Recently I have been having some problems with my writing. Somehow I found a blog by an author and speaker named Jody Hedlund. She's written dozens of posts to assist beginning writers. I've only read a few of them, but all were well written and really helpful. I want to eventually read them all.
The one thing that I utilized from her blog right away was her
Character Worksheet. Unlike a lot of people, I find my main character to be the hardest to create. I can make all kinds of individual and unique minor characters, but for some reason my main character never gets much attention. I suppose it's because I usually (not always, but a lot of the time) give my main character a backstory where they've already gone through something really hard (usually losing a loved one) that has tested them. They've already overcome a huge obstacle and it's made them into the person that they are. Now they are ready to help the minor characters face even more obstacles and to teach them what they learned from their past experiences. So you see, most of my main characters are the teachers. They've already had their big change and now they are ready to help others overcome their fatal flaws. It makes it really hard when I'm trying to create a main character with depth when they are not going to change much in the course of the story.
I've tried a few different kinds of character worksheets before, but I always get distracted by insignificant details, and I still concentrate more on my minor characters. I really liked Jody Hedlund's worksheet for several reasons. For one, it wasn't fifty pages long like many character worksheets are. Not that that's a bad thing. However I tend to get to involved in tiny details. Secondly, I liked how she tells you to list synonyms when you list the character's physical descriptions. Also, she asks questions meant to make you think about how this character is different from all the others. What makes this person unique? What are the little things that they do that make them recognizable?
I decided to try this excersize with my main heroine and see how it went. It was incredible how much it helped. Now Anne (my main character) was not just a stagnant character. She had come alive. I came up with a more intricate personality for her. Now I knew not only what she did, but why did the things that she did. It has really helped my story.
I'll probably write more posts about Jody Hedlund's blog as I read more of it. It truly is amazing and I can't wait to apply even more of her advice to my own writing. I highly recomend that all amateur/want-to-be authors check it out. If you go to the "
For Writers" part of her website, that's where you can search for her advice by subject. She has everything from developing characters, to pre-writing, to getting published, to editing, to time management, to drawing the readers in. She also recomends books that give even more writing tips to beginning authors. The blog is titled "
Jody Hedlund: Author and Speaker" (this is the link to the home page). She's also on
Pinterest.
Recently I have been having some problems with my writing. Somehow I found a blog by an author and speaker named Jody Hedlund. She's written dozens of posts to assist beginning writers. I've only read a few of them, but all were well written and really helpful. I want to eventually read them all. 
The one thing that I utilized from her blog right away was her Character Worksheet. Unlike a lot of people, I find my main character to be the hardest to create. I can make all kinds of individual and unique minor characters, but for some reason my main character never gets much attention. I suppose it's because I usually (not always, but a lot of the time) give my main character a backstory where they've already gone through something really hard (usually losing a loved one) that has tested them. They've already overcome a huge obstacle and it's made them into the person that they are. Now they are ready to help the minor characters face even more obstacles and to teach them what they learned from their past experiences. So you see, most of my main characters are the teachers. They've already had their big change and now they are ready to help others overcome their fatal flaws. It makes it really hard when I'm trying to create a main character with depth when they are not going to change much in the course of the story. 
I decided to try this excersize with my main heroine and see how it went. It was incredible how much it helped. Now Anne (my main character) was not just a stagnant character. She had come alive. I came up with a more intricate personality for her. Now I knew not only what she did, but why did the things that she did. It has really helped my story.
I'll probably write more posts about Jody Hedlund's blog as I read more of it. It truly is amazing and I can't wait to apply even more of her advice to my own writing. I highly recomend that all amateur/want-to-be authors check it out. If you go to the "For Writers" part of her website, that's where you can search for her advice by subject. She has everything from developing characters, to pre-writing, to getting published, to editing, to time management, to drawing the readers in. She also recomends books that give even more writing tips to beginning authors. The blog is titled "Jody Hedlund: Author and Speaker" (this is the link to the home page). She's also on Pinterest.
