Some advice from my friend Kate

Here is some advice on character development from a friend of mine who is also a writer!

It's called an In Depth Character Outline. For instance, take Mona and think of her as a person and write out these things about her.

Hair Color/Length:

Eye Color:

Skin Tone:

Height:

Weight: 

Physical Appearance: 

Just get the basics of her down so that you can look at it and see her in your mind every time. Then make up her personality.

Personality (shy? aggressive? Why is she that way? Go into detail):

Favorite Color:

Food:

Music:

Book:

Hobby:

Does she like animals?

What are her parents' names? Grandparents? What are they like?

What was life like for her growing up? Did she have a lot of friends? Was she popular? Did she gossip or keep to herself?

Does she like sports? 

What things does she hate?

What kinds of people does she like? Dislike?

Then, if you have time or think about it, put her in moral situations in your mind and write out how she would react to them. (Ex. A classmate cheated on a test, what would she do? Ignore it? Report them? Would she fret about what to do? Ask to see the paper as well?)

When you do an exercise like this make her into a real person, and don't just do it for her, do it for your other characters as well even if they don't mean much in the story, make them have meaning to you. Make them have their own lives. Give them their own personal depth.

Chapter 4 - Tenative

At some point I want Mona to return to the library to check-out the book by Cera Stevens again.  Only THIS TIME the book is missing, and nobody checked it out after Mona checked it in.

This will prompt Mona to seek-out Cera Stevens herself, and Cera Stevens will begin to guide Mona in the first stages of obtaining the POWER.

Ideas from a friend - Anne

Also on Tuesday at 12:36:

Mona summary: You stated “I would imagine Mona has to be smart to attend a private school. Like I explained earlier in chapter 1, she has the brains but not the money.” I think this all makes good sense. But that means she’s not really “just like everyone else”. Instead she’s “normal” and like all of us “normal” people there are things that make her unique. J In Mona’s case, she’s smart. How will this impact how she reacts to what’s happening around her?




You asked me to imagine how I would react if I was thirsty and suddenly a glass of water appeared in my hand. Good question. Could I explain it away? Am I in a crowd where I can wonder if I somehow got a glass that someone else was carrying as they brushed past me? I bump in to a guy in the crowd. His water spills on my hand. He walks away. I look down to wipe the water off my hand and that’s when I notice I’m actually holding a glass of water. Weird but potentially explainable. I’m sitting in bed thinking about how much I want a glass of water but it’s freezing out and I don’t want to have to get out from under the covers and as I’m debating what to do … the glass of water materializes in my hand. Several things would happen. 1 … I would jump with a start and spill the glass of water all over my nice (dry and warm) bed. 2…I would wonder if I was still asleep & it was all a dream. (please-oh-please-oh-please because then I’m not crazy and my bed is still warm & dry) 3…Once I knew it wasn’t a dream, I would worry that I was going crazy. I mean – who can you possibly tell something like this too? You will be in a psych ward faster than you can say “H-two-O”.



Since you asked about the existing chapters that you’ve written … here it goes.



I thought Chapter “Uh…dunno” was great at laying a foundation for what is to come. Well written & believable. Ways to expand the chapter … What about the research librarian? Is she someone Mona knows – someone who always works the library or is she a stranger? If she’s someone Mona knows, is the snotty little reminder about returning the book justified (Mona is always late returning research books) or is it something unusual? If she’s a stranger, where’s the “normal” librarian? (Or is she simply a stranger because Mona has never used the research area before). Maybe there’s a sign that reminds users that all research materials must be returned 15 minutes before closing and snotty librarian just points to the sign. –or- if you didn’t mean for the librarian to come across as snotty you can have her be more apologetic in her approach. She points to the sign and says “Sorry but it’s library policy. Even on a Friday night. I know there isn’t much time left tonight but you can reserve the book for tomorrow morning if you need it for longer. We open at XX:XX.”



Chapter 1 versus Chapter 2. First, let me say that I love how you tied the “Greek Mythology” class in to both chapters. Very clever. However, I have a little trouble with how she came to be at Haverford. Don’t think about specifics here … I’m really writing about how I felt after reading chapter 1 and then reading chapter 2. Chapter 1 it’s all about where her family wants her to go versus what they can afford versus where she gets accepted. All believable and very real life. Chapter 2 is all about the friendship with Kate and how Kate was going to Haverford and the nerves of waiting for Mona’s acceptance. Also believable. But the 2 don’t really tie together. I think it’s just a minor issue – but after reading both chapters, it left me a little bothered. Sort of like if a friend is telling a white lie … I can’t say what’s wrong but I know something just feels off. That how I felt after reading the 2 chapters back-to-back. Maybe you could say how she (Mona) was really disappointed that she couldn’t go to Haverford when Kate decided to go there. Then you can mention how Kate thought about going to a state school just to be with Mona but her parents wouldn’t let her (maybe Kate’s mom went to Haverford?) and what a blessing it was when Mona got the money that allowed her to go to Haverford too. You can keep both ideas that way.





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On Tuesday, 11 May, from Anne:

Oh so many ideas filtering through my little pea brain. :)




Within myself....the battle is usually NOT with another person, but within myself. What keeps me from greatness, I feel, is many things. Lack of focus much of the time. Being easily distracted, by TV, by movies, books, music. Even being distracted by completely wholesome things. That is where Mona will fight her battles. Within herself. Now....how to bring that OUT in the book and how that will be described - I HAVE NO IDEA. All I know is that this is the way I want to go.

I get that. I think you have to pick ever growing internal conflicts with external factors. The first "battle" if you will is with her own ability to focus, center herself, etc. She's curious where all of this will get her but "is it really worth it?" You know, the allure of doing nothing. A procrastinator's eternal struggle. :)

Once she gets beyond that, her next internal battle can be one of worthiness & commitment. She doubts if she deserves this power. She isn't sure if she is good enough ... literally in the "good versus evil" sense of good. In her mind she wonders if she's too flawed to do this.

Final conflict ... this is the big moral dilemma. Temptation to use the power for non "good" uses. i.e. converting water into gas just because she ran out of gas but has bottled water in the trunk. It's not specifically "evil" in itself - but it also doesn't really serve the greater good. And it becomes the slippery slope. Little things at first that become bigger & bigger. Where do you draw the line? And are there cosmic consequences for wasting the power on non-essential things? I'm thinking that you can go either way. I mean some things in life are never wasted (kindness, love). But some things are ... worship to the wrong things or for the wrong reasons. (i.e. worship is great - unless it's the mighty dollar you worship. Then it's probably wasted worship.) I guess what I'm really asking here is do motivations matter? From what you have said so far, I think you want them to. If that's the case, then there has to be consequences. I don't think that you can have someone receive an external power (yes I get that it comes from internal meditation etc. but it ultimately influences the external world) and not have some external consequences. Those things we do only in our own mind may not significantly impact anyone else ... however, once it leaves our mind and manifests itself in to action (even if it's just talking) now also influences those around us and there are consequences for those actions. It's just that simple. I think for your story to be believable she must be held accountable for her actions and I think that whatever is controlling this power (the force, God, fate, karma, physics, etc) has to have rules that outline those consequences.



Here's the thing with good & evil (even internal battles) ... I don't think it's always cut & dried. For example, good people can do evil things for what they think are good reasons. And evil people can do good things for all the wrong reasons. You have to decide if it's the actions that matter or the motivations. Or a combination of the 2. I know what I want to say but not really how to explain it. Just bear with me here and see if this example helps. I once had a male friend tell me that he believed that the devil was using me to tempt him to sin. Not because I was trying to tempt him to sin but because I was in fact all of the good, generous, noble things that he had been missing from his life. He had a wife & I had a husband and anything other than friendship was out of the question but he found himself spending a lot of time thinking about just how much he would like to ... not do the right thing. Good & evil are not always clearly defined. I certainly don't think I was evil. But I also understood where he was coming from and I understood why he felt the only solution was to break off our friendship. Just something to think about.





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Ideas from my new friend Anne that I wanted to capture in this blog:


I've been thinking about this since yesterday morning. I have a couple of questions re: the power.


Can you turn anything in to something else or are there limits? For example, can you turn cancer cells in to healthy cells? What if it requires skill/talent? Can you turn a paint-by-number in to a Piccasso? Plastic lawn furniture into antiques? What about if it requires life? Can you turn a stuffed teddy bear in to a real bear? I'm thinking there are different kinds of "matter" (for lack of a better word). Raw materials (such as sand & crude oil); Processed materials (gasoline, a gold bar, cut & polished diamond); Animate materials (plant life, animals, cells); Crafted Materials (furniture, art). Maybe you want to have certain "physics" apply to what you can create and how you can jump categories.

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I love your idea. The moral implications of that kind of power are incredible. Also - it give the whole Jesus turning water in to wine thing a different twist. The fact taht she won't know what's going on at first means that you can also have a lot of fun with things just ... well becoming something different with no explainable reason (other than "I must be going crazy"). I really love it.

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Are you sure you don't mind me throwing out ideas for your book? I hope you mean it because this has been banging around in my brain for days. What if the "power" was the ability to transport through time (and location). I mean ... it's not time AND space. It's time-space. All inter-related. So it seems logical to me that with the proper "channeling" (is that a word?) you could move through time & space. We have day-to-day proof of observing the past every day. It takes 7 minutes for the light from the sun to reach us - so we see the sun as it was 7 minutes ago. If it blew up right now, it would b 7 minutes before we knew it. And assuming the explosion was also traveling at the speed of light we would see the explosion & be blown to bits simultaneously. Anyway ... I think it would be a cool power. :) Also ... if you were ever thinking of having a series of books, then your "conflict to resolve" could be whatever time-space she ends up in. And you could keep writing new adventures forever. Did you ever see a TV show called "Sliders"? This power would be kind of like that. Book one could be that (a) she has no control over the power (and gets in to some sticky situations as a result) ... (b) she has the moral dilema (if you could go back and kill Hitler, would you? Should you?) ooo and morla dilema #2 which is what if you change history? then (c) using the power has a physical price that has to be paid.



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I've been thinking about your story all week. I still haven't read every entry ... I think it's a really great premise for a story. I have some ideas for you re: the powers. I agree that you don't have to have a true "villan" ... instead your conflict could actually come from both moral and physical issues. i.e. using the powers has a physical cost.
Thanks, Anne, and we'll see about how this fits into the book!!

Chapter 3 - Tentative

A few days later Mona found herself in the library late one night, working on a term paper for philosophy.  She was taking notes from this one book, and noticed a footnote on one of the words in the phrase she was writing down on a 3x5 card:

"Many fringe philosophers during this time period postulated that all life, indeed, all matter, was connected.  Some even spoke of being able to access this connectivity through deep meditation (9).  But more popular philosophies developed a few years later that eclipsed..."

She cast her gaze down to the bottom of the page for footnote "9" and read the following:

"Truths Obscured by Time" by Cera Stevens, Kayhill-Mayes Publishing, 1975, pp351-352. 

Curious to find-out a bit more about what was meant by "deep meditation" being able to connect with the cosmos (she smirked at this thought) she walked over and sat down at a library computer.  She typed in the name of the author.  In a few moments the search returned results:  Camille Stevens, Cassidy Stevens, Candace Stevens ..... Stevens, Cera!  "Truths Obscured by Time".  She printed-out the reference.  Apparently the book was in the Reserve section of the library. 

Mona made her way down to the second floor, where the Reserve Desk was located.  As she walked down the stairs she couldn't help but think to herself, "What a sad story I am.  Studying on a Friday night!  There is something seriously wrong with me!"

She handed the print-out to the woman at the desk who spent a few seconds reading it and then disappeared into a backroom with the slip of paper.  Presently she returned with a book that had a black cover with a red spine, about as thick as a Tom Clancy novel.

"This can't leave the library." said the woman behind the desk after giving Mona her library card back.  She then added,  "But you can read it here.  Just leave it here when you are done.  And please be prompt.  I can't leave until I get my reserved books back each night."

With a small frown Mona said "Okay.  I'll drop it by when I'm done."


Once back at her study desk, she set the heavy book down and opened it to page 351 and began to read:


"We've spent a great deal of time setting up the 'what' of universal intelligence theory (UIT), but not much time talking about the 'how'.  Again I want to caution the reader that UIT is considered to be fringe science, because the results are not duplicatable in a laboratory.  In the eyes of science, this makes UIT an interesting but seemingly unverifiable theory. 

It has been said that one must look with eyes to see and ears to hear.  These truths are not irrational, just experiential.  They are not able to be replicated in a laboratory.  Instead they are to be replicated inside of the context of the person, him (or her) self.  To the person the results are quite real.  Just not shareable in a clinical environment.  For this reason, these ideas are sniffed-at by modern science, but ultimately ignored and trampled underfoot..."

Mona paged through the rest of the book...stopping to read bits and pieces that caught her eye and jotting down quick questions or key concepts.  A yawn escaped.  A few minutes later, another one!  Mona stretched, spent a few minutes rubbing her eyes, and then decided to call it a night.  She packed-up her books and headed for the exit, making sure to drop off the reserved book as promised.  She'd made a good dent in her research, and she'd done something important.  She'd started the process.  Mona often felt tempted to procrastinate on big assignments like this paper, but once she pushed through that temptation and got something down on paper, it seemed to make it more real to her, and after that, she'd rarely leave a project like this unfinished.  Because of this, Mona left the library, tired...but happy with herself.

Chapter 2

It was the weekend.  Saturday morning.  Mona lay in bed, consciousness returning by degrees.  Her green eyes had opened a few minutes ago, and for the moment she just lay there, staring at the ceiling, not thinking about much of anything, really.  She was just enjoying being alive.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.  It was so quiet she thought she could almost hear her heart beating.  Daylight filtered into the room, diffusing into a soft glow as it passed through the thin sheers covering the windows.  Her mattress and covers felt .. perfect.  On the cool side, but wonderfully cool.  Part of her brain formulated a siren call, inviting her to return to the deep and peaceful slumber she'd just left barely left.  Her body was completely covered by the sheets, exccept for one leg, which she had stuck-out sometime during the night to create some "equilibrium" when she felt too warm under the covers.  She experimentally withdrew the leg back under the covers.  It was decidedly warmer under the covers.  But she wanted cool right now, not warm.  So the original leg slid back out to its original position.  Moments later the other leg decided it wanted to feel the cool also, and also slid out of it's hiding spot.  There she lay, legs spread-eagled on the bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking random thoughts.  Thinking about everything and nothing.

Mona closed her eyes.  Laundry was waiting.  Homework was waiting.  She opened her eyes again and turned her head to look over at the display on her alarm clock.  8:37.  It felt so good to sleep in!  Three times a week she had to get up earlier so she could be to class by 7:00 AM.  Greek Mythology.  The bane of her existence this semester.  Groan.  That was her left-over homework today.  She'd finished-up her Math, English Lit. and Philosopy last night.  The "fun" stuff.  The "easy" stuff, though technically none of it was that easy.  It was just tons more bearable than Greek Mythology!  If she was ever insane enough to take a class that early in the morning again, she was going to be damned sure it was something she'd halfway enjoy, at least! 

In fact, she'd tried to switch to a later time after the first week, but as fate would have it, "Greek Mythology" was a so-called "Gateway class";  a prerequisite for a ton of other classes.  So time slots filled-up fast, particularly the in the afternoon...drilling down quickly to earlier and earlier hours, until nothing was left but the few periods in the early morning when no sane man, woman or beast should be awake.   Mona, still green to the whole feeding-frenzy that was the Freshman Pre-Req sign-up, was left with the miserable scraps nobody wanted.  So, she took one of the few remaining spots.  The longer she waited, the longer she would have to wait to take some of the stuff she actually was interested in!

Peaceful mood now turned sour, she threw off her covers, and padded-off to the bathroom. After a few minutes under the spray of warm water Greek Mythology dissolved along with the other concerns of the day-that-had-not-actually-started-yet.

Minutes later she emerged, one towl wrapped around her body, the other forming a turban on her head.  Greek Mythology still loomed, but she felt so refreshed after her shower, that even the prospect of reading 30 pages and answering the questions at the end of the chapter could not put a damper on her outlook.  After dressing she grabbed the thick book with the white cover off the kitchen table and laid back on her bed.  She was about 10 pages in when the phone rang.  It was a rare occurrence that she found her groove while reading the "white beast" (as she and a few of her classmates had come to call it).  This had better be a halfway good interruption, or the interrupter was going to get an an earful.

It was an awesome interruption, in fact.  She answered her cell and was greeted with "Mona Bona!  Tell me you are NOT doing homework on a beautiful day like this!!"  It was Kate, her best friend.  Kate had moved to Essex, Maryland during Mona's Senior year.  They found-out that they both played the Bassoon, two of the three in the entire school who had taken-on the unpopular and admittedly awkward instrument.  They also both ended-up going to the same music tutor after school (Mona had asked Kate if she knew any tutors for the Bassoon, and Kate told her about the one she was going to).  From this commonality, a friendship soon blossomed, and they'd been inseperable the remainder of the year.  They'd both applied to Haverford.  Kate received her acceptance letter first, and Mona had waited two agonizing weeks to find-out she'd gotten in also!  She'd called Kate to tell her and they spent half an hour talking excitedly about college courses, speculating about what campus life would be like and (of course) the prospect of dating college men, as well.

More thoughts

Again, from a friend:

"I think we could have some real fun with teleportation. :) Maybe she can discover it as an accident as well, like you know how we all want to sink into the ground when we do something really embarrassing and we wish we were "anywhere but here?". Of course she'll need to be at a higher level of consceince so maybe she is daydreaming in class and wishing she was in Africa. Just throwing ideas out!"

More on the powers

From a conversation with a friend:

"I'm not sure if I have that many experiences to show the shift. I think Mona probably just gets all these bits and pieces and then all a sudden they click and she gets why. Maybe she even keeps trying to re-create the first incident that her powers come out but she is missing something and then everything falls in line and she "accidentally" uses them again and understands why it worked that time as opposed to the last."