Character creation: archetypes and stereotypes

What are archetypes and stereotypes ... and where should my own characters fall?

Aim for a spot somewhere in the middle. The line between archetype and stereotype can become perilously close. Archetypes can turn into stereotypes by being overused. First, be sure you understand what an archetype is. Here are some, which will help to grasp the concept. (How to write unforgettable characters is a massive subject. We're going to tickle it on this page, but when you're ready to grasp this particular bull by the horns, take Creating Characters 101, on this page!)

Father figure/male authority figure.
Odin. Zeus. Merlin. Richard the Lionheart. Gandalf. Obiwan Kenobi. Commander Adama. Jean Luc Picard. Master Po. Jor-El. Jim Gordon. Wise old(er) man who has, or seems to have, all the answers. The archetype slithers into the stereotype if your wise elder is TOO good, TOO wise, TOO all-seeing, and you use this device too often.


Mother figure/female authority figure. Mary. Galadriel. Gwenevere. Hera, Hestia, Demeter. Queen Elizabeth I. Spiderman's Aunt. Captain Janeway. The good witch of the north. The crone, or wise woman, with all the answers as well as the comfort and compassion. Again, the archetype slithers into the stereotype if you let it.


The young warrior (male or female active: light). Thor. Baldur. Hector. Robin Hood. Launcelot. Zorro. Frodo. Aragorn. Luke Skywalker. Hercules. Bruce Lee. Jim Kirk (in the first show!). Richard Sharpe. Kal-el. Xena. Princess Leia. Ripley. Eowen. S/he's smarter, better, stronger, faster than everyone else; the trick is in how to write him/her without him/her turning into a comic book hero(ine)!


The rogue warrior (almost always male male active: dark ... the antihero).Ares. Achilles. Wolverine. Magneto. Han Solo. Mad Max. Boromir. Anakin Skywalker. Bruce Wayne. Captain Nemo. They have a streak of the dark as well as the light; their allegiance could fall either way. Work out how to write the character without him becoming the cliche.


The villain (should transcend gender: dark ... resident evil). Set. Loki. Saruman. Sauron. Emperor Palpatine. Joker. Green Goblin. Darth Vader. Lex Luthor. Sheriff of Nottingham. Klingons. Cylons. Goa'ould. Nazgul. Smeagol. Dracula. The bad witch. It's critical to work out how to write this archetype, because the stereotype is lurking right behind you, dying to join the party.

There are many, many more archetypes, and just as many stereotypes, but you get the picture:

The hustler with the heart of gold; the beautiful but dumb young person of whatever gender; the naughty child who does stupid things as a catalyst to the plot; the teen who won't listen to reason and gets into trouble; the town drunk; the lecherous priest; the nasty teacher who's abusing kids; the kindly old lady who rescues stray cats; the ugly woman who's easy prey to any young guy intending to fleece her; the brainless barbarian warrior; the snivelling, cowardly thief; the virgin bride kidnapped before the wedding; the defrocked priest; the lecherous nun seducing some guy; the Arab terrorist; the dim-bulb Irishman; the Afro-American rapper, out of whose mouth you can't understand a word; the perfect hero; the corrupt politician; the butt-kicking babe who's too small and skinny to do any of this, but she sure looks cute in a movie; the lispingly effeminate gay guy who works in a frock shop; the femme fatal bursting out of the tight ruby-red down; the sassy little kid with the smart mouth; the big, butch gay gal astride the Harley-Davidson; the tired, middle-aged housewife immersed in romance novels...

How to write good characters is a subject we sink our teeth into in this whole series of posts, but you've got a good grasp of what the archetypes and stereotypes are — and in fact, they're fairly easy to avoid. Just identify who they are, get a lasso around them, get them into the corral and lock 'em in there!

Create a character stage two: give him a name

What's in a character's name .. and why should it matter?

What's in a name? A lot. More than you might think at first glance, and when you're serious about the process, and you intend to create a character that really matters, don't name him/her willy-nilly. Think first — because names come to us complete with baggage.

The most important thing a name tells us about the character is his or her ethnicity; and this can give you a clue as to their upbringing ... which in turn can give a reader preconceived notions about who and what the character is, and how s/he will, and even should, behave. A name is a loaded gun, and they like to go off! Create a character with great care with regard to culture and ethnicity.

The names of 'Goldman' and 'Petrakis,' 'Rinaldi' and 'Chavanel' are very attractive, and you might be tempted to just pluck one of them and apply it to the character you're creating. However, each of them carries a burden of ethnicity, linking your character directly to a country, an immigration path, a religion, a culture, which you might not intend ... what's more, if you intend to write a good book, you can't ignore this, and you certainly can't afford to contradict it!

Take a look at these names:
Patrick Michael O'Flannery
Sahfraz Hafeez
Itzhak Goldman
Johnny Sakai
Maria Rinaldi
Gregor Danielovitch
Cheng Mei Ling
Theresa Cheng
Rosie O'Grady-Silverberg
Jessica Petrakis
Pat Chavenel
Yehudi Rosebloom
Wasim Malik
Joey Petrocelli

What's in a name? As soon as you see names, your imagination runs riot. When you create a character, always consider what your readers will construe, long before they get to your in-depth development of the character. Patrick Michael O'Flannery is certainly Irish, which until very recently meant almost certainly a devout Catholic, from a strict family background, doesn't 'sleep around,' still goes to church, wants a life-time marriage and kids, possibly lots of them. If your Mick O'Flannery is different, you'll have to deliberately and thoroughly explore how he's different and who he is ... just to overcome the ethnic "baggage" which hitched a lift on the name!

Johnny Sakai is almost certainly second-generation Japanese, living in the US, Australia or UK. Which means he's probably bilingual, speaks Japanese at home. Does he adhere to Japanese codes of conduct, or is he an American city kid? Does he have a sense of honor, even bushido, or does he (secretly?) consider the whole thing a load of rubbish? Cultures conflict in this guy; creating him must be done with great care, but this is your opportunity to create a character around whom an epic could be built ... if you can pull it off. (The downside is the research, if you're not connected to this guy's community.)

Rose O'Grady-Silverberg is most likely an Irish lass married to a Jewish lad. It happens ... do a little research into Harry Houdini! The opportunities to 'go to town' with this character are massive. Just be sure you know what you're writing about. Both the Catholic and Jewish communities are enormously complex, and the cultural quirks have the power to astonish. If you're not familiar with both communities, you'll need to research them. Thoroughly. Use what you learn to create a character that will absolutely rock your readers.

Theresa Cheng and Cheng Mei Ling are the same girl ... at work, and at home. She's bilingual, first or second generation ... Taoist, Buddhist or possibly even Catholic. But to which culture, East or West, does she lean?

Itzhak Goldman and Yehudi Rosenbloom are both Jewish ... but 'Izzy' Goldman could easily be a New York Jew, and the Rosenblooms are Yiddish, being Jews from Austria, Germany, even Hungary. Take especial care if you delve into these cultures by using such a name. They're complex almost beyond a Gentile's imagination, and their languages are so different ... Yiddish is not Hebrew, nor is it German.

Sahfraz Hafeez is a Moslem ... but is he an Aussie Muslim, or a Londoner? Devout, or atheist? On the run from the religion, or a regular mosque-goer? Just because the name is Muslim doesn't make the character a stereotype, but if you write a Muslim character, you'll have to be very specific about who and what he is, or readers will certainly have preconceived ideas. Again, create a character, real and genuine, not a stereotype.

If you don't intend your character to have Greek connections, choose a name other than Petrakis. If your character has no Jewish, Yiddish or Israeli connection, choose something other than Goldman or Rosebloom. 'Chavanel' establishes a French connection, but it it French, French-Canadian, or Cajun? 'Rinaldi' and 'Petrocelli' link directly to Italy — also to Catholicism, which might be far indeed from your character, who's an atheist, playing the field. You'd have some serious explaining to do, on that score. This could add depth to the novel; but is it something you want to get into? Create a character with cultural "baggage" only if you're prepared to do the work. Readers will definitely notice if you set it up then goof off.

Bottom lines: choose any name you want, but choose deliberately. Do some research and build up your character by delving into the culture, the immigration path, the political and spiritual environment in which s/he grew up. Are his/her parents still alive? What about siblings? The only cardinal sin is to either ignore the cultural ramifications of your name choice ... or to contradict yourself and get it wrong. For example, if your character has a Greek name and you write his/her parents as Italian, you'll really have to talk your way out of that one!

Parting shot: when you create a character, take care, beware of the pitfalls, do a little research, and write well!

Turn page to Know your archetypes from your stereotypes...

Create a character: The Villain

Young guy, older guy? Tall, short? Walks with a limp due to old injury?

And yes, right here you can see that the process is virtually the same as in developing the hero. There is one different point: you get to decide, about halfway through the "create a character process," WHY this guy became evil, or bad, sneaky, underhand, cruel ... whatever the character trait is, which makes him the nemesis of your hero/hero

There are no rules to follow now, and it's twice as hazardous creating a really great bad guy as designing a fully believable hero. It's harder than you'd imaging, finding decent reasons for someone to be evil. This is where you'll probably work hardest, in the phase prior to writing the novel.

What turned this guy to the darkside? Was someone dear to him killed (Mad Max, Anakin Skywalker, Pardon Chato, Two-Face, Hobgoblin). Was he cheated of his birthright ... or persecuted for being what he was born (any of the mutants in X-Men could have gone that road; some did. The 'ostracized for difference' model gives you both heroes and villains who might be gay; physically deformed in Utopia; pagan in the time of the witch hunts; a foreigner in a racially prejudiced society; the alien (or android) in the crew — Spock, Seven, Data, Lore, Bishop, Ash, Hawk, Chewbacca, Nightcrawler, Mystique...). Isolated by race, type, religion and even sexuality, a character could become stronger or ... not. Here is a line from The Dark Knight which makes the point perfectly: "What doesn't kill you makes you ... stranger." (It's a "spin" on the quote from Nietsche, who said, "What does not kill you makes you stronger." However, Friedrich Nietsche died insane, so in retrospect one is actually more inclined to go along with the Joker's take on the line!)

Decide ahead of time what made your character "go bad." Backstory this, create a character who is so fully believable, your readers will identify, at least in some part, with the villain.

(It's quite difficult to decide why some viewers of The Dark Knight identify keenly with the Joker. He's an escapee from a lunatic asylum, and we're given oddly crossed signals about what drove him insane: he tells the story differently each time. We know only that one or both parents abused him as a child, and he saw and suffered things that turned his mind. Twenty years later, he's avenging himself upon the city. The movie's writers and directors are probably still scratching their heads over why viewers identify with a homicidal maniac! The brilliance of Heath Ledger's final, signature performance contributes a lot. However, this phenomenon has happened before. When Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior appeared, a section of the audience attached itself to the Mohawk biker, the villain, Wez. It often happens that the villain is written, and/or portrayed with such verve and panasche, that viewers and readers find him/her irresistible.)

Have a chuckle while you create a character to fill your villain's shoes. You don't have to make all the old mistakes committed by writers generations before you ... learn from their mistakes. And have a good laugh while you're about it! Grab a fresh cuppa (or coffee), and read this: Peter's Evil Overlord List.

Everything you need to avoid blunders committed by writers from Tolkien to Lucas and Spielberg, is on this hilarious list, which will bring the whole topic of "create a character for the villain" into focus faster and better than looking at archetypes for the next half hour!

Now...

Turn page to What's in a character's name?

Create a character: The Hero

Young guy, older guy? Tall, short? Walks with a limp due to old injury? European, Afro-American, Native? Aussie accent? Good looking, scar-faced after the old injury? Bad tempered, sweet tempered? Foul mouthed? Snazzy dresser, or grunge guy? Rocker, rapper, or violinist? College educated or dropout? Brave, or scared silly? Straight, bi or gay? Tee-total, drinking problem, drug problem? Smoker, or non-? Republican, Democrat, or couldn't care less? Religious, spiritual, or atheist? Intelligent or a bit dim? A son, a father, a brother, a nephew?
Education, natural abilities, athleticism, trade skills — politics, sexual orientation, religious inclination, fashion preference, musical tastes ...! All these considerations, and many more, are invested in a solid character. And they're all going to come from your own imagination. A large part in winning the 'Create a Character' game is to stretch your imagination to the utmost.

There's a pitfall to watch out for right here. The tendency, especially for new writers, is to model the hero (or shero) on their own preferences. This is fine, up to a point, but take care that all your heroes and sheroes are not cast out of the same mold. Readers will soon notice.

Instead, try building a central character who fascinates you exactly because he's different from you. He likes jazz, not pop. He likes Mexican food, not Chinese. He likes old movies, not new ones. He drives a beat-up car, not an SUV. He's college educated, but dropped out before getting a degree. He had a drug problem in the past, and beat it. He's a tee-totaller now. He's apolitical, has no political preference. He's an agnostic, even an atheist, not religious. Create a character, not a stereotype. (Need to know about stereotypes and archetypes? See the lower sidebar, to your right!)

A real live guy just took shape in the above paragraph. He's driving down the road in a beat-up car, listening to jazz on the radio, looking out for a Mexican restaurant to get lunch, talking to his buddy about classic movies, refusing to talk about politics because he's bored by the subject. The two of them go into a restaurant, and our guy won't have a glass of wine, and won't be drawn into religious debate.

Is the other side of this conversation also a major character? His life partner, girl- or boyfriend? A workmate? A client? If the character will take part in much of the book, inject a little dynamism into the relationship. This second character likes rap, not jazz, is a Republican, a churchgoer, drives an SUV, likes Indian, not Mexican food...

They have something to argue about, like real people. The whole story of their lives can be spun from details which are filled in, like fields on a form, right here. You 'only' set out to create a character, but in fact a relationship wove itself out of the details and the conflict of interests.

Working backwards from what the character needs to do physically and intellectually, lets you design the whole guy in two dimensions. His personality can come along later (along with his name and even his face), but you know right at the start, he's big, athletic, and smart. (The stuff you're going to put him through, he'd better be, right?)

With these physical characteristics in mind, you can easily audition. Run your favorite actors through the role, see how they fit. Brad? Harrison? George? Nicholas? Tom? Hugh? The choice is up to you. Are you writing a shero? Angelina? Sigourney? Charlieze? Sharon? Sandra? Julia?

The last step in the 'create a character' process is probably the one your imagination wanted to start with: the character's face. Okay ... it's tempting to work backwards from your favorite actor, but try not to! Mis-casting can be one of a movie director's worst nightmares, and when you write a book, create a character, develop a plot, you are director, producer, writer, cinematographer, all rolled into one.

And as soon as you're done with casting, you'll also have a clear picture of who you're describing in the narrative. In short ... the real fun just started!

BUT! (There's always a "but" in here somewhere.) Be clever. Be cautious. Beware! Know the stereotypes and, if you want to create a character in the hero role who is believable, watch out that archetype doesn't become stereotype. It can happen easily.

The hero archetype: Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Maximus (Gladiator), Conan, Robin Hood.

The hero stereotype: Flash Gordon (rent the movie on DVD!) is the absolutely perfect example. Also Robin, in another comedy, Robin Hood: Men In Tights. And you're noticing already that when heroes turn into stereotypes, the movie promptly turns into a comedy.

This is what you're looking out for, when you create a character to carry your story. Hero or shero, he or she MUST be a real human being, if s/he is to be taken seriously. If s/he is too perfect, too beautiful, too strong, too honorable, too fast, too good ... you'll blunder right into what we'll call "The Flash Gordon Effect." We'll coin a phrase here.

When you set out to create a character from the ground up, be vigilant. What are his/her failings and weaknesses? A phobia? An old injury which leaves a weakness? Fatigue, burnout, tiredness? Heroes come in a stunning range of roles. While you're renting Flash Gordon, rent a Harrison Ford movie called Regarding Henry at the same time ... and be astonished.

Now --

Turn page to Create a character: The Villain...

Create a character your readers will never forget

Right after a coherent, exciting (or at least interesting) plot, the next thing a story or novel needs is characters. A whole cast of performers, fresh from the writer's imagination. You must create a character to fill each role — think of it as casting a play or a movie.

Let's assume you have your plot nailed down tight. For the moment, we'll take it as read that you have the beginning, middle and end, and you know (with at least some certainty) where the story line actually starts.

One point you can be sure of: the story will start with a scene, and almost every scene involves humans playing their part in putting flesh onto the bones of the story. (Notice ... almost every scene involves characters! There will always be scenes where a major event like a massive storm, a rocket launch, a ship sinking, will command the entire narrative. But in fiction these scenes will be a few percent of the overall number of scenes in your book. It's all about "Show, don't tell," and to see how it works, and why it works, see the sidebar to your right!

It's time to create a character ... or twenty characters. And here's how to do it ...


Character creation 101

Sometimes you'll have the characters clearly in mind even before you've nailed down the plot. They spring into your imagination fully formed, and literally demand that you tell their story. Some writers are lucky enough to have this happen every time ... the rest of us have to work to create a character, real, live, fleshed out and detailed in three dimensions.

Let's assume that, because you're on this page, you'll have to work at it. This actually gives you a big advantage, because character creation is a skill which can be mastered right here. The writers to whom it comes naturally are 'playing by ear,' and the downside of that is, if or when a day arrives when they get burned out or 'blocked,' they never did learn the basic skills. They have nothing to fall back on ... but you do! When you how to create a character according to a set of ground rules, you can always 'return to source.' These are life-long skills. So...

To create a character, first, look at the part of the plot and make some decisions.

What's the best way to 'show' the plot, not 'tell' it?
Upon whose shoulders will most of the plot line be carried?
Who complicates the plot line?
Who hurts the hero or heroin the most?
Who causes the most mayhem, and why?
Who does the central character care about?
Who does s/he hate? Love?
Who's going to get killed, and why?

With these questions answered, you can put up an 'auditions in progress' notice, and this is where the most fun in a writer's day begins. You get to cast the parts. (If highbrow writers try to tell you they don't work this way ... yeah, right. They might be telling the truth. Maybe.) To create a character, however, think about physical/intellectual characteristics first, looks second.

Auditioning for the hero, examine what you need this poor guy to do. Fly the plane? Drive like a Formula One champion? Crack the secret code? Understand chemistry and physics? Fight like Jet Li? Swim and run like Tarzan? Ride a bike like Lance Armstrong? Play the violin? Make a parachute jump? Fix engines? Perform an autopsy? Setting out to create a character from scratch, consider what you need him/her to do, and this will efficiently set out the academic and athletic background s/he needs to come from

You need to 'cast' a type which is capable of performing what's necessary. If you mis-cast the part in the first chapters, when a meek, mild academic grabs the machine pistol and jumps out of the aircraft without a parachute, catches the bad guy, rips the chute off him, blows up the chemical plant, mows down an army of terrorists and saves his girlfriend ... your readers won't believe a word of it. From the get-go, you must create a character readers can believe.

Similarly, if you 'cast' a sports hero type who later in the book starts deciphering astrophysics and chemistry, curing alien diseases and saving the day with his revolutionary 'take' on calculus, the story will have spoofed itself. If the guy needs a doctorate in physics to save the day at the end, design it into the plan, the moment you set out to create a character readers will believe utterly.

So, think it through and cast the parts carefully. This will save a lot of rewriting later.

When you invest the time and effort to create a character properly, there's a lot more to think about than what he can do and what he looks like. Do you recall this exercise from the plot idea page? (Page back and refresh your memory if you need to.) By going through a kind of questionnaire, a hero, shero, villain, coward, nuisance ... any kind of performer can be built up, layer by layer. Let's take a look...

Turn page to Create a character: The Hero...

Global editing ... what in the world is it?

Freelance editing begins here: work local, think Global

This is editing (freelance or otherwise) on its most 'gross' scale, where the grammar and punctuation don't matter, and the storyline itself is under the magnifying glass. Global editing also verifies the integrity of the plot: events have to follow in a logical order. If a character who was killed in Chapter Five shows up again in Chapter Twelve, there had better be a good reason! At this level, continuity is also addressed: a character who was Californian when introduced can't be from New York eight chapters later. A blond(e) should stay blond(e), unless a 'new do' is part of the plot. At this level of freelance editing, you can also check to make sure there's a good balance between dialog and narrative, with enough of each and not too much of either. And so on.
Global editing is the first stage in the process. Most writers do it 'on the fly,' and there's a way to make it dead easy, even if you're not a 'natural' at this.

If you've never done this before ... if the book is 1,000 pages long and you lose track of the details ... if you're writing a series of books ... if you have a memory like a sieve ... if months go by between opportunities to write, and you just forget stuff, global editing can be a hassle. It still has to be done, but there's a cast-iron way to get around it. It's simply this:

Get a pack of cardex file cards and a pen. Read through your story. Write down every proper noun -- character and place names; make a note of the relationships between characters; the physical appearance of the characters, plus any special characteristics. Does someone lisp or limp, or have a scar? Is someone crazy for a specific reason? Give each character his/her own card ... and organize them alphabetically. Six months from now, pull Rhett Sinclaire's card, and jog your memory:

Rhett Sinclaire: has a Chinese grandmother, bleaches his hair, talks with a Chicago accent, is phobic about spiders and allergic to cats, but loves dogs and rides horses like a pro, he was married to Janet, two kids, Marina, 10 and Shaun, 8; divorced 5 years ago when Janet couldn't stand his job any longer; has custody of the kids every second weekend; his dogs are Biff the Beagle and Bozo the schnauzer; lives in a 30-y-o ranch house in the San Fernando Valley; worked for Eagle River Security, 6 years; has been an insurance investigator for IUA for 8 years. Loves the job; loves German beer and Chinese food; hates punk rock music...

A lot of writers can carry that lot in their heads, and do it for 40 characters in a giant novel, but there's no law that says you have to carry it all in memory. Cardex file cards are cheap, and they work!

Finding a fresh spin for old material, and being able to see when the spin either has not been done yet, or was not done well, is one part of the editing process. In fact, it's the first part. Global editing, also known as story editing.

Turn page to The Global Edit... writing and editing working in tandem

Grammar: when to break all the rules!

There's one instance when really rotten grammar will work for you. It's the ONLY time it'll work for you, however, and you'll have to be referee, umpire and touch judge. You're going to set the rules yourself, and you must play by them consistently throughout the project, or deliberately rotten grammar will fall apart into old fashioned bad grammar.

The place four rotten grammar is in the dialog of characters who come from different cultural, social or ethnic backgrounds, and this is why you must be extremely careful when you set your ground rules, and then adhere to them like glue.

People, when they speak naturally, rarely sound like they are reading aloud from a thesaurus. Every region on the planet has its own speech patterns. People who are speaking English as a second or even third language speak it with the inflection of their own mother tongues. In other words, the grammar of their native Italian or German comes through into the English.

The most attenuated form of this is Chinglish, which has virtually come to be a recognized language. It's a literal, word for word translation, of Chinese into English, leaving all the grammar and syntax of Chinese as it was, but substituting the English words, albeit pronounced according to Mandarin or Cantonese rules of pronunciation. The result is a language which is ... and isn't English. Nor it is Chinese. It's Chinglish, and both races can take a crack at understanding it.

Bad grammar — really rotten, stinking grammar! — is typical of the dialog written for "local yokels" in the Western movies. Such characters in those movies are barely educated, most often illiterate, and have just enough English to make themselves understood. For example:

"It don't make no difference when he come to town. I sez, we git together, you and me and a bunch of them good ole boys out in that there bunkhouse, and we gives him plenty of reason so's he gits right back on that train. He don't need no more persuadin' to leave here than's gonna git provided when Butch and Joe's bit by the persuadin' bug, and they whaps him up the wrong side o' the head, or maybe they even gits a mite more hornery and comes right out and shows him the wrong end of a forty-five. Yous all recalls how them boys dam' near tore up the town, while the Sheriff weren't here? They's got passels of the means and nasties, when they's riled and ready. Dagnab it, that there new guy, he'd need to be crazier'n five ole rattlesnakes in a sack, if'n he don't just run for that train and git out before he ain't got no limbs workin' good enough to run with!"

The aggression aside, you can understand every word of what was said! The grammar is execrable, but the language remains understandable. However, this kind of grammar as deliberately bad. It doesn't belong in narrative. If it creeps in there, it will appear to be a genuine error based on (sorry!) ignorance of correct grammar. If you use this, deliberately execrable grammar inside a character's dialog, however, it gives you a very powerful tool for character building. Really stinking grammar makes a character sound like a thug (as in the above example). You're off to a head start on character building, the moment the character opens his mouth!

Here is another good example of bad grammar, and how it can be turned around to build a wonderful character:

"See, I come from Milano, I get here four, maybe five year ago, and I get work every day in market. I live in heart of town, you know, where all city, every day, she is alive, fill with so much life, you wanna sing for joy of seeing. So I sing, and cuz I come from Milano ... and I gotta be saying at you, everybody, he sing in Milano! ... so I sing the opera. I sing all the song of Caruso and Gigli and Pavaroti, and one day, I am singing while I stack empty crate for to go back on truck, and he comes to the market. He listens, he stands right there where you standing this minute right now, and he say to me, "You there with curly hair and mud on shoes, where you are learning to sing?" So I tell him, "Hey, I learn to sing at home in Milano from my father and grandfather and brother and uncle," and he say to me, "You wanna sing for crowd of people, hundred people, maybe thousand even, on stage?" And I said, "Sure, why not, whole thing, she sound like big fun."

Again, the grammar is spectacularly bad, yet it conjures an image of a beautiful young man with a vast talent and a great heart, who is about to begin a marvelous career.

TIP: make grammar work for you, good and bad alike, but to make rotten grammar work to your advantage, you have to know the rules of how it all works. This way, when you have the right (the writer's privilege) to set new ground rules of grammar ... with the single proviso that you MUST stick to them!

Plot ideas --

Where in the world do they come from?

Most of the time, plot ideas pop right out of a writer's imagination, and many writers are usually inundated with these ideas. They get far more than can even be jotted down, much less incorporated into storylines. However, occasionally a writer does find him- or herself in a drought, and then it's important to know how to deliberately generate fresh plot ideas.

The drought usually comes on when a writer must turn in a piece of work, because it's all a matter of money. Let's say you're a working writer selling scripts for TV shows. Working in the US, you'll be so well paid, you'll be able to live comfortably on two or three sales in a year. Working in Australia, the pay is a lot more meager, which means you must sell a lot more scripts.

Each script is built on a core plot idea, and running dry of fresh concepts when you absolutely, positively must produce a piece of work, is a writer's concept of the classic bad hair day. So, most writers have their own system for generating fresh ideas, and we'll look at a range of them on this page.

Does a Random Plot Generator actually exist?

Unfortunately ... yes, there is such a thing. You can actually buy software which gives you what are known as 'prompts,' and by filling in the blanks you'll always come up with some kind of a plot. The question remains, is a story based on a plot idea, or a bunch of plot ideas generated this way, worth writing? This is question, you'll have to answer for yourself.

Let's look at how the generator works. Save your money. There is absolutely nothing in this system which can't be achieved with a notebook and pencil. The prompts are very like the 'when, whom where, why' model we set in motion on the What is a plot? page. Refresh your memory, if you need to. Then ... Here are the prompts:

Create a hero.
(Young guy, older guy? Tall, short? Walks with a limp due to old injury? European, Afro-American, Native? Aussie accent? Good looking, scar-faced after the old injury? Bad tempered, sweet tempered? Foul mouthed? Snazzy dresser, or grunge guy? Rocker, rapper, or violinist? College educated or dropout? Brave, or scared silly? Straight, bi or gay? Tee-total, drinking problem, drug problem? Smoker, or non-? Republican, Democrat, or couldn't care less? Religious, spiritual, or atheist? Intelligent or a bit dim? A son, a father, a brother, a nephew?)

Create a villain.
(Go through the exact same process to design this guy as you did to design the hero.)

Set the time frame.
(Ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt? American Civil War? Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Drake? Wars of the Roses? The Third Crusade? The American War of Independence? The Rum Rebellion? Columbus, or Captain Cook? World War I, or II? The Swingin' Sixties? The Cold War? Indiana Jones era? Contemporary? Futuristic...?)

Set the location.
(City or country? Coastal or mountains? Jungle or snow fields? Forest or farmland? Rainforest or desert? Hotel, farmhouse, apartment block, horse property, beachfront house, decaying mansion, brand-new home, old church, creepy old house?)

Create a pivotal event to set a story moving.
(A murder. Plane crash. Car crash. Abduction. Theft. Divorce. Marriage. Birth of a child. Death in the family. Funeral. Reading of a will. Outbreak of war. Arrival of strangers. Hellfire sermon causes social unrest. Political turmoil agitates people. Bushfire. Arson -- school burns down, or church, or mansion. Mine cave-in. Baby down the well. Thoroughbred stallion escapes. Pet dog runs away. Sudden unemployment. Sudden employment. Highway coming through. Railway coming through. Ship sinks. Ship launches. Business bankrupts. Business opens ...)

Set the mood and feel for the piece.
(Light comedy. Grand tragedy. Adventure. Romance. Slapstick. Mystery. Tear-jerker. Spooky. Thriller. Chiller. NOTE: the genre is not important here. Science fiction can also be comedy (Ice Pirates), westerns can be slapstick (Cactus Jack). What you're defining here is the 'mood' for your piece. In other words, the vein in which you'll write it: will you be trying to make your readers laugh, or cry?)

Each of those plot ideas, or 'parameters,' can be written on something like a business card blank. You can toss them in a shoe box and pull one out at random. If you have one box each for hero, villain, time frame, location, and pivotal event, a story will certainly begin appear. Using the above method, it's quite easy to find your way to Luke Skywalker standing on the desert surface of Tatooine, chafing at his uncle's demand that he stay on the farm. It could be a kid on a farm in Kansas in the great drought, wanting to join the Air Force ... same plot idea. (Of course, it's what you DO with the plot idea that makes for a good story, a boring story, or just plain plagiarism!)

By now you have at least one plot idea, and probably more than one. You can always come up with a plot this way, but we'd be remiss if we didn't include a caveat: If you don't apply your own imagination and creativity, such plots are artificial, fake, cardboard. You can write them, but the result — without the input of individual creativity — will lack the dynamism that makes a great novel. The result will be something like the pulp westerns which were churned out by the thousands, with stock situations and characters.

Give it a shot — it makes an interesting game for a rainy afternoon! But don't come to rely on this for your plot ideas. There are better ways...


Plot ideas, and how writers spark them

All writers have different methods, and here are some of the best. They're not going to cost a dime, and you can try any or all of them for the 'best fit.'

Mythology is a rich source of plot ideas. Every story idea one can imagine is to be found in the legends of Greece, Egypt, the Norse world, and China. An encyclopedia of mythology (the Larousse is excellent) is a great place to start. Inspiration abounds on every page. The Bible is a rich source of Hebrew mythology, and there are some great plot ideas among those pages ... Hollywood clearly thought so, too!

Similarly to paying attention to Mythology, you can also look at the classics. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid. These works are incredibly ancient, and dwell in a 'twilight zone' between fact and fable. Writers like Homer and Virgil explored every possible permutation of the human condition. Rest assured, there's nothing modern writers can dream of that wasn't written in antiquity. And these works are public domain. People will surely notice if you lift plot ideas right out of, say, The Illiad; but if those ideas were handled magnificently, you're more likely to be applauded than censured.

History is the richest source of ideas one could dream of. During several thousand years, humans have said and done virtually everything that can be said and done. The exploits of Captain Cook, or Columbus, are projected into the future and morph into Star Trek. Tales of the Black Death are redressed as stories like Outbreak, a thriller set in the contemporary age. The gradual collapse of the Roman Empire is, right now, being echoed in the demise of much of what we have taken for granted of Western civilization. If you want massive plot ideas, for massive novels ... look to history.

Like Homer and Virgil, Shakespeare spent an entire career examining the human condition. The twists and turns of Shakespearean drama, and the plot ideas at the core of each, are well worth a look. The forces driving characters like Macbeth and Hamlet are still driving human beings today; they just drive us in slightly different directions, to achieve the same ends. (For example, Lady Macbeth is less than likely to exhort her husband, who is second in command of a corporate empire, to murder the CEO at their house party. She's more likely to plot with him to assassinate the CEO's character and reputation, making him resign and maybe suicide ... leaving Macbeth to assume the corporate crown. Same plot idea ... very different story.)

So --

How do you generate fresh plot ideas when you're absolutely, utterly blank?

There's a game I enjoy, and anyone can play: watch the trailers for movies you've never seen ... just leave the sound turned off. The trailer becomes a rapid-fire sequence of almost-related images and concepts (ie., plot ideas hammered at you, one after another, to get you to drop fourteen bucks on a ticket!) and the human mind, which has a desperate need to make sense out of chaos, will race, trying to fill in the blanks. Your mind will create connections, spin stories, to make the images and ideas relate. Whole scenarios will generate themselves before your mind's eye.

You can do something along the same lines with movie stills. A picture is actually worth closer to a million words, if you ever start backstorying what your mind thinks it sees in a movie still. I recommend stills over family snapshots, because it would be the weird family album that boasted shots of people racing around on superbikes, being pursued by police cars, jumping horses over fallen trees, hanging out at creepy old houses on the moor, crashing airplanes into tropical islands, and so on. Each photo is not just a couple of plot ideas, but about a hundred of them — so long as you haven't seen the movie! Of course, if you have, all you see is Harrison Ford hauling old pontoons over a waterfall in Six Days, Seven Nights. So search the web till you find a stash of stills from movies you never saw, and probably have no intention of seeing. And let your imagination rip.

Many more ways to find a new plot idea are out there: daydreams, falling in love with someone else's characters and having them spur your own imagination, flashes of intuition ... and old fashioned hard work. The hard work idea is the least appealing, but we can inject a little fun into this, too. Just as Mel Keegan uses images to literally kickstart the mind's ability to weave stories, if you're not 'visually inclined,' you can use words.

The game could be called, "Give me a killer first line." The challenge is to write the first line of a novel that does not, yet, exist ... and make the first line so outrageous that the rest of the book almost explodes into being, given the image created by that first line. (Incidentally, publishers, editors, agent and critics love these first lines; they read them all too seldom.)

All right, let's pick up the challenge. Let's scare up fresh plot ideas. I'll give you a half dozen first lines ... then you're on your own!

1. I came to the village of Kintyre to paint a portrait, and I stayed to marry two men.
2. His blood was warm on my hands, looking black in the near-darkness, and the reek of chemical smoke made my head burn.
3. Summer was gone overnight, with a storm that dumped half the Atlantic Ocean into the top paddocks, and Lassiter felt only a dark, consuming relief when the last train pulled out.
4. Like a heartbeat, the drums called out of the high valleys, but mist still wreathed the lowlands, and no glimmer of torchlight was visible.
5. She swore the runes and cards had foretold the man's death, and even Robert, who had spent most of his short life mocking 'fortune telling,' felt a chill in the air around Bradgate's ancient walls.
6. Nothing moved in the shimmering, rust-red landscape, save a few tattered crows that gathered where something had perished in the heat.

The mind always generates images in response to words, and some of the most vivid are conjured when you read poetry. When you want plot ideas, read poetry with an open mind's eye.

The next chapter in this quest for a great book is about plot development. Getting great ideas is the first step, and one of the most important. What you DO with those ideas is what turns basic plot ideas into jewels ... or junk. Two writers could begin with the concept of the kid desperately wanting to get off the farm and join the military, make something of his life. One writer wound up telling Star Wars. The other chased the same idea into a pulp-style novel about womanizing drinking buddies, blood and dismemberment. Both started with the same plot ideas...

Two paths clearly diverged in that forest! One went to Tatooine (and a billion dollars' worth of merchandise), the other landed in a short, pulpy novel with a printrun of a few thousand copies and no reprint value. Can you tell those paths apart, in the gloom of the forest? They're not marked in any way. You have to choose for yourself. Plot ideas are the certainly the start of the process, and join me in the next post in this train of thought, because I'm going to catch a cab down the road to Tatooine!

Fiction writing can be its own reward

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There's no greater escapism than good fiction. Creative writing is the driving force behind major movies, computer games, best-selling novels, comic books, even the best TV commercials. They all tell a story; behind every one is a writer, or team of writers; and all of them begin with an idea.

In the fertile soil of writers' imaginations, idea becomes plot; plot becomes novel; novel becomes movie script; movie becomes spinoff game. From STAR WARS to LORD OF THE RINGS, the process of development is the same — and some of the best Hollywood franchises started life as freelance writing. For example, the cash juggernaut of the PREDATOR movie series. (I'll tell you that story in a post of its own, soon!)

You have The Idea, which is why you're working the puzzle: 'how to write a novel' ...

It's time to choose your jumping-in point. Only you know how much you know, and what you still need to learn. Let's get started by tackling the puzzle one point at a time:

You're inspired to write, needing only the fundamental skills to write a novel, but perhaps you need help with a plot that won't 'gel' ... or to work out the ENDING to your plot, or perhaps the start of your novel, or even with its middle section. These are fundamental challenges. In other words, every writer takes this particular bull by the horns sooner or later, so there's no need for you to re-invent the wheel!

Another fundamental challenge is character creation. Before you even start to write, you meet the necessity to create characters. Some will seem to give birth to themselves; others make you work. You'll need to develop your characters' individual 'voices' — and an often overlooked point it the need to find names for the characters. Any name that comes to mind might not do the job. So, what's in a character name? We're about to take a close-up, personal look: here's Character Creation 101, a five-part series of article posts dealing with the whole field!

• Create unforgettable characters
• Create a character: the hero
• Create a character: the villain
• What's in a character's name?
• Creating characters: know your archetypes from your stereotypes

Then again, perhaps by now you have the plot nailed down, and most of the characters are already alive in your mind. What you need at this point is specific help with the 'writing style' ... or with the fine points of the grammar and punctuation. Or perhaps even with manuscript formatting. These are the 'nuts and bolts' of writing. The building bricks. Delve into our WRITE! segment to hunt down what you need.

Or,

You just need straight answers to specific questions. There's a popular saying just now, that 'information is power.' This has never been more true than today, when the Internet, the advent of ebooks, print on demand publishing, and social networking between many millions of people, make it very possible to author, publish and build a career in freelance writing. Information, then:

• When and how do I get paid for freelance writing?
• Do I need to write short stories before I 'move up' to novel writing?
• Is there a blueprint (or cookbook method) for how to write a novel?
• Do I need to use a computer to write?
• Must I start with freelance writing?
• Do I have to type?
• Do spelling and grammar have to be perfect?
• What are 'elements of style' in fiction writing?
• The novel is finished -- how does editing work?
• How do I proofread my novel?
• Do I have to write several drafts?
• Can I edit my own writing?
• Okay, where do I start to do copy editing?
• Can I get help with editing, should I pay for an editing service?
• What kind of fees to editors charge?
• How much editing is enough — and how much is too much?
• How do I know when I'm ready to submit my novel?
• How do I format a manuscript for submission?
• What do publishers want, or need, from freelance writing?
• Do I need an agent?
• How do I find a reputable literary agency?
• Are ebooks different, at the writing and editing stages?

All excellent questions! Take your cue from the answers, and explore this site. Notice how the content is divided into sections: write — edit — publish — promote, and so on. This blog is always expending, so do bookmark it and visit again.

You can jump in at any point and zero-in on exactly what you need to know. When you're inspired to write, the last thing you need is forty pages to read, to find a snipped of information that puts you on the right track. Let's get you writing again, because momentum is very important. In freelance writing, no boss is there to pressure you. Motivation is only going to come from inside YOU. When you're on a roll, your material seems to 'write itself.'

When hitches slow you down, you have to work back up to that momentum. The faster you can overcome hitches, the more momentum you'll maintain. In fact, this is a key part of the puzzle of how to write a novel — getting 'up to speed' and staying there! The solution is specific information, when and where you need it.

As you explore, you'll also notice that each section section it broken up into bite-sized chunks, which makes it easy to find a specific solution for a specific problem. And like all blogs, this one is searchable: if in doubt, search on it ... or check out the "labels" list, to your left...

Turn page to WRITE! Down to Basics...