Writing A Legend (Part II)

I've written a few times about the extreme fear that sets in whenever I get to parts of my story involving Arthur Pendragon.  Considering I've gotten into the meaty middle parts of my manuscript, those ugly fears are rearing their heads quite often.  Sometimes I'll be writing along okay and then it hits me I've had three lines of dialogue from Arthur and I'm not even sweating.

Good for me.  Learning to face one's fears is the first step to getting over them.

The legend of King Arthur means a lot of different things to different people.  Sure, it's a legend with very little basis in fact but it's been the root material for dozens of other legends, movies, books, and TV shows.  I even remember as a little kid listening to Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet singing the parts for the Camelot musical.

Little did I know, ten years later, I'd be taking it on as a book.

I've attempted to write this story for about five years now, even longer than Only Human was in the works.  It was around the time I first started watching Doctor Who (can't believe it's been that long!) that I considered time travel and all the elements it could add to my story(s).  Of course it meant a trip down memory lane to my favorite childhood stories and the idea that I could rewrite them with a modern twist.

I remember starting the Queen of Time for the first time.  I knew I wanted the girl's name to be Gwen and that through some magical or scientific explanation, I wanted her to end up in Camelot.  It's a bit fuzzy since it was five years ago but I'm pretty sure she followed some mysterious guy into the backwoods and stepped through some strange doorway to get to Camelot.  I was always an inventive teen :)

Gwen got to Camelot and then I had the terrifying realization that I'd have to actually write Arthur.  He wouldn't just appear in his kingly element with his perfect words and complete my story.  I couldn't borrow him from a movie or book.  I had to make his character.

My book never went further.  The notebook joined the graveyard under my bed of ideas from long ago (my first novel about a girl named Anna whose Dad lived in a spaceship) and I decided some day, when I was a good writer, I'd make it work.

Funnily enough, good writing doesn't just happen.  It takes hours of dedication and a love for stories and words that only the craziest have.  I've had the file on my computer for a while, complete with the name for almost that long.  I didn't know how I wanted it to end.  I didn't even know how I wanted the middle to go.  I just knew it had to happen.

And now it's really happening.  Probably part of the reason I can't stop the cold sweats and anxiety.

What if it's not good enough? What if the perfect idea in my mind falls flat on paper? I'm not a professional writer.  I barely know the legend.  I didn't even know what language they spoke until January '15.

The big question is, who is Arthur? A warrior? A hero straight out of a romance novel? An arrogant prince?  (Hint: my Arthur isn't the guy on the left. He's not Bradley James either.)

I have to throw away what anyone's done before me.  He's mine now.  I have the right to make him blue eyed, brown eyed, tall, short, warrior, poet, villain.

Every time I sit down, I have to remind myself.  He's mine.  I can do what I want.

Arthur is young in my story, barely into his twenties.  He's an aspiring king, always afraid to let his father and ultimately, his people down.  Unlike the legends, my story relies heavily on a mistake his grandfather or great grandfather made (I still don't have a hard timeline).  Because of that mistake, he lives in fear of letting his people down again.  He has an expectation of himself that he needs to be a king who'll not only make up for the mistakes his ancestors made but never make any himself. Despite the instability in the land resulting from his ancestors mistakes, he's mostly on an even keel in his life.  That is, until a girl from the 21st century shows up.

Gwen embodies the mistakes Arthur is trying to fix.

I've never been expected to rule a kingdom or fix my grandparents mistakes.  I don't get that kind of pressure.  The thing is, this is the kind of pressure Arthur lives with every day.  So I have to remember the balance.  Arthur expects a lot of himself but in the end, he's still a twenty-two year old guy.  He's lost his Mom, he doesn't really have any close friends due to his position, and his dad treats him like a project more than a son.  The guy has a lot of empty spots in his life even if he doesn't know it.

From a certain aspect, he could easily be an injured lonely prince but I don't want to go to far in that direction.  It can turn into a cheesy romance real fast.  Arthur's strong.  He has to be.  Gwen's got a lot of issues at the beginning of the book and he needs to have a background that can handle her.

Arthur's not an additional character.  He's as much of a main as Gwen even though the reader is never in his mind.

Interactions between Gwen and Arthur are easier as the book goes on.  It's not difficult for me to write newly developed friendships but starting them is like pulling teeth.  How would the future king react when a girl from the 21st century shows up? How would a girl from the 21st century react when she meets a legendary king who she thought never existed?

As a character, Arthur has to have some defining points.  In my first draft, Arthur is pretty blunt.  He asks tough questions and he's not afraid to offend people.  He's watched his father be a tough king and even though he wants to be kind to the people, he doesn't want to be soft like his grandfather, the man who let the evil ones in.

In QoT, Arthur has several difficult decisions to make, aside from how he's going to deal with 21st century girl.  He has an impending marriage, failing friendships, dangerous beasts, and a heavy crown which will soon be his.  He'll either have to step up in a big way or go home.

As the writer of his character, I have to do the same thing.

Until next time,

Anna Leigh

To Plot or Not

This week finds me in a much better spot writing wise then my post a few Sundays back.  I'm back on track (mostly) with my writing and besides one day last week in which I had to delete everything I'd written the previous day and try again, it's been an encouraging several days. Most of this I can owe to something new I tried - and will never write a book without doing again.  I made plot document and plotted out my entire story.  When I say entire, I mean a paragraph about every significant event and character building moment from page one to "the end".  It took me about two days to finish but it's been invaluable!

I've strayed more than once from what I originally wrote down.  Example: "Gwen confronts Sir so-and-so about what he said" might change to "Gwen runs away, pretending she didn't hear what Sir so-and-so said".  Just for those curious, I don't actually have any knights in my book named Sir so-and-so :)

Plotting has made for great reference material.  I'm a fast typer and once I have the idea in place, I can usually pound out a good chapter or so in about an hour.  The problem is, I sit down all the time at my computer and think "okay, what do I write now?" Plotting everything out has made it a lot easier.  It doesn't give me the knitty gritty of the scene but the essence.  The point of the scene is to show that Gwen is going to do whatever it takes to take the last piece of fruit on the table.  In the meantime, I can use Gwen's behavior to show more about her character and use the reactions of the others around her to establish their characters more.  If I'm doing well, I may even hint at a future plot twist which Gwen misses because she's so focused on the fruit.

Some of my problems this week have come from having to write the start of Gwen and Arthur's relationship as friends.  I don't have a problem with continuing an already existing friendship and showing the ins and outs but the start is always difficult.  Why are they attracted to each other as friends?  Do they have a lot similarities? Do they have a mutual feel sorry for each other attitude that attracts them to each other?

For the moment, I'm trying some different motives on both sides which both boil down to the same thing.  Arthur is interested by Gwen's ability to cross the rift into his world which hasn't been crossed in many years and certainly never by a young woman.  He's overall disappointed in the fact Gwen came to Camelot by mistake and can't save his people from the creature plaguing them.  His goal is to save his people.

Gwen doesn't know how to get back home.  She doesn't want to be stuck in Camelot forever and she doesn't want to change history anymore than the people before her already did.  She wants to save the people of Camelot as well as herself.

See? Their motives become the same thing even though their exterior motives may seem different.  Arthur has a strong sense of duty (even though at this point, he's still the prince, not the king), and Gwen doesn't want to make life any more difficult for the people she sees going through a hard time.  She also wants to get home as soon as possible.

Writing Arthur has become a bit more natural than when I first started.  I'm not quite so terrified when I write him speaking (though it's probably the constant thoughts of editing and revision that keep me grounded) and I'm feeling his character a bit more.  he's a loyal yet flawed person, a curious and very blunt one.  He's not going to offer a compliment unless he believes it or point out a problem unless he sees it.  Being a bit too blunt can be a problem for a man training to be a king but still under his father's rule.

Stay tuned for more!

- Anna Leigh

A Twist in the Tale

I don't like history.

There's not really a logical reason.  I'm not good at absorbing old facts and even worse at numbers.  I know history is important and it's not like I don't know anything about it, it was just always the hardest thing for me to do.  Numbers aren't my friends.  We have a mutual respect for each other and try not to interact anymore than humanly possibly. I've never been into math, I've always been into words.  

This being the case, it is complete craziness that I've taken on the book I'm writing

I'm writing a retelling of the Arthurian legend. Not a Arthurian legend, mind you.  The Arthurian legend.  It's a project I took out of love and one I'm living to regret.  I'm not a history buff.  My internet tab consist of Pinterest eye makeup tutorials and blogs written by history nerds.  Granted, my book has a sci-fi angle to it so I have some leeway but certainly not as much as I'd like.  For instance, if I was writing the true legend, my main character wouldn't even be able to understand what the people of Camelot were saying.  The English people in the six hundreds spoke an offshoot Celtic language, something no English speaking person today would ever understand. For those interested and wondering about the crest at the top, it's a concept drawing of the first known documented crest of Arthur Pendragon.

To add to the craziness, I have a main character who isn't a lot like me.  She doesn't talk a lot (I do!), she's a peacemaker, willing to be thought of badly as long as it means keeping others happy (definitely not me), and she's really smart.  I'm not a dummy but I won't even try to compete with the smarts of my main character.  I'm a writer who doesn't like history and numbers writing about a girl who loves them both. 

Along with these difficulties, I hit a bit of a snag. 

My main character was put in a situation which filled a few chapters of my manuscript and influenced the rest of the story.  The situation wasn't working out and it was limiting the places she needed to be.  For the last week I've laid awake in bed at night, trying to figure out how to make it work.  Yesterday morning (maybe a little closer to afternoon), I woke up knowing exactly what I had to do.  I needed to scrap it.  Last night I cut 12,000 words from my manuscript.  Might not sound like a lot but when I have a 40,000 word WIP, it's a chunk.  It needed to happen but it's leaving me a bit breathless moving forward.  I'm going to have to put in a lot of work to stay on schedule to finish, something I've let slip a bit this week.  Every two weeks I have to submit a chapter of this book to my critique group so I've been working overtime on getting it to a place where my critique partners can at least understand what I'm talking about!

Despite my fears, I can tell the story is already tighter.  I have to finish up this blog post to get back to it.  I'm in the middle of the scene where Gwen meets Guinevere for the first time!

- Anna Leigh

Writing a Legend

I've been faithfully working on my manuscript every day though unfortunately, due to the business of an average day, I'm only getting about 1,000 words written.  If I stick to a thousand words a day, I should be done with the first draft some time the end of April, beginning of June.

I took a break today though to write about one of my biggest problems.

If you've read any of my previous blog posts, you'll know my current WIP is a retelling of the Arthurian legend.  I'm not a historian or even a super fan, I just find the original legends interesting.  Several of the characters in Camelot come from the legends, with me throwing little tidbits of their original characters into the mix of my new creation.  It's worked out really well so far with one exception.  Arthur.

In lots of the retellings, I hate Arthur.  He's a creep of the major kind and not the saintly king he's made out to be in the original legends.  I didn't even want to read most of it.  Needless to say, with a teeny tiny bit of help from the original legend, I wanted to write Arthur my own way.  The thing is, the fear of drawing a historical hero is more daunting then I would've imagined.

I've written scenes with the other knights like Kay and Gawain.  I've even written scenes with Merlin.  It's a bit weird at times but when I get to Arthur, I freeze up.  I scrutinize every word he says, every action he does, every expression he gives.  I'm not making him my character, I'm trying to rewrite what someone else already did.

I've considered a few fixes.  Maybe giving him a different name until I'm done writing at which time I'll use the find and replace and replace "Bob" with "Arthur".  I know, it sounds silly, but I have to find the right names for my characters or I can't even write them.  Of course, Bob isn't very inspiring.  Don't think I could write a main character with that name.  Sorry to all the Bobs out there!

The most logical next step seems to be doing a really indepth character sheet on Arthur.  I may be including things from the original Arthur but this isn't the original Arthur.  This is my Arthur and I can do what I want with him.

I'll post on my progress in the next few weeks.  I've spent all morning trying to identify my problem and now I have to go do something about it!

-Anna Leigh

What Makes A Person

It doesn't take a professional to identify my writing weaknesses. I tell instead of showing, my plots have big holes in them, the plot twists are relatively easy to see coming, my world building is weak, and I can't write deep characters. I've scratched the surface of the how-to in the writing world and I could think of those five weaknesses off the top of my head. If I wanted to be here all day, I could detail my weaknesses. The hard part is finding out what I'm actually good at.

I'm obsessed with people. I watch them, question their motives, eavesdrop on their conversations, and generally make the kind of judgments I hope no one else would make about me. Part of my love for people watching came from writing and part of my love for writing came from liking people watching so much. At thirteen and fourteen, I went through this phase where I'd sit on the front porch and watch the neighbors. I owned a ton of notebooks and had started filling them with my stories. Sitting on the sun warmed concrete of the little porch, I'd watch the neighbors and make little notes about them. It was weird and earned me a lot of teasing but I enjoyed it a lot. I made up all sorts of stories revolving around the different people I saw and used them for my books. 

Yes, you can totally judge me. I know I'm weird.

If this were a great success story, I'd end it with saying that's how I became an amazing writer and how I can build such great characters. Unfortunately, all that habit earned me was an insane curiosity about what those people were actually like and little to no improvements in my character building ability. At thirteen, I didn't think you even had to do character building in a story. I mean, why would that be important? 

Anyway, this all ties in to my current problem.When writing a first draft, I don't worry too much about my inability at world building or plot holes. I focus on getting my thoughts written out in a mostly concise manner and getting to the end. It's rough, ugly, and sometimes frustrating. But in order to have a good, solid story, you need to start somewhere. 

Looking at my weaknesses, I've identified the one that bugs me the most. The fact that my characters all feel shallow and very similar. 

I've written before about my fear of writing guys in my books. I'm always afraid they're going to seem as unrealistic as several male characters I've read in other women's writing. I don't have that fear anymore. I write guys all the time. Unfortunately, the lack of depth in my characters is a much bigger problem. 

I didn't know until two years ago that people put so much into developing their characters. I mean, they're a pretty important part of having a good book. Some may argue the most important part. A lame plot can scrape by with good characters. A strong plot isn't going to be much if you have a main character who's shallower than a puddle. 

For Only Human, I dabbled in character profiles and finding out true motivations. My current WIP is ten times harder.

Gwen lives in an abusive home situation, has abandonment issues, blames herself for the things wrong around her, and she gets transported back fourteen hundred years in time. How would she react to that? How would she make things work? What would she even say?

The things I've written about Gwen so far have read inconsistently. Sometimes she's all cowering and afraid and other times, she pulls herself together and does the hard thing. My personality is warring with how little I know about my character and it's showing. My home life couldn't be less abusive, I don't have abandonment issues, I occasionally blame myself for what's wrong around me, and I've never gone back in time. 

Now, you may ask, why I chose to write someone so different than me. Because I don't want someone like me going back in time to Camelot, I want someone like her to.

I have to know more about Gwen than whether tacos are her favorite food or not. I need to get to the root of her problems and her ambitions. I have to know her as well as I know myself. 

I put together a profile on her and every night, I enter in a bit more. I have a whole cast of characters to develop and have a profile started for almost all of them. In life, every person has their ambitions, their fears, and their inconsistencies. I'm super girly but I like playing Planet Side 2 which is a first person shooter (no, I'm not usually into video games. My brother started me on that one). To someone meeting me for the first time, they'd probably be shocked. I'm into all sorts of girly stuff, I wear makeup, I'm into music, I like bright pink and sparkles, and...I like first person shooters? To anyone who knows me better, they'll know it's not out of character at all. It's just part of what builds me into a three dimensional person and  part of what makes me interesting.

Actually, people are most surprised when they find out I'm a writer. Apparently my constant talking doesn't clue them in :).

With my character profiles, I started with the basics. Age, appearance, family. After that, I wrote any back story that came to mind, pertinent to the story or not. Truthfully, it's all pertinent. Everything about your character, whether it's liking orange nail polish or the dog they saw get run over when they were first learning to drive, builds them into something real.

I'll post a character update when I get a bit more advanced into my story and hopefully learn more about my characters.

- Anna Leigh 

The Fears of Repeating Oneself

So, it's been a while.

My life for the last two weeks has been more than chaotic and I haven't even had much time to write, let alone blog. I managed to start another new book in that time (which I am not working on since I have to finish my sequel) but that was about the height of my creativeness this week in between working and trying to get a full nights sleep.

Anyway, enough about that.

I am filled with two strong feelings every time I pull up my working manuscript for Human Nature. One is excitement; I get to bring back my characters, make them go through new trials, and develop them in ways I never did before. My other feeling is fear. It took me three years to make Only Human what it is and even that seems like it could still use some work. In that time I came up with idea after idea, only to trash them and go with something else. I'm working within a different time constraint with Human Nature. Now I have people who want to read a sequel, people who will forget about the book if I don't have another one done in time and scariest of all, people who have an expectation about my writing. If it's not the same or better as the first one, it will be a disappointment.

I developed characters to a certain extent in the first one but the second book takes it to a whole new level. Connor/Drew isn't just Mr. Impenetrable, he has feelings, thoughts, and wants. Abby isn't the same scared, naive girl she used to be, she realizes there is more danger than she thought and feels a responsibility for helping out the others around her. Zack isn't a robotic bully, he has a purpose to his life and things that hurt him in the past. Callie isn't just a friend, she is a friend willing to die to protect Abby. Abby's Dad isn't dead, he's out there somewhere.

The above ideas fascinate me while terrifying the inner writer. They have to continue to develop, they have to seem real but...how?

I liked Abby in the first book, I want to LIKE her in the second book. There were times when I wrote her not going quite as far as the new Abby is willing to go to protect the people around her. Not only has she grown in learning, she's met Drew. What he is and what he believes, much like her friend Callie, has become a part of her.

There are things that always seem to make their way into my book. Main characters getting injured and having to be patched up by another character. It always sneaks its way in! Male MC protecting the girl verbally/physically at at least one point during the story. Little cliches work their way into my writing because it's what I like. Unfortunately, if done too often, especially in the same series, it's going to just be repetitive and boring.

Human Nature is a fresh start, a new book to continue the story but add new twists, new characters, and new cares. The last thing I want is for it to become an updated version of Only Human because I'm now three years older.

Anna Leigh

What Makes a Character

Writing a good character is essential as I've stressed, well, a few times. The ins and outs of what makes a character seem real are complex for me, often times more than the plot I'm writing. The main character, especially since I tend to write in first person, is a challenge to make have her weaknesses and strengths instead of her just being perfect all the time. It's easy for me as the writer to just have my female MC react to the situation just how I think she should or understand things right when I want her to. The truth is, while fiction is definitely not real life, it can feel extremely contrived when your character is perfect at everything.

Let's start with looking at a personal favorite of mine. Nancy Drew. I like Nancy Drew, I grew up reading the books and talked about them a lot. I didn't care for the mysteries as much as I liked reading about her exotic adventures and her smarts in figuring things out. Looking back at it now, it seems odd to think she's supposed to be younger than me...

Anyway, I digress.

Nancy has it all, smarts, good looks, a fair amount of money, a loving family, a loving boyfriend, and the penchant for always being around when things that need solving (and are stumping the police) occur. Most detective stories that I've read center around characters who always seem to be in the right place at the right time to get caught up in a mystery. It could be totally normal but I tend to doubt it. The other thing that makes Nancy really different (and that annoyed my oldest sister to the point that she read the Hardy Boys instead) is that for every case she encounters, she is able to just 'pick up' whatever ability she needs to know be it tap dancing, (Clue of the Tapping Heels) bagpipes, (the Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes) acting, (The Clue of the Dancing Puppet), etc. She is definitely the girl that every girl would strive to be. Well her prowess always annoyed my sister, it was part of what I liked so well about the books. She was tough, the kind of girl who wasn't afraid of danger, and would think to write an SOS in pink lipstick on the window of the plane she was being kidnapped in.

I've said before that Abby started out being based on me. I like to think of myself as smart, brave, and ready to stand up for what's right, but in reality I think I'd be scared of things as much as the next person. It some ways I think Abby has less courage than me but in other ways, she has a lot more. *SPOILER ALERT* I don't think I would've gotten in front of Mrs. Willis to protect her from being shot. Not that I wouldn't want to save her but I'm not sure I have that sort of selflessness. Stepping in the  middle of a group of bullies to defend someone she didn't know also is possibly braver than I'd be. On the same hand, I hate seeing things that I view as unjust and sometimes don't think it all the way through before stepping in. *END SPOILER ALERT*

Connor on the other hand, is the type of hero that a hero should be. Smart, kind, charismatic, and just a bit good looking. I am of the impression that people with good personalities who take care of the people around them are attractive whether their features are classically good looking or not. I knew when I started writing him that I wanted him to laugh in the face of danger and have a way of getting the others around him to do the same.

He is the bane of my writing life.

Every sentence he speaks is a challenge with me, second and third guessing about whether he would say even the most mundane things like "Let's go." It sounds stupid but I was/am so afraid of making him sound out of character, like a different character entirely, or worst of all, like a girl.

Now that I'm writing the sequel, I want a more comfortable idea of who he is so I can write without the agonizing. I've done character interviews, something I recently picked up as a way to identify and better know my characters. Basically, it's a first person interview by me, the author, and first person from the character. Some of the characters I get really into and are really easy. Connor isn't one of them. Zack is easy for me to get into character for. He's intimidating, more likely to give insults than complements, and generally difficult to win a fight against. Does this mean that my personality more mirrors his than Conner's? Quite possibly. Thing is, I don't want to like Zack more than Connor but since it's easier for me to write Zack, I find myself with more portions writing about him than Connor. I could change my main character but I don't want to. I like Connor's character, I just can't seem to write it comfortably.

This is a lot of obsessing when I need to just finish my first draft and do most of the work in edits but I don't like my discomfort over writing him. Recently, I stumbled over some old first drafts of books I'd emailed myself out of fear for my computer's life (and since I hadn't yet invested in a memory stick) and was enjoying reading some of my work from 2009. I expected to be reading a lot of cringe worthy phrasing and conversation only to get a huge shock when I realized my characters in a book from five years ago had deeper characters and less awkward conversations than characters I have now. As you can guess, it was just a bit disheartening.

Why haven't I gotten better with age? I thought age was to writing like it was to good wine. It only got better.

Stepping back, I observed a few things. One, my old books were all written third person which meant I could give a different spin on people as opposed to the observations from inside someone's head which is what I've been writing since I started Only Human in June of 2011. Secondly, I was much younger and still basing my characters off of people in movies. Dialogue wasn't difficult because I could watch my show and pretty much transfer their way of speaking and words over to my book. Back then, I didn't worry about what people would think if they read my cheesy dialogue; I just thought I'd be the only one seeing it. Now, even though it's at the back of my mind, it's a constant nagging that at some point all my deep thoughts, possibly unrealistic characters as well as far fetched plot twists will see the light of day and the eyes of loving family and total strangers who don't care about trashing the name of a girl they wouldn't recognize on the street. This leads me to something that lies hidden in every character I've ever written. I am extremely insecure.

Insecurity is something that seems to lurk in pretty much everyone in some way or other. I'm outgoing, laugh a lot, and state my opinions without shame. Or so it seems. People are a lot more willing to bluntly, or sometimes harshly, give me back what they think I can handle. I retaliate by trying to be even more confident and outgoing than before when in reality, what they say hurts. It's a stupid character flaw and one I think about quite often.

I didn't put this character flaw in Abby because she was her own character and because at sixteen, I didn't really know I had it. In my novella I wrote in February there were shades of it spread throughout Alex's character. She is outgoing and pretends to be much tougher than she actually is. I realized when I was writing Cameron, the male MC, that he was the kind of guy who could see through what she was doing easily, making him be just the kind of guy she needed as a friend.

At some point, I might be brave enough to put some of my old stories on here but I might wait until I actually have some positive recognition for my released world before I release my fifteen year old writing on an unsuspecting world. And when I say unsuspecting, I mean unsuspecting :)

Write again tomorrow. I'm thinking about posting some of my character interviews on here, at least the parts that won't give away too much of the story. They are subject to change since I might write out characters or change the plot flow entirely so, be warned.

Anna Leigh

Character Building - A Lost Art

Character building is an essential essential part of writing a book. Bad characters? No book. Boring characters? No book. Weak, 2D characters? Well, you get the point.

As an aspiring writer, I know this as truth but knowledge does not a good writer make :) There are a lot of scary things about building a book including plot, setting, and interest but the scariest thing by far for me are the characters from a number of aspects. Every new character I bring in brings it's own list of questions like what kind of life they live, what their ambitions are, and whether I really need them or not. For a long time, my books have been bare bones stories with only as many characters as needed to further the plot. I have this fear of creating a bunch of characters who don't advance the  plot and all feel like hurriedly jammed in characters intended to take the reader from point 'a' to point 'b'. Lately, it's been much easier to get over these blocks if I decide to mention the grouchy neighbor who annoys the main character from time to time or the her boss at her summer job.

In Only Human, Abby has two neighbors who frequently argue and are known through Rosedale for their fights. They are relevant to the story because Abby takes fights in a much more intense way than others since she can feel an exaggerated form of their emotions. Abby's boss is described as being a  picky, somewhat grouchy person but isn't further elaborated on since he isn't the focus of the story. I added these characters not with the hopes of distracting the reader but with the hope of making the town and her every day life feel a bit more 3D. Abby is very observant of the things going on around her since she has an inside view to everyone around her.

The main girl is usually easy for me though lately, I've been trying to write different temperaments and personalities instead of my own over and over again. When I first started writing OH almost three years ago, I thought Abby would be just like me, but despite the fact you as the reader are in her head, she isn't me. She is much shier than me, much less likely to get involved than me and basically, Abby instead of Anna. It's a good thing, it would bore everyone if all the characters were variations of me.

It used to be when I wrote that I made my characters with the same interests as me. I like watching Dr. Who and *poof*, my main girl likes quirky, British Sci Fi. I hate peas with a passion therefore, my main girl never goes near them. While these qualities do lead to the making of a unique character since they are real characteristics, they make for repeat upon repeat of little Anna's, only to change as I change and get better at expressing who I am.

A recent experiment of mine is giving my MC hobbies that I don't care for or a like for foods I don't like. In my novella which is hopefully slated for future release, my MC really likes vegetables. I don't know if this was a fact I elaborated on in the story (I've written waaay too much since February to remember) but I knew it when I was writing her. With Abby in Only Human, she is insecure about herself but not about the way she looks. Alex, my MC from my novella, has a lot of insecurities in the way she looks, mostly sprouting from the fact she has acne. I didn't explore this story line very much but it was mentioned, including the fact that she pulls her hair into a ponytail all the time because she's determined not to be self-conscious of her face. This came from me, always wearing my hair down because I wanted to hide my acne and the scars that came from it. I still have acne and the scars but I pull my hair back all the time now, knowing that it's just my face and the way I am. Having overcome that insecurity (mostly) myself, I'm able to write about Alex having the same feelings and working on overcoming them.

My title of this post came from the research I've been doing which pretty much means the amount of free-0.99 books I've been ingesting since December. I've kind of been reading a LOT! I took pretty much a two year break from reading while I was working on my book, the only exceptions being the first Hunger Games book and one or two random others, usually in a foreign language for Korean study. After finishing my book, my oldest sister suggested some reading so I could get a more comfortable feel for how words and a good sentence flow together and I took her up on her suggestion. I've discovered a new like for books and read pretty much one a week. With my own view on what I like and the fact I'm more critical than others because of the standard I hold myself to, I've realized just how much self-publishing has done. While it's an amazing thing for authors like me who may never be able to get published professionally, it's also opened the door to all the horrible books that really should never have been released. I can't say too much since someone reading this might consider my own two and a half years of work one of those books, but I can say I've read a lot of stuff that's left me scratching my head. So many young adult books are first person (yes, I did it too) from the point of view of a fifteen-seventeen year old girl with a somewhat dry sense of humor, bad opinion of herself, and a penchant for somehow attracting the cutest looking boys at school. Don't ask me where she lives because if I knew, I'd already be packing my bags. A place where normal, average girls with normal average lives get a minimum of two amazing looking guys chasing after them? Who wouldn't want to live there? I read one where she had seven, not just one or two but seven gorgeous looking guys who liked her. Uh huh, because that happens to me all the time *wink*

I know books are fiction and for a lot of people, an escape to a world they can only fantasize about, but for me there has to be at least some sort of realistic feel to it. Even fantasy or science fiction have to have some believable facts to anchor me to reality as I careen into the unknown that could never exist! The hardest thing for me to swallow about a lot of the books I've read is not liking the actual character who's head I'm in. The other one that gets me even more is the main guy. I might not even be able to share all my thoughts on this subject without writing another post.

Teenage guys in teenage books are unattractive. I don't mean the way they look since every teenage book seems filled with amazing looking, smart, romantic guys. I mean unattractive in the way I'm reading the book and shaking my head, wondering what kind of girl would ever date someone who acts like him. I've met a fair amount of obnoxious teenage boys and don't necessarily find author's adaptions off base but c'mon, if I'm going to read fiction, I want to read about the kind of guy I'd date. Maybe my taste is just unique or I have way to high of a standard. Either way, I don't think I could even name five books I've read with guys that I really liked.

This particular dislike of mine leads me to the other intense fear I have writing characters. I want my main guy to be totally likable, the kind of guy I would want to date. I struggle over every sentence he says, trying to picture what he's thinking that he'd say that, if he'd say that, or if as I dread so often, it just sounds like the main girl speaking. I've relaxed a little bit more and learned to let my first draft be exactly that - something that can be fixed later in editing when I have the time to look over every line and tweak it as much as I want.

After all this bashing, I would like to say there are a few male characters I found likable. Stephanie Morrill's Ellie Sweet books did a good job of making both of the male characters likable even though I did find Chase quite annoying after a while. Even though it was quite sad to me, I thought she did a good job of showing what happens when a good girl tries to date the 'bad boy' and how he does sort of change but it's more of a front than an actual change. Georgette Heyer's Cotillion also had a very likable character in Freddy who was amusing and quite lovable. And, as a cliche, I also  like Peeta from Hunger Games. No, I'm not a 'Team Gale' fan. I think choosing teams is pretty much stupid anyway :)

On a side note, I really really dislike historical books but Cotillion is a good read if you can get past all of the 'ye olden days' speak :)

Anyway, I need to get back to my story. I've found my blog to be a welcome distraction when I'd normally be surfing Pinterest and trying to push my book out of my mind. After spilling my thoughts out to an empty blog, I'm able to put my thinking cap on and get back into my writing.

Write (or most likely rant) again soon,

Anna Leigh