Well,
A Girl Potato and Boy Potato had eyes for each other,
and fi
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By: Steve Novak,
on 6/14/2011
Blog: Steve Draws Stuff
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This post originally appeared as a guest blog at OwlReviewaBook.
BE A JERK AND YOUR CHARACTERS WILL THANK YOU FOR IT
Bethany asked me to write a little something about character development, so here I am attempting to write a little something about character development.
There’s one major problem.
I honestly don’t know anything about character development.
Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating just a little bit for the sake of comedy.
The truth is that I don’t know anything that I’m supposed to know about character development. Plus, I’ve always found it a bit weird for me when someone asks me to write about the “craft” of anything.
The only real “craft” I have any right lecturing on is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese – which happens to be the only food in existence with a taste wholly dependant on your mood. If you’re depressed it’s awesome. If you’re happy, it’ll make you depressed.
That should be their slogan.
The only real bit of advice I can offer up when it comes to your characters is this: Be a jerk.
As a writer you’re in control of every aspect of your character’s lives and it’s pretty safe to assume that you feel a certain love for them. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great actually. You should love them. If you don’t love them, the fact that you’re going to spend endless hours and upwards of a 100,000 words writing about them would just be silly.
A problem arises when you love them so much that you start treating them the way you want them to be treated, rather than the way they need to be treated.
If it makes sense for them to get hurt, be prepared to hurt them. If they have to die to get across your point, I suggest you find yourself a sturdy tree and pull out the hangman’s noose.
Remember that great story where everything always worked out for everyone and everything was fantastic all of the time?
No?
That’s because it doesn’t exist.
You can’t be a good friend to your characters. You have to be a terrible friend. It’s a necessity of the relationship. At some point you’re going to make them hurt. You’re going to drag them through the mud and make them cry. You’re going to take them to the lowest of lows and just when they think you’re done hurting them, you’ll slap on some more.
It’s for their own good.
It has to be done and you’re the heartless jerk that has to do it.
In my opinion the love you feel for the characters you create has be a tough love. Anything else is a detriment to your story. It does them an injustice, it does you an injustice, and it does the term injustice, injustice.
Wait…
That last part didn’t make any sense.
Ignore the fact that I typed it.
Love your characters and love your story enough to be the jerk they need you to be.
Wow, that almost sounded like I knew what I was talking about – a little bit anyway. And I wasn’t even ruminating on the pros and cons of Velveeta Shells and Cheese as opposed to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
Don’t even get me started on that battle of the unhealthy titans.
We’d be here for hours.
Steven
(click for full size view) Dave hit the dancefloor with serious intent... but it didn't take him very long to realise that raves were not for him... (quickie ballpoint sketch.. quickie photoshop treatment)My Illustration BLOG.
By: Carol Brendler,
on 3/1/2010
Blog: JACKET KNACK
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 am beginning to see how Julie's and my personalities come through in the different ways we blog and in our choices of subject matter. After Julie's very thoughtful and themed Thursday post about covers on books about civil rights, I (C.) bring you this post, in which I've chosen to highlight an olio (crossword puzzle word) of some very silly book covers and other curious design-related things I've come across recently. Truly, we move from the sublime (Julie) to the ridiculous (moi).
For example, how about that capital "I" at the beginning of this post, huh? The big illuminated letter at the beginning of a manuscript is known as a "versal" (which I just learned and now you did, too). You can get free ones to use on your own blog at the Daily Drop Cap.
Here's a(n undoubtedly very important and instructive) book about nostrils, which comes from Curious Pages, a most awesome blog:
The Curious Pages masthead image is the cover of Struwwelpeter, the ever-charming, ever-frightening children's book of cautionary tales, which alone illustrates what the blog's focus is. Subversive. Here's another cover they dug up for us on that blog, The Man Who Lost His Head by Claire Huchet Bishop and Robert McCloskey, 1942:
Gah!!!! Mommy, why? Don't let Ouack, Nack, and the rest see that.
A little off-topic, but so cool-->This site boasts an archive of every known cover ever made of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds from 1898 through 2009. Here's one I especially liked:
This article from The Spectacle delves into why some covers, The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman (HarperCollins/Greenwillow) for example, undergo several changes over the course of their lives. It's not particularly silly or curious, except that I know some of us are curious about why covers are changed. (Did you see that? Did you see how I changed the meaning of curious? Gosh, I'm awesome sometimes.)
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1 Comments on A Little Nonsense Now and Then . . ., last added: 3/4/2010
By: Joe Sottile,
on 10/7/2009
Blog: Joe Silly Sottile's Blog
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On Tuesday of this week I had the honor of recording three of my poems at the WXXI Radio Station. Poems and stories by various authors in the Rochester Area Children's Writers and Illustrators group (RACWI) are being used to promote the November 7th's book festival at MCC. It was fun and exciting to record poetry in front of a big microphone, eight stories up in downtown Rochester. The view behind me was amazing--highways, bridges, skyscrappers, and distant walkways. So how did my little photo shoot turn out. Well, you can be the judge of the above one. Give it a caption in the comment section. It's okay to be funny, silly, serious, sarcastic, or whatever. I have one that I thought was a riot, but I don't want to influence you. Go ahead, take a shot at it! Thanks ahead of time!
Have you ever known anyone with a silly name? I know several people with silly names. Here are a few. These are real names of people I know.
- Jerry Derryberry
- Justin Case ( Just in case)
- Lou Sir (loser)
- Harry Butts
- Mr. Pehole
- Mr. Dicky
- Race Carr
- Dr. Love
- Alpha Omega
- Icie Glove
- Bunny Hop
- Kanoe Waters
- Daisy Flowers
- Chow Maine
- River Fish
Have you ever known anyone with a silly name? I know several people with silly names. Here are a few. These are real names of people I know.
- Jerry Derryberry
- Justin Case ( Just in case)
- Lou Sir (loser)
- Harry Butts
- Mr. Pehole
- Mr. Dicky
- Race Carr
- Dr. Love
- Alpha Omega
- Icie Glove
- Bunny Hop
- Kanoe Waters
- Daisy Flowers
- Chow Maine
- River Fish
...wild thingys...
Back in January, I wrote about my preparations for all of my students to be involved in literature circles. It's interesting how the groups have evolved and the directions they are going now that they have found a rhythm in the balancing act of reading at a pace for the literature circle: making sure you meet your deadlines to be respectful of the other group members AND to be prepared for discussion PLUS to avoid the withering look Ms. Hahn might give you (along with the patient lecture about meeting deadlines, respect for other members of the group and being prepared for discussions).
The group that has been meeting continuously all through fourth and fifth grade is now  reading their "hardest" book yet -- The Secret Garden. They've been pleasantly surprised to find that although (or because?) it is their hardest book, we are having our best conversations. We're focusing on language (lots of Yorkshire-isms and old-fashioned words to puzzle out, along with some flowery similes and metaphors...no pun intended) and on how the author uses language to convey a mood.
I wanted to push the group of capable readers who read Mary Pope Osborne's Revolutionary War on Wednesday and The American Revolution: A Nonfiction Companion to Revolutionary War on Wednesday, so I offered The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. The were wary when they held it for the first time. It was "long." Maybe "too long." So I did something I rarely do: I pretty much outlined the whole story for them as we looked at the cover picture, the blurb on the back, and the map of the castle inside. They thought it sounded like it might be good, and they decided they could probably read 25 pages in the week before we met again. The next day, the most reluctant member, who had never read a book that long and was pretty sure he couldn't, asked to reconvene the group so he could try to convince them to read more -- he had finished 25 pages in one day, he was hooked, and he knew the rule about not reading past the stopping point. If I haven't done anything else of value this year, I have shown that one student what it's like to get sucked into a story so great you don't want to put it down!
Even  before we had finished The Travels of Thelonious, I knew what book I wanted that group to move to -- The City of Ember by Jeanne du Prau. I think the comparisons and contrasts of these two books of speculative fiction about a future where humans have almost, but not quite completely destroyed the planet (and who survives and how and why) will be fascinating. I read Thelonious for the first time with the group...great book! Review to follow soon!
The Friday Group has finished all five books in the Akiko Pocket-Size graphic novel series. An unlikely, formerly invisible-by-choice boy has emerged as a leader in the group. He is lobbying strongly for Time Cat as the book they read next. I think it would be a perfect pick for them -- just the right mix of fantasy and history.
The A-Z Detective Camp group continues to slog along at a chapter a week. They want to read something harder next time...maybe Castle in the Attic will work for them, too. Just at a slower pace than the Tuesday Group.
Those are the five groups from my classroom. Then, as if I didn't have enough reading to juggle, I agreed to organize a free author visit for our fourth and fifth graders. Angie Sage will be coming to our school in mid-April, compliments of HarperCollins Publishers and Cover to Cover Children's Books. We didn't have enough time to try to get every 4th and 5th grade student through one (or hopefully more) of Angie Sage's thick-ish fantasy books, so I am doing literature circles with a few fourth graders from each class and another with a few fifth graders from each class. I am listening to Magyk on cassettes in the car. It's a fun story that really moves along with lots of characters, plenty of action, a bunch of unanswered questions, and short chapters that have provocative titles. I often find myself sitting in the school parking lot or my driveway, listening for just a bit more...just until there's a good stopping spot!
Finally, in every other waking moment, I am reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson for my adult book club. Bryson writes about growing up in the 1950's with his characteristic dry humor. My growing up started exactly ten years after the 1950's, so this sometimes reads like history for me, but much of it rings quite true. As of today, I am halfway through. Jury's still out on whether I'll be finished by Tuesday.
NOW do you understand why I have that huge pile of professional journals and NYTimes Book Reviews that lie untouched?!? Why I still haven't finished The Higher Power of Lucky, or Clementine, or Hugo Cabret?!? And sadly, not only are there books to read, there are papers to grade. Sigh.
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1 Comments on A Little Nonsense Now and Then . . ., last added: 3/4/2010
I see Sue Miller on the right!