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Copywriting: Techniques for a Great Body!
1) Think about your Readers When writing ad copy be sure that the average reader can easily understand and relate to it. Put yourself in their place. Would you understand? Would you say, "That's me"? One way to help you write for your readers, is...

Dreading the Writing Assignment? Outlines to the Rescue
Writing technical articles is a challenge. There you sit, surrounded by reams of research, notes and interviews. Where do you start? Remember 5th grade English? You start with an outline. Outlining has fallen on hard times lately. Mind...

Seven Ways To Connect Your Writing And Your Life
An important question for any artist is: How can I built a career and simultaneously be true to myself? It's an important question, and during the twenty years I've taught writing, hundreds of students have expressed the belief that success and...

Writing Made Them Rich #2: Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was born in Portsea, England, in 1812. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, stationed at Portsmouth. Although his job was well paid, his father had a weakness for spending money and spent much of his life in chronic...

Writing, Reading, Speaking, Talking
Finding the Sweet Spot in Dialogue Writing Over the years I have heard complaints from various quartersfriends, students, and familythat even if they could write the story theyve always wanted to tell, they could never get the dialogue to sound...

 
Creative Writing Tips - Have You Established Your Main Character At The Start?


In the beginning of your story you have to grab your readers interest and sustain it till the end. Our hook is our character. Readers keep on reading to find out more about the character. To see what hell do in the story; how hell solve his problems. What his goals are and whether hell achieve them.

And because our character is the reason readers become hooked on our stories, establishing him at the start is a must in a short story. And it is essential to establish him at the start because we dont have the capacity in our limited word length to introduce him at our leisure.

The bond between readers and character has to be developed almost immediately.

You might have a few characters though. How do you decide who your main character will be? A main character is one that drives the story.

Think of it this way If we were to take him away, there will be no story because its his story we are telling. The story will unfold by what is happening or what has happened to him.

When you establish who your main character will be, the next thing to do is to find which of your characters is in the best position to tell the story. Will your main character tell his story or will you give that role to another character?

This is what we call Viewpoint and what well see in more detail in proceeding chapters.

Your main character isnt necessarily the one who is telling the story; he might not even appear in our story physically but will be there through the thoughts of others. So the viewpoint character might be a secondary character.

Whoever is telling the story is the viewpoint character.

The viewpoint character gives the coloring of the story. Whatever this characters says, we will believe. It may or may not be true, according to the main character, but because he isnt there physically to voice his opinions, we will have to take the viewpoint characters word for it.

In a novel you can play around with viewpoint. You can have several viewpoint characters. In a short story it works best with one.

So your main character, whether hell be telling his own story or someone else will be doing it for him, has to be established at the start of your story.

Having said that, lets see the reasons why the main character may not be telling his own story...



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  • Perhaps our main character is one that readers wont sympathize or empathize with.

  • Or the main character will not view highly with our readers

  • Or the viewpoint character knows all the facts and can tell the story better

  • Etc.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me give you an example of a secondary character telling the story of a main character

Lets say your secondary character is a psychiatrist and the main character is the patient. Depending on whats going to go on in the story, well have to choose whos in a better position to tell it. In this case, I will choose the psychiatrist.

Ive done this because the patient is confused, being the one with the problems. The psychiatrist knows all the facts and his opinions will make things clearer to readers.

So, as the secondary character (the psychiatrist) unravels the story, well become involved in the main character because its the main characters story that is been told.

This may get a little confusing to the beginner writer. As they write they will have to keep in mind that the secondary character, although hes telling the story, is NOT our main character.

The secondary character is there to do perform a task. Hes only the voice. Its the main character well become involved with.

A secondary character doesnt play such an important role as a main character does. Therefore, information about secondary characters should be kept to a minimum. Its not his story its the main characters story and the spotlight must, most times, be kept on the main character.

Take the above example for instance. Its no relevance to the story how the psychiatrist started his career or where he received his diploma whats important, is what he has to say about the main character, his patient.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introduce your main character straight away, as close to the beginning of the story thats possible. Enable your readers to form a bond and that will keep them hooked.

Is your main character established at the start of your story?

Besides his passion for writing, Nick Vernon runs an online gift site where you will find gift information, articles and readers funny stories. Visit http://www.we-recommend.com


 

Writing.Com: Writers, Writing, Poetry, Creative Writing, Fiction ...
An online community dedicated to fostering writing skills. With a free membership anyone may read, write, rate, and review works.
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Welcome to Writing-World.com!
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Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Guide to Grammar and Writing contains scores of digital handouts on grammar and English usage, over 170 computer-graded quizzes, recommendations on ...
grammar.ccc.commnet.edu
 
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab - The OWL Family of Sites
Writing lab and resources. Email newsletter available.
owl.english.purdue.edu
 
OWL at Purdue University: General Writing Concerns Handouts
This page contains important links to the writing: planning/writing/revising aspects of the OWL website.
owl.english.purdue.edu
 
Writing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The original Mesopotamian writing system was initially derived from a system of ... If it is deemed to be a written language, writing in China will predate ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
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Articles to help you launch a freelance writing career, from a former literary agent and PLAYBOY editor.
www.writing.org
 
Writing HTML
More than just an HTML reference, this is a structured approach for learning how to create web pages, designed by specialists in learning at the Maricopa ...
www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu
 
National Novel Writing Month - National Novel Writing Month
NaNoWriMo is an annual (November) novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world.
www.nanowrimo.org
 
Poynter Online
Apply by Dec. 11 Reporting and Writing the Untold Stories Apply by Dec. 11 ... Reporting & Writing for Multi-Platform Newsrooms. Apply by Jan. 10 ...
www.poynter.org
 
Pages tagged with "writing" on del.icio.us
This short online course provides a practical introduction to writing fiction. During the course you will be expected to write two short pieces for ...
del.icio.us
 
BBC Get Writing
The BBC's online resource for writing drama and comedy for television, radio and film.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
TOC About Writing
Menu of articles on writing written by professional SF/F writers.
www.sfwa.org
 
11 Rules of Writing -- a concise guide to important grammar ...
A concise guide to some of the most frequently violated rules of writing, punctuation, and grammar.
www.junketstudies.com
 
NAEP Writing Subject Area
NAEP assesses student performance in writing periodically in grades 4, 8, and 12 for the nation, and in grades 4 and 8 for the states.
nces.ed.gov
 
Writing: See what people are saying right now on Technorati
See all blog posts tagged with writing on Technorati.
www.technorati.com
 
IPL Teenspace: A+ Research & Writing
Includes step-by-step instructions on researching and writing, how to find information online and offline, as well as links to useful resources.
www.ipl.org
 
Dictionary.com: Writing Resources
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WritingFix: Home of Interactive Writing Prompts and 6 Trait ...
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Advice on Academic Writing
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