The Covert, Lightening-Fast Way Best Selling Authors Characterize

Best Selling authors use a covert, mind-boggling sneaky technique to dump loads of information on unsuspecting readers--and readers seldom notice.

How do they do this?

Easy. They first decide what type of character they want to dramatize on the page. What personality traits, attributes, or critical information they want to pass on to the reader. Once they've completed this first step, they are ready to apply the secret of lightening-fast characterization.

See if you notice it in this paragraph.

"Ava Hilliard brushed imaginary lint off of her thrift-store bought
checkered dress, squinted through Wal-Mart prescription glasses and squeezed
her knees together tightly as the judges in the front of the ballroom
examined her
scrapbook."

Did you catch it? Read it again. What do the words tell you about Ava Hillard? Let's examine them briefly.

First, we know that Ava might be nervous. Why else would she be brushing "imaginary" lint off of her dress and squeezing her knees together? Second, we know that the dress was purchased at a thrift store. Perhaps Ava is thrifty, or maybe she is poor. We really can't say with this limited amount of informaiton, but we do have more data with which to compare the rest of the story. Third, we know that she is wearing Wal-Mart prescription glasses. These are not Prada sunglasses. Perhaps Ava is not rich. Or perhaps, once again, the author is showing us that Ava is thrifty or price-concious.

Whatever the author's intentions, we have met the covert technique head on. When we read "Wal-Mart" we identify with the store, the experience, and all of the connotations that go along with something bought at Wal-Mart.

Are you catching on? I bet so.

Best Selling authors, like Stephen King, brand-name drop all the time. Thier charcters can be seen wearing Nike shoes, driving Porches, drinking Star-Bucks coffee, etc, etc.

When you add a brand-name to your character's despcription, you gain several positive outcomes:

• 
  
  You help readers identify with the character


• 
  
  You help readers know something about the character's personality or current circumstances (Rich, poor, high class, middle class, etc)


• 
  
  You save precious words describing or showing the same ideas you can get accross in a split-second with this literary short cut.

A word of warning: use this technique sparingly. A character who wears Nikes, sips Star-Bucks coffee and carries a Barnes and Noble shopping bag may seem overblown or comic to your readers. Drop in brand-names sparingly when you want to add some spice to your descriptions without wasting words.

Keep writing.

The Best Seller Secret of Childhood Wounds

Best Selling Authors leverage advances in psychology, human development and other related fields to craft characters that pop with realism and conflict. One of the keys to creating realistic, unforgettable characters is found in the last place many neopyte writers look: childhood.



At the risk of dwindling into a Freudian lecture, let's examine this character-creation technique that might just launch your characters into the best seller catagory.



Every child, no matter how perfect his/her parents, is wounded on the way to adulthood. It's a fact. Sometimes the wounds look more like scars.



Ask yourself:

• What frusterated you as a child?


• What did you hate as a child?


• What left you wounded as a child?

Odds are some of you will be able to answer some of these questions. The difficult truth is that many of our own childhood wounds remain well hidden in our subconcious. However, they most likely affect (for better or worse) our current relationships.

For example, lets say your fictional character was beaten as a child. Do you think this might affect him/her years later? Probably so.

Some wounds are more noticable, physical and sexual abuse of any kind being two of them.

But there are more than one way to wound a child. Our emotional, spiritual and pyschological scars are harder to point out. Which makes them great fodder for your stories.

Here is the bottom line: To make your characters more belivable-and possibly memorablel-consider his or her childhood wounds and how they might affect current circumstances and relationships.

Ask these questions:

• How might my character's childhood wounds make it more difficult for him/her to reach his/her goals?


• How might my character's childhood wounds create additional layers of conflict with other people in the story?


• How might the villian or anatognist use the protagonist or hero's wounds against him or her?

One additional note: Bad guys were often wounded as children, too. How might that play out in your story?

Keep writing.

How Best Selling Authors Create Unique Characters

If you've read my other blogs on character creation, you know several secrets best selling authors use to create timeless, unforgettable characters over and over again. And keep their novels consistently on the top of the bestseller lists. In this blog, I'll reveal another little-known technique you can steal from best selling authors.



It's called Internal or External Processing.



Everyone on the planet processes information, whether its the latest celebrity gossip, a spouses sniding comment, or the boss's lingering hand on your thigh.



When it comes to how we process information, the whole world can be split up into two camps: the internal processers and the external processers.



What does this mean and how can it help you write bestsellers?



Keep reading. Internal processers like to think through information, chew on data, sleep on it before making decisions. They analyze, sort out and conduct mental arguments to come up with their choices. The main thing to know about internal processers is that they do all or most of their processing internally. Thoughts are key.



External processers, on the other hand, process their information out loud. They talk. They use words to sort through issues and to arrive at a conclusion. The key to external processers is that they all or most of their processing out loud with words. Words are key.



So, to create unique characters in your story, consider whether your main characters or minor characters process information internally or externally. Avoid having every fictional person in your story process information in the same way. Mix it up.



To sum it up, internal processers process information inside of themselves; external processers process information outside of themselves.



Keep writing.



C.H. Kokoski