW is 52 glorious posts by authors,
agents, and editors from around the country providing writerly wisdom in
categories from why even become a writer all the way to how to publish
and market your books.
There
will be two posts loaded per week...Mondays & Wednesdays...so be
sure to stop by and check out all the encouraging information given by
my lovely writerly friends! I hope you enjoy the encore presentation of
my WRITERLY WISDOM series and I will return with shiny, new posts in the
fall!***
CREATING CHARACTER
by Sarah Frances Hardy
Because I’m an illustrator, I think visually and my characters
usually start out as a doodle or drawing. The main character for my debut
picture book started out like this:
After I drew this little girl, I immediately wanted to know her
story. Why the black dress? Why the pointy shoes? Why the sass? So I started
asking questions. Lots and lots of questions ... I asked things like:
-Where
does she go when she’s sad?
-What
is on the nightstand next to her bed?
-Does
she have a sister?
-What
does she love most in the world? Hate?
-Does
she have a pet?
-What
does her lunchbox look like?
-Has
she ever had stitches?
-
.......??????
The more questions I asked about my character, the more I started
getting to know her. And the more I started to get to know her, the easier it
was to create a story around her because I knew exactly how to push her
buttons.
And that is what you have to do as a picture book writer: you
have to create an adorable, interesting character and then you have to mess up
her world. And if you know what she loves the most and hates the most, then you
know exactly how to create conflict for your character. So spending lots of
time brainstorming and fine-tuning exactly who this person is is an important
first step.
Now if you’re not an illustrator, no worries! You can still use a
visual cue as a jumping off point to create a character. Simply flip through
children’s catalogs, hang out in the park, drive your child’s carpool and tune
in.
Notice things like the little girl in the perfect white sundress
and white sandals who refuses to climb on the jungle gym. Is she worried about
getting dirty? Why? Did her grandmother make her dress? Is her grandmother
sick? Wouldn’t it be terrible if someone splashed her with mud? If she tore her
dress? .... Maybe she got hurt the last time she was on the jungle gym? Or
maybe someone teased her because they saw her panties?
Ask! Ask! Ask!!
Stare at the picture you drew or selected from a magazine, and
dig deep. Imagine the characters’ lives and their motivations. Ask real live
children questions like “Why did you decide to wear a cape today?” “Does
anything live under your bed?” “Do you often keep a family of lizards in your
back pack?”
And don’t be afraid to ask tons of questions because the more
questions you ask, the weirder they get, and the more interesting your
character will be.
And interesting characters make for interesting stories!
With a juris doctorate cum laude from the University of
Mississippi School of Law, a Bachelor of
Arts in fine art from Davidson College, and subsequent studies at Parsons School of Design in New York and Paris, Sarah Frances Hardy took an
early retirement from practicing law to paint and write full time.
Her first book PUZZLED BY PINK which she both
wrote and illustrated was published in April of 2012 by Viking Children’s
Books. Her next book PAINT ME!
about a little girl who starts out the day painting a portrait of her dog and
ends up painting everything in sight will be published in May of 2014 by Sky
Pony Press
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