When I was at college years ago, I studied playwriting. I learned about stage and theater, the differences between three-act, four-act, and five-act play structure, and Aristotle’s Rising Action, Climax, and Denouement. I took what I learned to become a better writer when writing my books. While I wrote, I imagined my characters on stage in my mind and acting out scenes. Any characters not in the scene were off stage.
When I think of that now, I laugh. What were those characters who were offstage doing? Sitting in a dressing room and rehearsing their lines for their next important scene? Of course not.
Characters in a novel aren’t playactors. They’re people whom the author is breathing life into. When they’re not in a scene, they’re not off stage. They’re off the page living their lives.
An author must always keep tabs of their characters. From the leading main character to the pedestrian out for a stroll, the author must know everything about everyone in the story. That’s what rewrites are for—for us authors to look down on the world we created and observe what’s happening, not only on the main stage, but the peripheral world around it as well. If a person is in a scene during an event in chapter three but was thirty miles away five minutes ago in chapter two, fix it. The same holds true for weather, wardrobe, colors, appearances … if they don’t sync from chapter to chapter, fix them.
Writing stories is all about world building, so it behooves us authors to make the settings and the characters in them feel real. And the best way to do that (IMHO) is to know the characters and the world they live in so well, by the time you write the final draft of your book, they still live with you when you begin writing your next book. That experience prompted me to continue writing stories about my characters, which turned into a series of books.
This type of world building can last a lifetime. (Look at J.R.R. Tolkien, for example.) I have lived in Ridgewood since my teens. I know the people who live there. I know what they look like, how they walk and talk, and what their secrets are. I have drawings and maps of where they live and go to school or work. I see and hear them every time I sit at my workstation and write.
Since Ridgewood is based on Erie, Crawford and Warren counties where I live and travel in northwestern Pennsylvania, I know the topography of these areas well. I know the dangers they have. I know Pennsylvania is a high-risk state for sinkholes (also called swallow holes) when empty oil beds and coalmines collapse, and when acidic rainwater and groundwater dissolves the carbonate rocks beneath us. It’s a threat I can include in my stories that feature Myers Ridge—a place where many of my characters live.
And because I write about magic, that alone can be dangerous enough.
Building characters and their worlds is basic information for you authors who’ve been at this for years—Fiction Writing 101 by today’s standards, I suppose. It’s information all over the internet today, unlike when I was at college and the internet was newly born and the only book on writing in the school’s library was How to Write and Sell Your First Novel by Oscar Collier and Frances Spatz Leighton. Breathing life into our stories goes beyond the basics of story structure. It’s the extra time and care we take to live with and learn about our characters before publishing their stories for others to read. Those are the characters who stay with readers long after they read the last pages of our books.
Thanks for joining me today for this look at breathing life into our stories.
Until next time, peace and love to you and yours.
Steve, 10/11/2024
This post “Ridgewood Living” copyright © 2024 Steven Leo Campbell at stevecampbellcreations.com – All rights reserved.
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