Janet Evanovich's writing advice

just some writing advice for the writer

Janet Evanovich and Ina Yalof's advice:

CHARACTERS:
-A well-developed character is multidimensional, with quirks and flaws, dreams, motivations, and values.

-watch people, eavesdrop, take certain characteristics and use it in your story.

-the main character must always want something, someone or something must stand in the way of what they want, and the choices made to overcome the obstacles define the character.

-writers control what happens to the story and the characters, not the characters themselves.

-for a believable character, pay attention to the details describing them, make the dialogue unique to them, remember it's ok to exaggerate the actions to make them bigger than life, and describe early in the book physical characteristics, backround/ history, ethics, and morals.

-write a profile of each major character to keep facts straight.

-character's name should suggest certain traits like social or ethnic backround, or something unusual about the character

-mix and match names fromyearbooks, telephonebooks, and baby name books or sites and don't fall prey to the trendy names of today- make it age appropriate (popular names 20 years ago, thirty years ago,ect...)

-do research to get your facts straight

-let the characters grow

-age your characters if you want

MECHANICS OF WRITING:
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