Class Notes - Week Two | The World of Cat Rambo

Man Playing the Guitar Upsidedown — People watching is one of the best ways to come up with new characters. Watch (and listen) to the people around you and jot the things they inspire down in a notebook.

We talked last week about story shapes and arcs as well as what gets set up in the beginning of a story. This week we talked about characters and dialogue, and how the first shapes the story. One of the points made was that a character is not something you stick in a slot of a story – the character shapes the entire story. For example, the story of someone encountering a werewolf is very different if your protagonist is a little old lady who hates dogs because they’re messy than if that protagonist is an emo-teen determined to become a werewolf in order to get revenge on someone that wronged them.

The main character usually changes in some way over the course of the story, but that change must feel organic and natural. You can set up a big change of mind with foreshadowing and having them change on some smaller matter, showing that such change is possible, so it doesn’t throw the reader out of the story when it occurs.

We discussed approaches to learning more about your characters. I recommended the book Writing The Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, which talks about writing characters who are a different sex, race, or class background than yourself. I also recommended people-watching and reading pop psychology (or even more sciencey stuff, which will provide all sorts of story ideas.

One of the quickest ways to turn an editor off is with improperly punctuated dialogue, so learn the rules and use them. We went over things like speech tags, how to punctuate internal dialogue, why you don’t need to come up with a bunch of synonyms for “said,” and how to make voices distinctive. I suggested that people watch the wonderful adaptation of Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” – here is the original text, and here is the film made from it.

If you really want to focus on dialogue, read good plays, which are pure dialogue. If you want to write in a particular historical voice, one of the best ways is to read deeply in that period so you absorb it. Doing so may make you aware how much what we read and watch creeps into our writing – that’s one very good reason to read some high quality stuff now and again.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

One Response

Sarah E Olson (@saraheolson) says:

December 23, 2011 at 11:04 am

I’d like to recommend a blog that has helped me get into my characters’ minds: http://blog.liviablackburne.com/

Livia is a brain scientist and a writer, and she has some excellent posts on psychology topics related to writing. I especially liked a post she did on her husband, discussing how male friends relate to each other: http://blog.liviablackburne.com/2011/02/on-writing-realistic-male-characters.html

Reply

You may also like...

Teaser: Another Excerpt from A New Board is Elected at Villa Encantada

June 27, 2013

Here’s another chunk from “A New Board is Elected at Villa Encantada,” (working title) a darkly humorous story about a very odd condo complex that I’ve written several stories about already. It’s been fun filling out the complex’s roster a little in this story, and I’m going back to revise one of the unpublished ones with some of these details. Like the talking cacti.

Even the cacti garden was talking about the assessment. I usually don’t visit down there, in the little rock garden near the lake. For one thing all of the cacti like to talk at once. They ramble and they repeat and they are altogether too fond of puns. Not for the first time, I wondered what exactly the magician who had created them had had in mind. Had it really been a dozen cranky plants, whose extreme longevity led them to be highly opinionated about everything?

There are twelve cacti altogether, eleven in pots and one who has chosen to plant itself and grow. The eleven in pots have opted for mobility over size. They were fond of making Rumpelstiltskin wheel them about the complex in order to enjoy the sun and fresh air.

Each was distinctive, both in personality and appearance. They had names, which usually mattered only to each other. I had mentally bestowed nicknames on them: Bombast, Furor, Humblepie, Obscuro, Smarmy, Weasel, Johnny Nonsense, Earnest, Hairyfoot, Splainer, and the unpotted Old Dignity, a massive saguaro towering a good fifteen feet over its much shorter, hideously root bound, compatriots.

Bombast said, “It’s a cabal! They’ve been waiting to seize power for years now, and rob our reserves, turn us over to some real estate agent so the complex can be demolished for a high rise.”

Furor said, “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not organized enough to be a cabal. And this place isn’t zoned for high-rises.” It added, its tone dark, “No, what they have in store for us is much, much worse.”

“How can they hope to understand the history of the complex?” demanded Hairyfoot. “Most of them haven’t even been here a decade.”

I considered them. The complex was odd at the best of times. It was a refuge, a complex that didn’t mind people who were outside the ordinary. That led to a population that was more mixed than most, including the denizens of this garden.

Earnest said to me, “Did you give your proxy to someone to vote?”

I shook my head and fled.

Rumpelstiltskin was by the dumpster, sorting out recyclables. He looked wretched and smudgy as an old sheet of newsprint. As I passed, he looked up, and said, hopefully, “What’s my name?”

“Not today,” I said. “You won’t escape today.”

I felt guilty at the look on his face, and the situation made me itch, but it’s been so hard to find a maintenance man here that I could understand why they had done it. Sometimes when you find good help, you have to rely on the laws of magic to keep them from leaving. Unscrupulous? Yes, undoubtedly. But the needs of the many outweigh those of the few. Or the one, in his case.

If you want to read the rest of the story, you can get it, along with at least six other stories, at the end of July by signing up to sponsor me in the Clarion West Write-a-thon. Even a small donation entitles you to the stories, so please do sign up!

...

Documents of Tabat: Flowers of Tabat

April 10, 2015

abstract image — What are the documents of Tabat? In an early version of the book, I had a number of interstitial pieces, each a document produced by the city: playbills, advertisements, guide book entries. They had to be cut but I kept them for web-use. I hope you enjoy this installment, but you’ll have to read Beasts of Tabat to get the full significance. -Cat

An Instructive Listing of the Flowers of Tabat, being Pamphlet #3 of the fifth series of “A Visitor’s Guide to Tabat,” Spinner Press, author unknown.

Winter roses were originally created by Elora Two Sails as an ornament for the winter months. Their magical nature makes them expensive, but capable of blooming during the coldest weather.

Irises, particularly the blue and gold variety that grows so thickly along the canals, is Tabat’s signatory flower, its colors matching those of Tabat’s flag.

Tulips, brought with the original settlers of Tabat from their homeland, have been developed into a wide variety of colors and shapes. Forced tulips in little pots are a traditional good-luck gift exchanged during the first few weeks of spring.

Marsh blooms include the rare Siren flower, believed to be a variant of Mandrakes, which are prized despite the dangers of their collection.

Beloved first sign of spring, primaflora are tiny blue flowers which grow low to the ground and invariably bloom on the first day of Spring.

***
Love the world of Tabat and want to spend longer in it? Check out Hearts of Tabat, the latest Tabat novel! Or get sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, snippets of work in progres, and more via Cat’s Patreon.

#sfwapro

...

The World of

books, community, classes, & resources

Share this:

Class Notes - Week Two

One Response

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Get Fiction in Your Mailbox Each Month

You may also like...