Get Ready for 10 Days of Character Building

The audience has spoken. Our next group project will be 10 Days of Character Building. The project will officially start on October 20th and run through October 30th. This means that it will be completed in time for anyone who wants to join in the fun and excitement of National Novel Writing Month to have their characters ready.

The 10 Days of Character Building project will consist of daily articles about different ways to develop characters for stories. The general way to participate will to be to craft a different character with each method and post your results.

If you want to take part in this project as it moves along I suggest that you:

• Decide on a single story (novel, play, screenplay or other work) that you will develop characters for.
• Spend some time thinking about the genre, plot and other aspects of your story so that you know what you are working toward.
• Think in general about what characters you will want for your story.

Ideally, the methods we will discuss will help you flesh out your characters, but they aren’t designed to have you create a character from scratch. As we go along, it will be helpful if you post your work so that others can see how you approached each method. As a way of getting started, feel free to use the comments here to discuss your general story idea.

Note: The more people we get to work together on this, the more useful it will be, so I encourage to tell your writer friends!

Here are some of my older articles to help get you get in the mood:

• Creating Memorable Characters
  
• Building Characters Through Adversity
• Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!

Update:

Here are links to the ten character building articles:

• 10 Days of Character Building: Character Bio Sheets
• 10 Days of Character Building: Basing Characters on Real People
• 10 Days of Character Building: 12 Questions
• 10 Days of Character Building: Building a Character Using Multiple Perspectives
• 10 Days of Character Building: Brainstorming
• 10 Days of Character Building: Interview
• 10 Days of Character Building: Biography
• 10 Days of Character Building: Possessions
  
• 10 Days of Character Building: A Day in the Life
• 10 Days of Character Building: Defining Characters By Their Roles

30 Poems in 30 Days Index

Below is an index to our 30 Poems in 30 Days Project.

1. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Why you should write poetry
2. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Yourself
3. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Issues
4. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place
5. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Persona Poems
6. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Developing Your Voice
7. 30 Poems in 30 Days: About Forms and Lists
8. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Elegies and Memories
9. 30 Poems in 30 Days: A Brief Glossary of Meter
10. 30 Poems in 30 Days: The Good the Bad and the Meter
11. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Courting Controversy
12. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Syllabic Verse
13. 30 Poems in 30 Days: What is Your Writing Process?
14. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Repetition
15. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Imagism
16. 30 poems in 30 Days: Review Your Old Work
17. 30 Poems in 30 Days: The Constraint as a Tool
18. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Joining the Community
19. 30 Poems in 30 Days: About the Line
20. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Staying Positive
21. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Progression
22. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Breaking the Rules
23. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Confessional Poetry
24. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Say What You Want to Say
25. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry Contests
26. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Free Verse
27. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Finding New Ways To Stay Inspired
28. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Word Choice
29. 30 Poems in 30 Days: A Little Advice
30. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Collaboration

30 Poems in 30 Days: Collaboration

This is Day 30! of 30 Poems in 30 Days

All Good Things

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Marx

We’ve reached the final day of our little poetry project. It has been quite a journey, at least for me, and I really appreciate those of you who took the time to post your poetry. I wasn’t sure, when I started this, whether or not I would get any participants and I was happy that a few of you chose to come along. It would have been a much harder journey without your poems and comments.

This will be the final day of the poetry project, but it won’t be my final post on the topic. When we started, I promised to discuss publishing options, especially low cost ones, and I will be writing about that over the next few days. Today, however, will be the final day of assignments.

The people who have chosen to write their poems and to comment on the poems of others have demonstrated my final lesson, the value of collaboration. Working with other poets is a good thing. Creating a community is a good thing. As I said, this would have been a much more difficult and longer month without the contributions of others. Reading other poet’s work has been invigorating. Reading other poet’s comments has been instructive. Having an audience of peers to discuss poetry with has helped me improve as a poet, and I hope it has helped others.

If you have the chance to work with, or just make friends with other poets. Take that chance. They will help keep your focus on poetry and on writing, which over the long haul can be more valuable than any criticism or praise.

Please tell me what you thought of the project. I would like to keep the energy. I am considering at least a weekly poetry post, complete with assignment, but I am open to other ideas. Please tell me what you think.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

I feel like ending with something technical but random. Don’t include any word with a single “A” in it, but do include at least one word with two “A”s in it.

Today’s Featured Poet

In keeping with our attempt to bring in international flavor for the final days, I am including Daniel Ladinsky. Ladinsky is an American poet but has lived in India and the Middle East for many years now. His work includes translations of the 14th century Persian poet, Hafez, who wrote in the ghazal form. Ladinsky is a somewhat controversial figure because many of his translations are not considered literal, and are thought to me more like responses to the original poems.

Books 

• Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
• I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
• I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
• The Subject Tonight Is Love: Sixty Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz

Poems

• Selected Poems
• More Selected Poems

30 Poems in 30 Days: A Little Advice

This is Day 29 of 30 Poems in 30 Days

Six Quick Tips

We are almost to the end of our 30 day journey through the world of poetry. I still have several poems left to write and I am determined to do it, so I am not going to delve too deep tonight. Instead I am going to leave you with six quick tips to take forward with you.

1. Nobody said writing poetry was easy. If they did, they probably weren’t very good at it. Accept the challenge. Embrace the challenge.
2. Set aside time at least once a week to write poetry. It is easy to get out of the habit. I know.
3. Poetry is therapeutic. Poetry can be a great way of dealing with anger or sadness. It is good to write your way through something, whether the poem itself is good or not.
4. Buy at least one book of poetry a month. Try to support new poets and don’t be afraid to try someone you don’t like at first. You CAN learn from poets you don’t like.
5. Look for ways to do something unexpected in your poetry. It is good sometimes to take a poem someplace that the reader did not see coming.
6. Sometimes when you are stuck for something to write, it is because you are not doing enough things that are worth writing about. Take the time to live and embrace life, otherwise you may well run out of material.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write the final line of your poem first, then figure out a way to get there.

Today’s Recommended Poet

In my quest to add a little more international flair to the poets I am recommending, I went looking for someone from England to read today. I found a interesting poet with what I consider to be a similar style to mine (he isn’t that big on punctuating his poems either). I haven’t read a lot of his work yet but I think he is worth investigating. Take a look:

Poems

• Four Poems
• the butcher’s craft
• fossil (an egocentric ponders coastal erosion)

Books

• The Last Bus
• Big Bella’s Dirty Cafe

Next Page »