How Do Your Characters Stack Up? Using Real Life Events in Fiction Stories

You are as happy as you can be: your story, be it short story, novel or novelette, is finally finished. However, when you are using real life events as a source of inspiration, you may not always get a true-to-life effect. Before you send your work to a publisher, first check if the story makes sense as it does in real life.

In order to reach the final draft, you need to be tough with yourself and cast an editor's eye over your piece. Although real life events have their own logic, when you read your story from head to tail for the first time you will surely notice some plotting errors. However, there are other vital points you should check off when comparing your version of the story to the events that inspired you.

1. Is the behavior of your characters as believable as it should be? Bear in mind that in fiction, the people you describe rarely, if ever, act "out of character." If your character behaves differently, you have to be attentive to this and ask yourself whether this corresponds to a real life pattern.

2. Do your characters relate to each other as they should? As in real life, events in your story may influence the attitudes and emotions your characters have towards one another. Real people would always mention events that happened to them within the story -- make sure your characters do, too.

3. Do your characters manifest believable reactions? If in the same type of situation your character is once enraged and the other time annoyed, there is something wrong. If you have a real person in mind, you should be aware of the fact that real people are usually constant in their reactions.

4. Do readers understand what your characters are doing at the precise time they are doing it? You need to make clear what happens in your story, otherwise your readers will lose the thread and your story may be lost altogether. When transforming reality into fiction, make sure you don't forget any relevant links, so as to avoid alienating your readers.

5. Are your characters where they should be? You may easily have a character in two places at once if you do not control this critical thread. Especially if you have one or several subplots at the same time, you need to pay extra care as they can quickly spiral out of your control.

Checking all these points will take you a lot of time, dedication and effort. However, is you fail to make sure that your story makes sense according to the real events, you will only manage to waste your own time. Editors expect stories that hang together.

Copyright © Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

About Shery: Shery is the creator of WriteSparks!™- a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks!™ Lite for free at http://writesparks.com

What do your characters think?

Got one (or two) of your characters stuck? Don't know what to do with him/her? Is he/she getting too boring or predictable? Want to know more about his/her personality? Or maybe you have a story forming in the back of your mind but you don't know what to do with it just yet; you have a character but he/she isn't clear at this time.

Here's a quick, but fun, fix -- set your character up for a surprise and find out how he/she reacts.

A. First, choose a number from 1 to 5 -- quick! Done? See what you chose:

1. a pearl anklet
2. a bottle of expensive perfume
3. a silk shirt
4. a plain gold ring/band
5. a high-end cellphone

B. Next, choose another number from 1 to 5. Now see what you picked:

1. moldy bread
2. a used toothpick
3. a bottle of dead cockroaches
4. cotton buds drenched in blood
5. a dirty sock

C. Next, pick another number from 1 to 5. Here's what you picked:

1. a knapsack
2. a laptop bag
3. a plastic bag
4. a gift-wrapped box
5. a gym bag

D. Finally, pick yet another number -- yes, from 1 to 5. I promise this is the last time :o)

1. a convention
2. election day
3. Thanksgiving
4. a high school reunion
5. a store opening


Now put the plain gold ring/band (A) and the bottle of dead cockroaches (B) in a knapsack (C). Your character discovers the knapsack in the car of the incumbent mayor's chief of security on election day (D). Your character opens the knapsack and...

What's your character's reaction when he/she pulls out the "good" item, followed by the "bad" item"? Write it out. Get the emotions out of your character. Continue by exploring your character's thoughts -- What are his/her assumptions for the presence of those items in the knapsack? How does he/she connect the items with the circumstances?

Pick the items at random and experiment with your character's reactions. You have at least 500 "set ups" for your character at your disposal by combining the items in the 4 lists above.


Copyright (c) 2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ
Shery created WriteSparks! - a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks! Lite for free - http://writesparks.com