Celebrating Characters; A USA Network Giveaway!!

Well-developed, believable characters are key to any good story, whether in a novel or a TV show. After all, if viewers can't sympathize with a character and believe in their story, why would they read the book? Or tune in to a TV show?

The USA Network has long prided themselves on interesting and often fun characters. To celebrate the end of the summer season, they're offering up a bag of goodies (valued at $590!!)

(For a list of the USA Network shows wrapping up their seasons over the next month, click here).

USA Summer Essentials Bag 2011 contents:

* Zipbuds with Custom USA Pull

* Powerstick w/2G Memory

* Edith A. Miller Nautical Shirt for Women

* J. Crew Navy Polo Shirt for Men

* Bobbi Brown Beach Body Lotion & Scrub

* Surfrider Bobble Water Bottle

* Jogo Head Hammock in Green

* Jogo Head Hammock in Blue

* Haagen Daz $25 Gift Card

* Customized Ice Cream Scoop

* Plush Navy Beach Towel w/USA Summer Logo

* Entertainment Weekly Summer Guide

* The New Yorker Talk of the Town Special Issue

* Ray Ban Unisex Aviator Sunglasses

So how do you enter you ask? One, you have to have a U.S. mailing address. And second, tell me who is your favorite USA Network character and why in the comments below. (S/he doesn't have to be the lead. Because come on, Auggie on Covert Affairs is really awesome, and not just because he has mad tech skills. He's sweet, loyal, and an all-around good guy).

If you want to win, be sure to include your email address in the comments too!

Contest ends August 31st at Midnight Central Time.

Good luck!

The Return of the Slap

Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap

How I Met Your Mother: Season 5, Episode 9

Lily's estranged father shows up at Thanksgiving, and Marshall gives Robin and Ted a gift: one of them can slap Barney, bringing the total Slap-bet count to 4.

In working on my fanfic script of HIMYM, I had envisioned Lily's dad as a stodgy, old man named Alderman Aldrin. But in "Slapsgiving 2," the writers took a totally different route - although I hit the nail on the head when I considered him estranged. In last night's episode, Mr. Mickey Aldrin was an inattentive father who preferred to create boardgames - like Tijuana Slumlord, Car Battery, and There's a Clown Demon Under The Bed - rather than spend time with his daughter. To top things off, his character is played by Chris Elliott, who is the perfect actor for a quirky father who doesn't understand why his boardgames aren't selling.

Lily had yet another angry role to play this season, but it was the first time we saw the effects of her red-eyed death stare. She went through a whole gamut of emotions in this episode, from considering her dad dead, to storming out after finding out Marshall invited him to Thanksgiving, to realizing that she doesn't want to stay angry at her father forever. While it was nice to see a storyline for Marshall and Lily, it was Marshall's desire to bring the family closer together that won me over, rather than Lily's about-face while sitting in the neighborhood bodega.


While Marshall was out of line in inviting Mickey over, it made sense for his character. As Lily mentions, he has a tight-knit family that still includes him - via Webcam - for Sunday night dinners. His approach to getting Lily and her father reunited may have been a bit too much, but in the end, it worked out (albeit a bit too quickly) and Lily and her father started to make amends.

While the Lily & Marshall storyline had some heart, it was the slap bet everyone looked forward to in this episode. Who's going to hit Barney? Robin, who is still getting over the breakup, or Ted, who really has no reason to hit Barney at all? Not knowing who makes Barney flinch every time one of them moves, prompting him to worry about getting 'crow's feet'.

The two roommates argue over who has more of a right to slap Barney across the face, and Barney encourages it. If they don't make a decision before sundown - aka before dinner - then no slap will be had. "No way" passed my lips when Ted proclaimed that he was still in love with Robin, which is why he deserves to be the slapper, but (thankfully) Robin called him out on his lie.

Two minutes til sundown, Robin and Ted realize the 'slap' isn't fun anymore when they argue about it, and Robin gives the gift of the slap to Ted. He winds up and then...he stops. He gives the slap to Robin, who goes through the same process of getting ready, only to realize that someone else should get to slap Barney, who is nervously waiting in the Slap Throne. Robin gives the slap to Mickey, who gives it to Lily, who can't do it either... which of course prompts Marshall to cheer about how the Slap Bet brought everyone together. He then tells Barney that there will be no slapping today, Barney confidently stands up, and Marshall slaps him across the face. Awesome.

Although, it wasn't as good as the 'original Slapsgiving,' with Barney taunting Marshall and the Slapsgiving song, and Robin and Ted figuring out how to be friends after they broke up. (Major Bummer! Salute.) Barney did nothing really to deserve the slap this time around, unlike when he put on a play, but Marshall played it well, as he did throughout both his storylines in this episode.

What did you think of this season's slap? Do you think they'll show the final slap before the show is eventually over? What did you think about Barney not being the center of attention in this episode (even if he was the receiver of the slap)? Did you gasp when Ted told Robin he loved her? And what did you think of Mickey and his boardgames - especially "Diseases," which explodes all over the turkey?


Share your thoughts below!

Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS ©2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Adding more characters to my WIP

I've been blogging about adding new characters to my work-in-progress, Through Charlotte's Eyes, so I thought I'd start a discussion about this very topic. Have you ever written a draft, only to realize that you need to add a character? Combine a couple characters? Or remove a character entirely?

I'm currently working on draft 3.5 (I call it this because I've rewritten/revised the first half of my novel more than I have the second half), and the idea of adding new characters seems a bit overwhelming. But then I think about how the novel will progress with these new characters and how these characters will influence the main characters, and it seems a tad less daunting.

Not only that, but as I revise my current draft, I notice scenes with plot holes that are filled perfectly by these new characters, as if I'd left a space for them at the dinner table and I was just waiting for them to arrive.

As of right now, I'm adding two characters in, each of whom play a pretty hefty role, along with a handful of minor characters.

One of the new characters is Leonoor, a girl from the States who is studying abroad in Paris. She runs into Anne a few times before they become friends. I'm still fleshing out her character's back story, but so far she's looking to be the antithesis of Anne's best friend from home. She's intelligent, driven, and always on the lookout to try something new. Unlike Anne's best friend, she knows how to take care of herself.

The second new character plays a large part in Charlotte's life. He is Aunt Bretteville's protector, who keeps track of the family's finances. But, unlike many people in Caen, he shares Charlotte's moderate views: he wants a revolution, but a peaceful one, and he doesn't believe in the authority of the king. While Charlotte never intends to marry, she finds a companion in Jacques [tentative name that will definitely be changed] that is nothing like the relationships she has with any other men in her life.

Biographies dispute whether or not such a figure actually existed in Charlotte's life, but as I write her story and the reasons for why she decided to murder Marat, it has become clear that Charlotte needed someone to talk to about what she wanted for France and why. Plus, her relationship to him adds an entirely new dimension to why she leaves for Paris in the first place.

As these characters develop and play larger roles in the lives of my main characters, my novel really feels like it's coming together the way I envision it. It's one step closer, and that's a great feeling.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to work on adding these characters in. Do I start from the beginning and work my way towards the end? But that means revising Chapters 1 through 11 again, without having touched Chapters 12 through 30. (I have the nagging feeling that I keep ignoring the last half of my novel, for good reason).

Or, do I add the characters in as I continue revising/rewriting the last half of the novel? But what if they change dramatically based on how they're introduced in the first half? Maybe, for now, I'll mark the spots where they'll play a large role and then go back? Then again, I worry, that will make the story too stilted. Ah, the decisions! I'm thinking I just have to suck it up and start revisions from the beginning... again.

Now, your turn! Have you ever finished a draft, only to realize that some of your characters needed to change in drastic ways? Have you added new characters? How have you gone about putting the characters into your next draft? Comment below!

To Move Forward, Look Back

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see."
~Winston Churchill

I can't attribute breaking through my writer's block to only putting my novel aside for a few weeks. Over the past month, as I tried writing - or working through my writing - in my head, I realized I was stuck because I still needed to know more about my characters, specific details about their past and not just generalities.

Developing my character sketches is one route, but I'm taking Ginger's advice (from a comment posted to an earlier post), and developing stories out of my character's background/history.

Right now, I'm working on Anne's childhood, specifically a story about dealing with the pain of losing her mother when she was eight-years-old. Ideas keep bubbling over, of things I should include, of things that will affect who she will become when she turns 18 and goes to Paris - and learns that what she once thought about her mother's death was completely false.

The issue I'm running into now is the complete opposite. I feel like I have too much information to include in the short story. (Don't get me wrong; I'd take this "obstacle" any day). Where does this story begin? End? Do I include Anne's struggles in making friends, partially due to her mother raising Anne to speak French and not English? Since I know her mother isn't really dead, as Anne believes, do I hint at it? Do I use third-person or first? (Since my novel is in third-person, I'm inclined to use that, but as I write this first short story of many, I find myself shifting back and forth between third and first... which is interesting considering the novel and how Anne switches between her own perspective and Charlotte's... definitely something to think about more).

My solution - for now - is to get down everything I can, and then start chopping the really unnneccesary stuff (and putting it in a separate file for possible later use in my novel).

It's interesting, "getting to know" characters, delving into their pasts, their histories, as if they existed. I once heard that a professor/author had a conversation with a passenger in his car late at night. It wasn't until he got home that he realized he was talking to a "character" from his novel. Creepy - in that he was really talking to himself, but interesting - in that all writers, I think, need to be able to "speak" to their characters, know how they'd react and what they'd say in any given situation, if they are really going to develop and depict characters that readers can truly believe in.

So, for me, I'm looking backwards, developing my character's backgrounds even more so that I can move forward in my character's life.

Sidenote: If anyone knows who that author was, that had that "conversation" with his character, please remind me, because it's really bothering me that I don't remember!

Whaling, paranormal, history, mystery and more

The Boundless Deep, a fiction novel by Kate Brallier

Why I Picked Up This Book:
In my work-in-progress novel, I ask my readers to believe that the main character, Anne-Marie Gessner, can not only travel back in time to the French Revolution, but also experience the world as if she was inside the head of her distant relative. Brallier's protagonist experiences something similiar. The main character, Liza, has vivid dreams of whaling, yet she's never even been to the sea. I picked up this book to see how Brallier made the paranormal believable, as well as how she manuevered between past and present.

Review:
When Liza and her best-friend/roommate Jane summer in Nantucket, Liza's visions of the past and of whaling become even more real. It doesn't help matters that she's living in Jane's Aunt Kitty's home - which was once home to Obadiah Young, whose life, Liza begins to think, she's witnessing when she "experiences" the past.

Liza begins to ask "why me?" even as she tries to retain some sense of normalcy over her life. She begins dating Adam, the hunky young curator at the Nantucket Historical Association, even while attempting to ignore her burgeoning feelings for Lucian, Aunt Kitty's nephew. Yet, the the visions/experiences grow more intense in every way possible. - especially once she starts having vivid, sexual dreams about being with Obadiah. (Warning to readers: these sexual dreams read like erotica). Through her visions, Liza also learns that Obadiah allegedly killed his wife, Lucy, before leaving on his ship and disappearing forever.

The characters, especially Liza who wants to understand why she's having these "visions", seem to develop naturally as their relationships continually evolve and progress. Jane is an energetic sprite; Lucian is characterized as hard and restrained but passionate; and Liza is unsure of herself, even of her own beauty. As for the historical characters, they are vividly drawn as well, albeit somewhat murkily; after all, Liza is sorting out the past, figuring out their relationships, trying to find out if it's Obadiah's life she's really experiencing, and attempting to solve the hundred-year-old mystery surrounding the death of Obadiah's wife.

It is actually one of the characters of the present - Adam - who seems the most problematic, as if he doesn't have much of a personality nor a place in Liza's new family, Jane and her relatives. As the novel progresses, though, it seems that effect was quite intended.

The character development comes to a crashing halt with the novel's "twist," which a careful reader will pick up on well before it occurs. It doesn't help matters that the readers will know how the story will end, even if Liza doesn't, simply because all the other characters know as well.

Despite the predictable ending, the novel is an intriguing read that carefully - and quite successfully - blends the past with the present, whether through dreams or Liza witnessing the street and harbor morph before her eyes. Liza has a mystery to solve - why is she witnessing the past? Did Obadiah really kill Lucy? I didn't expect to enjoy a novel about "whaling," but I learned a ton and read a good story while I was at it, despite the less-than-perfect "twist."

The Takeaway
I'm struggling with whether dreams are the right way for Anne-Marie to "experience" her distant relative's past, but Brallier uses dreams so often and so vividly that it worked quite well. Dreams are definitely a good way of allowing characters to access the past, but I think other things, like visions while walking down the street, also work well, as Brallier demonstrated throughout.

I also found it intriguing that Liza learned how to harness her knowledge of the past, and force her memory to recall things when she needed to. Then again, if she was able to do that, why is she unable to remember whose experiences she's having/seeing? Despite that lingering question, I'm definitely going to play around with the idea of Anne being able to recall things she didn't necessarily experience or see on her many forays into Charlotte's mind.

My one really big qualm with Liza's visions is how she didn't want to believe they were real. Halfway into the novel she is still questioning her sanity. I get that it seems to be a crazy and difficult-to-explain experience, but it was incredibly distracting in regards to the rest of the plot. As a reader, I grew frustrated and wanted her to move on. I accepted that this other reality was possible, so why couldn't she?

From the very start of writing my novel, I decided that Anne was going to question the reality of her experiences for only so long - like half a page - and then she was going to accept what was happening to her and focus on the real issues at stake in the novel. The Boundless Deep, and the way Brallier handled the issue of 'sanity' and 'normalcy,' confirms that, at least in this respect, I'm on that right track with how I want to handle Anne's paranormal experiences.

Writing Prompt #1

This is a new category. I'll post a short blurb about something I've noticed, or a snippet of conversation I've heard, or just something random thing that I've thought of, and then I'll pose a writing-prompt question. Take it any way you see fit, and please post your writing in the comments section so we can see all the different things people come up with.

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The homeless man stands outside the Dunkin Donuts on Lake Street, just as he does every day. The snow sprinkles his dark, fuzzy, uncombed hair. He shakes his cup as he stares down the little, white girl walking away from him.

She's looking down at the sidewalk. Her mouth is open wide but her jaw is tight; the tension in her temples visible from a good ten feet away. She brushes off the shoulder of her blue coat with a Kleenex. Not once does she look behind her as she walks away.

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What caused this scene to occur? What will happen after? Provide background and more characterization for these two figures.

Will Work For Food

So what if Adam Gertler didn't win on last season's "The Next Food Network Star"? The Food Network gave him his own show, "Will Work For Food," anyway. And, in my opinion, Gertler should have won in the first place, and not "Big Daddy," Aaron McCargo, Jr.

I don't know if this past Sunday's show was the first of the season (the show was originally announced back in the summer but I hadn't heard of it until a commercial last week), and yesterday was the first time I'd seen an episode, thanks to my DVR.

There's no comparison between "Will Work For Food" and "Big Daddy's House." McCargo's cooking show is spliced together strangely (too many takes, I'm guessing?) and he still tends to mumble and say odd things that, really, say nothing about the food. (I only watched a few minutes of "Big Daddy," but that was more than enough). Gertler's show is more about what happens before a person can get cooking; More of a "Dirty Jobs" kind of show, if you will.

The trickiness of any show like this, is that it depends on learning a job from someone who is hopefully interesting and entertaining, like Adam.

In the first segment, Gertler joined the crew of a lobster boat and learned how to reel in lobster cages, measure a lobster, and rubber band the crustacean's claws. The work was interesting, but the man in charge of the lobster boat was not. As Adam asked questions of him, it was like pulling teeth. Adam, with his quirky personality, and his talk of feeling green could only do so much. Lesson for writing? All of your characters need to be fleshed out or have a distinctive personality. You can't have one character take over, for he feeds and works off the other players around him. The captain of the lobster boat did have one redeeming moment, though. "Where's your lobster bib?" Adam asked as they sat down to enjoy their catch at the end of the day. The captain responded, "Real lobster men don't wear bibs."

The second half of the show really picked up, definitely in part because of the beekeepers that were training Adam. While Adam was decked out in a full beekeeper suit (in 100+ degree weather, no less), the professionals only wore headgear, not even bothering to use gloves, saying that they slowed them down. They explained how to smoke the bees before handling the hives as well as the different kinds of honey bees - the queen bee, workers, and the drones (who don't sting). To demonstrate that the drones really don't sting, they shoved one into Adam's suit. Awesome.

Adam's random, offbeat humor makes this non-cooking show enjoyable. Let's just hope his "employers" keep entertaining as well. But no matter what, Adam Gertler has me as a fan.

First Chapter: The Boundless Deep

In this category of “First Chapter,” I’ll be writing about—as the name implies—the first chapter of the novel I’m currently reading. This idea originates from my “Intensive Fiction” class with fiction writer and University of Chicago professor Elizabeth Crane. In class, we read first chapters of novels and talked about the ways in which the writer introduced characters and themes, as well as got readers interested (or not) in reading more of the novel. I’ll try to do the same here, and then write a book review when I’m done with the full novel, to see the way my perceptions about the book, characters, etc. changed since writing about the first chapter. So, here goes nothing…

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“The Boundless Deep” by Kate Brallier

Brallier starts the novel with a dream. She even writes, “It always starts with a dream.” This could have been off-putting had I not known from the book jacket that this novel is about a girl plagued by dreams of whaling despite never having been to the sea.

The dream itself is vivid, in part because of the highly-descriptive verbs Brallier uses: slapping, screaming, blasted up, chapping, watering (and that’s just from the first couple of sentences). And, from the very start, the focus is clearly on the dream imagery—a sperm whale is harpooned and the crew struggles to control it before it either dives back into the water or crashes into their boat. The main character, the dreamer, just seems to exist as part of the background, the one who is witnessing the whaling; this demands that the reader wonder about the dreams, more so than the dreamer.

The dreamer gives no detail of himself/herself, except when recognizing that they are fully aware that they are dreaming. “As the captain on that long-ago deck, I don’t know it; but I, the dreamer, know it,” writes Brallier.

When the dreamer wakes up, a full five pages into the first chapter, we are finally introduced to the main character, but, again and again, we are reminded about how these dreams have been consuming so much of her waking life, even though both are at odds with one another. In describing the dreams, she compares them to her practical, Midwestern childhood. All of this clearly hints at dilemma #1: why is she dreaming these dreams? Is she haunted, experiencing a universal consciousness, or reincarnated? And, most important to her, why her? Why can’t she just be normal, like everyone else?

Enter Jane, Liza’s roommate. Jane changes the color of her hair once a week, doesn’t know how to cook, is intelligent, and wants to know what’s going on with Liza’s dreams, even more so, it seems, than Liza herself does. (Most of this description of Jane is given through the telling of the story, not thrown in as facts unrelated to anything else).

This first chapter, we also learn, takes place the day Liza and Jane are to leave on their summer trip to Nantucket, to stay with Jane’s Aunt Kitty. Liza is finally doing something about her dreams; she’s going to the place she’s been dreaming about in hopes of figuring out what is causing her dreams. From the very start, Liza is breaking out of what is comfortable for her. As she justifies it, “After all, there’s only so long you can live with your head buried in the sand before you suffocate, right?”

So, strange whaling dreams plus main character reaching out beyond what she knows (and is comfortable with) equals a novel that I’m interested in learning more about. Brallier successfully introduces the main character and her sidekick, while also portraying the character’s main conflicts—and, it all happened in the nine-pages of the first chapter.

Barney + Robin = AWFSOME

The beginning of How I Met Your Mother’s fourth season may not have been as ridiculous and hilarious as earlier seasons, but last night’s episode had me oohing and aahing and sighing over Barney (NPH) and his continuing affection for Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders).

Maybe it’s partially because Neil Patrick Harris’s acting skills are above and beyond or maybe it’s because his comedic timing is simply genius (why oh why, didn’t he win the “Best Supporting Actor” at the Golden Globes on Sunday?!?!?). Or maybe it’s also because of the great characters that creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas created years ago.

As the CBS show was originally conceived, the main character of HIMYM, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), was supposed to fall in love and (eventually) marry Robin. Sure, Ted fell for Robin and even dated her for the entirety of Season 3, but it was clear from the very first episode of the very first season that Bays and Thomas had changed their mind about this particular couple. C’mon, at the very end of that first episode, Ted reveals that she ends up being “Aunt Robin.”

Cue Barney and Robin’s potential as a couple.

Both of their characters—like the rest of the cast, including Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel)—have distinct personalities. Robin is the gun-toting, scotch-drinking, hockey-loving, two-time Canadian pop star. Barney, from the start, has been defined by his womanizing ways, his magic tricks, his theories about relationships (the Hot-Crazy scale, Lemon Law, and, last night’s “every single international conflict essentially boils down to sexual tension,” etc.), his catchy phrases said in a high-pitched voice (“Suit up!”, “AWESOME”, etc.), and his eternal devotion to the Bro Code—all of this combined makes Barney one of the best and biggest crowd favorites of the show.

From the start, a Barney and Robin coupling made much more sense than Robin and Ted. Look way back into Season 1, Episode 14, “Zip Zip Zip,” when Robin has a “bro’s night out” with Barney and not only plays laser tag but also “suits up” to go smoke cigars. Barney declares that Robin is a much better wing-man than Ted ever was. Or, ask other die-hard viewers, and they’ll say they were rooting for Barney and Robin since Season 1, Episode 4, "Return of the Shirt," when Barney paid Robin to say things like “booger” and “I’m a bad, bad girl” during her news broadcasts.

The initial and most obvious problem with Barney falling for Robin is that he is a show favorite because of his ridiculous womanizing ways. He can’t be womanizing and be in love with Robin, can he? The writers have been struggling with balancing his womanizing with his crush on Robin for some time—ever since Robin and Barney’s one-night stand, or maybe even before.

This season the writers have even forgone certain themes to make Barney’s secret crush stay secret. For one, Lily’s inability to keep a secret isn’t a factor in that she’s kept Barney’s secret (even from Marshall!) since the first episode of this season.

Yet, Barney is changing. Sure, he’s failed miserably at trying to stop sleeping around, but throughout Season 4 so far, we’ve had small doses of Barney pining after Robin, such as him turning on her newscast just to see her on TV, as well as his attempts to show Robin how much he has changed, such as initially ignoring the large-chested waitress on their pseudo-date. But, all in all, he’s been the same ol’ Barney who will sleep with anything that moves.

This brings us to last night’s episode.

Robin and Ted’s decision to start sleeping together in order to avoid fighting as roommates didn’t result in Barney congratulating Ted with a “Relapse High 5” as in previous episodes. Anything but. Instead, upon hearing of Ted and Robin’s “friends with benefits” relationship, Barney exclaimed, “So, wow, you two, slept together, that is awfsome. Awfsome.” He also started breaking TVs (as well as buying TVs to break) to deal with his unspoken frustration at his best friend sleeping with the woman he loves.

Barney eventually takes action by cleaning up Ted’s apartment and fixing anything that might cause a fight between Ted and Robin—consequently, cutting them off from sleeping with one another. He takes out the trash, buys 10,000 stamps, fills the fridge with milk, and buys them a dishwasher (and forgets to take off the price tag). Ted quickly realizes that Barney has cleaned his apartment because Barney is in love with Robin. Of course, Barney doesn’t man up to this, opting instead to share his feelings to Lily’s Kindergarten class during Tuesday’s sharing time. (The fact that Ted is okay with the idea of Barney being in love with his ex is just another reason why this show is awesome, but that’s another post for another day).

Even when Barney decides to admit to Ted that, yes, he really is in love with Robin, he runs into Robin instead. But he hears the news he’s been waiting for: Ted officially called off the “friends with benefits” relationship. Unfortunately, Robin doesn’t get it, thinking that Ted is the one who will “get hurt” if they had kept it up. Then, she only makes it worse (thereby causing Barney’s face to drop—which just pulls at your heartstrings) when she declares, “Dating friends never works out.”

Considering all of Barney’s quirky reactions in this episode, the writers were quite successful in keeping around the same-old Barney we’ve come to love over the past few seasons while also creating a Barney capable of caring for and having a relationship with Robin. Barney, really, doesn’t have to change that much, and, really, he shouldn’t. Barney and Robin’s established personalities naturally fit together and have from the very start. They work. If only Robin saw it too.

Luckily, we still have plenty more episodes. And now that Ted knows? It’s only a matter of time before Marshall, and eventually, Robin will too.

And then just imagine all the possibilities of Barney navigating a relationship for the first time!!! Yeah, he’s still going to be the Barney we know and love—but he’s going to prove he’s capable of loving Robin too.