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This is the last day of our 750 words per day challenge! Have you written every day? What have you learned from your writing this month?

Today, write a reflection about your writing for the last month. What have you learned? What was hard? What was easy?

In light of what you have learned, where do you need to focus efforts to improve your writing?

Please share with me, post a comment! I always like to hear your good news!

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In our continuing quest to write 750 words per day for a month, today we will look at unlikeable main characters.

Which One is Unlovable? The Eye of the Beholder

Donald Maass, in How to Write the Breakout Novel, says to make this type character self-aware. They know what they are doing is wrong, they acknowledge it. They take the sting out of the behavior by telling the reader they understand it is unacceptable. Nevertheless, they must do it. And of course, you’ll then add in the reasons why this behavior is reasonable.

The date jerk was dumped when he was 13 and has never gotten over it.
The guy in anguish is grieving over the loss of his family to a drunk driver. The guy who hurts puppies–oh, that’s a hard one! How WOULD you justify that? Oh, isn’t that the story, OF MICE AND MEN?

A second way to turn a jerk into a lovable character is to have someone demonstrate that they do indeed love him or her. Scarlett O’Hara is jealous, conniving and a drama queen. But the family’s nanny still loves her. Because the nanny loves her, we feel more tender toward Scarlett.

Today, write about an unlovable character.

• They must say, do and think awful things.
• Then, soften the character by having someone do a loving act toward them.
• Soften the character farther by having him or her acknowledge the errors of his or her ways.

Think like a writer: make me want to read about that unlovable character.

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In our continuing quest to write 750 words a day, today, we will think like our opposites. Our enemies.

Drawing of the TinTin Villain

Today, write a scene from a character who represents the opposite side, the opposite take on things, the opposite point of view. Generally, this will mean your villain or your antagonist.

Read this three part series about villains:

• Villains Don’t Always Wear Black
• Strengthen Your Villain
• Villains to Imitate

Now, write 750 words explaining your villain’s point of view, exploring their backstory, understanding the whys and wherefors of this fella.

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We’ve come a long way in this 31 Days of Thinking Like a Writer, a challenge to write at least 750 words each day.

Secrets and Letters

Letters written in the 1860s

Letters can be inform about facts or events; they carry emotional baggage that can be negative or positive.

Today, write a letter from your character to another character in the story.

It’s an exercise in drawing out the tension in a short piece of writing, as you Think Like a Writer

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IN the on-going series of Thinking Like a Writer, everyone can recite the plot diagram of rising action which ends in a climax and denouement. But writers can’t just recite the particulars of a diagram; instead, we must create a plot that changes a character in some way.

One way to get at that change is to start by writing the Before and After character sections. Where is the character at the beginning of the story and how have they changed by the end.

For example, in the Before section of “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge is miserable and miserly in three ways: toward the poor, toward his nephew, toward his employee and his family. He meets three ghosts, which leads to the After section, where he is kind and generous in three ways: toward the poor, toward his nephew, toward his employee and his family.

You may have a character moving from shy to bold.
What scene, description, and/or character set-up will Show-Don’t-Tell that this character is shy? How can you contrast that with the After scene?

First, identify the character arc for your character.
Then write a Before and an After.

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Every now and then I attend workshops in which I am forced to write for three minutes from a prompt that draws virtually no story from me.  Such prompts can take the form of a bunch of unrelated words that should never appear in the same novel let alone on the same page like “chrysalis, gun powder, athlete’s foot, schizophrenia and acidophilus.” Or they can be an unlikely premise such as, “A fire ravishes your apartment building. You are the only survivor and are forced to take custody of your deceased neighbor’s pet aardvark.”

I write my heart out.  I really do.  For three full minutes, I am convinced that my banter with my new aardvark is pitch perfect.  That I’ve made a strong case for an OTC athlete’s foot medication (made from gun powder, acidophilus and the chrysalis of a rare African butterfly), which has been discovered to cure schizophrenia.  I think, “See Kirsten – you should push yourself more often.  Look how talented you are!”

And then we have to read aloud.

This is the point when it becomes obvious that my classmates have seen this prompt before – that I’m the only one who didn’t cheat.  Because what they read is good.  They have fresh imagery, innovative symbolism and three-syllable verbs.  Some of them receive applause.  I, on the other hand, get a reaction only from my teacher.  And it’s usually delivered two octaves above her normal voice.  “…Interesting….OK…Who has another?”

I wish I could blame the prompts.  But the truth is, my first drafts have historically been terrible.  That is, until I attended a prompt-free workshop that suggested the Rule of Ten (which I believed was first created by John Vorhaus, but lots of people have ripped it off as I’m doing now, so I can’t be sure).

The idea is that for every one great idea a writer has, he has nine crummy ones.

Your first several ideas are usually cliché — you’ve plagiarized from books or movies without even knowing it.  So every time you have to make a decision, write out ten ideas.  Your only decent idea should be somewhere near the end.

I am not kidding when I say this saves me hours of revision in each scene.  I use this technique on almost every page to decide anything from defining character motivation to determining who goes in a scene to choosing setting.

Do you have any tricks to write a better first draft?  Please share it in the comments.

P.S. I know this is technically only one technique and not ten as the title insinuates (but does not promise if you read closely!).  But Barbara of Writing Time just taught me that the easiest way to get a reader’s attention is to put a number in the headline and I wanted to try my new trick.  The number one just didn’t impress.  Question is – did it work?

10 Comments on 10 Steps to Improving your First Draft, last added: 4/28/2010