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Before getting into our main topic about building great characters, we took a voicemail call from Frank. Frank’s question boiled down to:
“Why are you giving away your self-publishing tricks and secrets? What’s in it for you?”
And that’s an interesting question — one we asked ourselves as recently as Self Publishing Podcast episode 9. The full answer is long, illustrative, and thought-provoking, but here are a few of the reasons we podcast about what works for us in self publishing:
- Thinking and talking about this stuff all the time gives us great ideas about how to improve our writing, our marketing, our process, and our funnels.
- Being in “the writing headspace” helps us to write better because we’re constantly thinking of ourselves as writers.
- We meet new people, learn new things, and make new connections… such as when we met Ed Robertson and talked about how to understand Amazon’s algorithms, and our upcoming (July 26th) episode with guest Evo Terra.
- We reach a ton of new people, make new friends, and generally build our platforms.
- We come to think of writing in new ways… like when I (who in episode 8 said I didn’t understand how two writers could ever write a book together) announced that Sean and I were going to write a book together in episode 9.
- This is a mastermind group for us. Everyone should have a mastermind group. Ours is simply public.
And lastly,
- This is all moot because there are no secrets. These are things we’re trying, and plenty don’t work. We’re on this journey together, and we know we’ll learn from you as you learn from us.
And ultimately, it all boils down to doing great writing anyway. All the “secrets” in the world won’t help a shitty product.
Developing great characters
After that discussion, we got down to our main topic, all about developing characters.
Characters drive your story. Even if you’re writing nonfiction, it helps to think of yourself as a character in your own nonfiction story… and to use that “fiction-like element” in your nonfiction.
Here are a few of the things we think about creating characters, out of order and with no respect paid here in print to whose tips they are:
- Take shortcuts to creating characters by giving them a “foundation.” This could mean borrowing traits from real people or borrowing people in full. (Johnny admits to starting with real people — and going so far as to use their real names in the first draft.)
- As your story progresses, your characters will outgrow the foundation you laid for them. They stop being the people you borrowed from life, and become unrecognizable. (NOTE: if you use Johnny’s trick, be damn sure to change their names at this point.)
- You can write a ton, trying to get “fluent” with the characters and the story, and just plan to cut out all of the “throat clearing” you did in print simply to get to know the characters. (Tipsters here include Tarantino and Hemmingway.)
- Remember that characters are not “good” or “evil.” Good evil characters sometimes do good things. Good nice characters sometimes do bad things.
- Try to see your characters, within the story, from other characters’ points of view. They will appear different through different lenses.
What are your tips and ideas on character development? Leave them below in the comments!
Hey guys, great episode as always. I’m actually looking forward to these every week. (strange)
How often or soon do you go back and read what you wrote? I’m wrestling with the idea of getting through a chapter, or multiple chapters etc. And I’m my own worst critic and believe everything I write sucks and then I want to rewrite everything. What’s your expierence?
BTW- does it help you if I leave a review for each episode or does the ranking push only come from multiple reviewers? Keep up the great work.
You mean immediately, or long term?
I usually handle my writing in three days. So let’s say I have 5K words to write.
Day One – All 5K words. No matter how crappy that first draft might be.
Day Two – A heavy edit of those 5K words. This should take as long as the writing from the day before. Sometimes more.
Day Three – A polish of those 5K words. This should take about half as long as the edit.
Ideally, I would love to let that copy sit for a month or so, then return to it with fresh eyes. But right now that’s not possible.
As far as long term, I only return to what I wrote if I have a specific reason. For example, I would have no time to read Yesterday’s Gone, but recently reread the first season since I was recording it for Podiobooks.
For reviews, do you mean each episode of our series, or each episode of the podcast? I think the podcast only allows you to leave one general review. Our episodes for the series, every one matters.
I’m actually of a very different opinion than Sean, though as he suggests, his (and Dave’s) is constrained by their intense schedule.
I think that you should blast through your first draft as fast as you can, NOT looking back, NOT reviewing copy, NOT so much as flipping pages back even to check for consistency if you can avoid it.
Then, after completion, I think you should let that first draft sit for a month or more. (Stephen King suggests at least 6 weeks in On Writing.) After that time, give it a read and rewrite as fully as necessary to get the pure story out.
Then go through it a time or two more to polish it up, getting others to read it if you’d like, etc.
Everyone is different, but for me personally, doing anything during that first draft other than simply barrel-assing ahead as fast as possible is a huge mistake. It’s like I need to outrun the doubts… to just keep going and only look at the road in front of me instead of worrying how efficiently I’m accomplishing the entire trip. For me, it’s the only way I can get that first draft OUT.
As to reviews, can you actually leave reviews/rankings for EVERY episode? I figured you could just leave one, for the whole podcast. But hey, the more, the merrier!
Okay Sean and Johnny I updated my review. Not sure if that helps or not. The contrast in writing routines and styles is interesting and helpful to know. I’m wrestling with my own process and learning how you guys go about it is great. Thanks!
I’m 100% with you, Johnny. My current schedule isn’t what I think is best, it’s sort of just what we’re locked into right now. Ideally, I like your schedule much better.
Write now, the stuff that I’m producing will all have the benefit of at least six weeks between rough cut and first draft, which I think will make them much better stories.
Dear Johnny and team here -
Great information here.
I find that writing using the actual names is helpful. It keeps you on track and with the real story. Most good storytelling comes from your own experience.
If you publish it that way, you are in for a law suit.
( a publisher laughingly told me one way to avoid suits is to describe your character as having a small penis. No one wants to defend that.)
Once you are done, go back and changes names and scramble some of the events enough so they can”t find a case against you. Make sure you put a disclaimer in the front of your book that it is based on fictional facts.
One surprise was when I wrote a memoir and used my own kids names and actual facts. The publisher said I had to get a full release from them even though they were my own family.
They loved being in the book. (except a daughter in law who I just cut out)
That’s funny about family members! I didn’t realize that, though it does make perfect sense.
There’s a great section in Jenny “The Bloggess” Lawson’s new book about that. Even with her crazy-ass stories, she says quite earnestly that she’s not allowed (and I take this as a personal form of “allowed,” not a legal one) to publish any of her family stories unless the people in it read it and agree. Which says she has one hell of a liberal family with a good sense of humor about themselves.
The other amusing thing she says is that her agreement with Victor is that she’s not allowed to write about anything they’re CURRENTLY fighting about.
Thanks guys, I particularly liked the tip on going to forums to find dialogue. I’m actually intending to do some script-writing in order to improve mine, as that is so much more reliant on dialogue over exposition.
On the “why do we do it” question, I get asked that all the time as well. I think perhaps there is a mindset change over years of blogging as well, an unlimited pie type of mentality that we pick up. We like to be useful, we like to share, the more generous we are, the more generous others are, the more fun it is. I love my podcast as I learn so much from the interviews – I just interviewed a guy who spent 30 years as a Canadian Mountie, homicide investigator and coroner – and I learned a lot about bodies and crime scenes. Awesome
On other topics, I’d like to hear about your creative habits, especially Dave as he seems to have fewer businesses on the boil. How do we actually write more? I am playing with ideas on habits right now, having just read ‘Turning Pro” by Pressfield, and ‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg. I’d love to hear you guys talk about that.
Thanks as ever, Joanna
Hey Joanna!
Yeah, dialogue (I think) is the toughest thing to nail, but if you get it right it puts you lightyears ahead of many other self-published writers. And there’s no way to get there without heavy practice. Forums are great, so is idle conversation. Pay attention to how people argue or converse. Watch their body language and be able to articulate that, too. I’ve found that capturing the moments in between the words helps when crafting believable dialogue as well.
I LOVE the teaching aspect of what we do. It’s one of my favorite parts for sure. I only wish I had time for it all. Sometimes it gets pretty difficult to justify the time.
For writing more, I’ve found the most distance from tracking my hours and improving the formula on a weekly basis, with a full audit each month. Of course, I’m only on my second month, but it’s been great so far!
I’d love to talk about this on the show.
I would love to talk about it too. Let’s be sure to do that.
As I said in a comment above, for me, there’s a huge element of trust and faith as I’m writing the first draft of anything, be it fiction or nonfiction – stories, a novel, or a blog post. I feel like I have to JUST. KEEP. WRITING. and ignore the often very intense feeling that I’m going in the wrong direction and/or accomplishing nothing. I think that learning to understand that the confusion and disillusionment phase is part of my process is huge, and that it’s natural for me. I seem to have to go through the part where it seems like nothing is coming together before I can get anything to come together.
Hey guys, really enjoyed this episode. Even though I originally started listening to the show to learn more about how to succeed business-wise in self-publishing, I get a ton out of the more writing-oriented episodes like this one. As fanboyish as this sounds, you guys have inspired me to finally take a crack at writing fiction, which is something I’ve always wanted to do but have been too afraid to try.
Back on the more technical, business-oriented side, a question I’ve been wondering about is: how do books get picked to be the Kindle Daily Deal? I’ve Googled around trying to find out how that works since the sales volume from being the Daily Deal must be insane, but strangely I couldn’t find anyone even speculating on it. Any idea? Sorry if that question may have been covered in Episode 5; it’s the only episode I haven’t listened to all the way through yet.
Thanks! Keep up the great work.
Thanks Beau, appreciate the compliments!
I have no clue how Amazon picks the Deal of the Day, but I would assume a couple of things: These are plotted out far, far in advance. And they are based on sure fire hits for them. Titles they know convert.
Yeah, I’m sorry but I have no info on the Daily Deal either.
But as to your first point, that’s great to hear, and also interesting. We try to balance the “nuts and bolts” episodes with the “writing technique” episodes, but what kind of surprises and pleases me is that the latter seem to be the more interesting to people of the two. I never get tired of talking about it, myself.
Interesting take on creating characters – I luv that whole thing about Tarantino’s approach of letting them talk, and getting as much juice out of them and then just using tiny bit of it in the final story. That would probably mean that 90% of character creation is not directly visible in the final version.
On top of that – do you have a like printable template for character creation ? Do you ever use any templates or formatted sheets for story-,plot – or character creation ?
Yeah, I love Tarantino’s approach. If I had more time, that’s definitely how I would write.
As far as templates, no I don’t have anything that I currently use. However, I’m producing a small handful of children’s stories right now and am developing my own. So far, I am very happy with how these are turning out. I imagine I’ll be finished with them by the time this giant project is finished, which likes like it will be mid to late November.
I don’t use templates or character sketches. I pretty much borrow from life and see what happens.
As to the Tarantino and other stuff we talked about, I find that’s more and more useful info. I want to stick a Post-It Note on my monitor that says “JUST. KEEP. WRITING.” Because that’s the trick. You have to just keep putting the words out, heedless of whether they’re great or if they’ll make it into the story or whatever. You’re building the world of your story, and that “throat clearing” that may get pitched in editing is still important because it’s helping you to know the world. I just keep trying to remember that for myself.
You didn’t comment on my German. Too much?
Maybe he didn’t recognize it as German. Burn!!!
Couldn’t agree more.
In our last episode of Yesterday’s Gone, Dave cut 1,000 words of my opening into a single sentence. No shit. Am I sad I spent the time writing them? No, not at all. Put me in the world that much longer. And that’s a good thing to create weight in the story. The longer I spend time with these characters, the more invested they will be. Even if the reader never sees those 1,000 words, they will feel their echo in other parts of the story.