Dynamic in 24 hours May 24, 2006

Transform Your Character in One Day
by Arlene M. Paredes

Previously, this column discussed how to write a “one-day short story” (a story that transpires within 24 hours) and satisfy readers with a resolution or conclusion that is justified by the circumstances in the story.

This time, we will look into ways of effectively transforming characters, both protagonists and antagonists, without giving readers the impression that the whole transformation was either a miracle or was magic-bound. That is our task as story writers, relating life stories to readers in the most realistic way possible. (Of course, the rules are rather different if we are writing fairy tales and such.)

We often hear people saying something like, “One day I just woke up and realized things have changed.” But of course we shouldn’t take this literally. We don’t just wake up and realize something! We live through a moment and discover something (and at first, we will even fail to notice the hint of change but indeed, it has happened).

The transformation shouldn’t be too general as from-good-to-bad or vice versa. It would be more interesting to show more specific changes than give general implications. For instance, you may give hints on how a cheating husband decided to settle with his wife and forget his other affairs; how a coward beau learned to gather his guts and take risks; or, how a totally miserable old man learned to enjoy life again. Can these transformations take place in less than 24 hours? Yes.

Look around you. Find a person whom you’d like to transform emotionally or spiritually, even only in your imagination, and write about how you think he could forget about his old ways, in just one day.

Here are some basic tips on writing your “transformation in a day” story:

1. Don’t tell all, let them talk. It is understandable that you would want to describe your characters in a narrative since giving them dialogues could make you run out of space, so to speak. However, for a more delicious read, you ought to properly combine or balance your narrative with your character’s remarks, quips and sentiments, such that your readers would feel that they have “met” or “heard” your characters before.
2. Expose the flaws early. Reveal the weaknesses of your character early in the story. Remember, you will show how your protagonist would overcome his flaws and be transformed in the process. While you do this, make certain your pacing is not too slow or too fast.
3. Introduce a turning point. What will be the major turning point in your character’s life? These turning points can be one major triumphant moment or one big, mind-blowing tragedy. It can be very complicated, just as it can be very ordinary. But it will definitely change the character in your story. From where will the chain of changes begin? After witnessing a woman who untimely gave birth on a public place? After a near-death accident? After a political downfall or a twist of from riches to rags? Focus here and make sure the preceding and succeeding events would smoothly stick with your turning point and leave a feeling to your readers that, indeed, such things may happen and could result in character-behavior transformation.
4. Let there be angels. Let’s call them angels: they can be your character’s parents, friends, long lost friend or even stangers. They would touch your character’s life and influence your character’s manner of thinking and seeing through things. Think of the stranger in the bus who suddenly brought up a conversation with the person next to him, and they talked about family and how he missed his children. Subsequently the other person would talk about his fear of getting married or starting a family. Let the angel explain his thoughts but be careful this won’t be done in such a preachy way. Instead, give the angels soft but meaningful punchlines that could enrich the story even more.
5. Allow time for transition. You cannot rush the changes. You don’t have to. Instead, put your character through quiet thinking moments and some more moments of realizations. Then gracefully lead your readers to the conclusion of your story.

To sum it all up, it is important to make sure your readers can easily identify with your protagonist. Make it easy for them to sympathize with your main character during his trying moments in your story. Gracefully spill the motives behind his actions and be consistent with his way of speaking. Finally, be careful not to change your character abruptly and without sufficient justification because your readers will notice it and would even think you changed your character in a rather “magical” way, with the wave of an imaginary wand. Focus on the process, turning point or emotions your character has to go through. (E-writersplace link here.)

Copyright © 2003 Arlene M. Paredes

24-Hr Impact May 22, 2006

Write A ‘One-Day’ Story and Make an Impact
by Arlene M. Paredes

Anybody’s life could change in one day. A wake-up call after a long period of depression, an unexpected mail from a long lost friend, an engagement proposal, a woman’s unexpected conception, a tragic incident that almost claimed one’s life, the discovery of treachery — all these can change anybody’s beliefs, perspective and life in general in one day. In a split second, even.

As a writer, you are challenged to effectively write about a story that happened in just one day. It is not very easy because you need to effectively illustrate the events in your story in such a way that you will make a significant impact to your readers and make a strong point in the end.

You will establish and expose a character by showing to your readers only a single day or a few hours in his/her life. Ultimately, you will move your story from introduction to climax in as short as 10 to 15 pages only.

Here are some tips that can tap your creative nerves and inspire you to work on a one-day story:

1. Look into your theme and conflict.

When a story idea comes to your mind, it is more likely about a conflict and not a character. You don’t say, “I’ll write about a young girl” but “I’ll write about a young girl with a life-threatening disease.” That’s because conflicts are actually inspiration from which we can generate the theme of our stories.

The theme is the main framework of your story. Your plot, setting and characters must be consistent with your theme to make a solid point. Upon identifying your conflict and theme, explore the many possibilities your story can bring.

By now, you are ready to create the outline of how your story will progress.

2. Captivate readers with your starting paragraph.

You certainly don’t have the luxury of time to build up your story. Hence, at the beginning of your story, be sure to sound interesting enough to keep your readers with you.

3. Capture moments.

Freeze important scenarios in your conflict that will illustrate the way of thinking and attitude of your characters, especially your main protagonist. Here, you’ll be establishing his/her character and at the same time you’ll be inviting your readers to empathize with your protaganist and understand what s/he’s going through.

In the case of the young girl with a life-threatening disease, you can create a scene where she encourages her parents to be strong for her. Capture this moment and illustrate it very carefully. Study how you can come up with side stories involving the parents and their feelings, while remaining focused on your protagonist.

4. Let every line be punchlines.

As you capture important moments in your story, imagine the dialogues and the exchange of lines between your characters. Choose your characters’ lines carefully. Effective lines will help you to remain focused in your theme while your story is moving.

5. Make a remarkable twist.

The denouement or the resolution of the conflict is the deciding factor for some readers on how to rate your story, as to whether it’s been effectively written or not.

Just as you have been creatively straightforward in the early parts of your story, you should be artistically direct to the point in the exposition of your denouement, likewise in concluding your story. Finally, after you’ve written your first draft, review your material and make revisions if you feel it’s necessary. Proofread your work and polish its format and spelling so your publisher would have an easier time evaluating your story for publication. Once you’ve started drafting one-day stories, you’ll have an easier time coming up with more stories and interesting conflicts. You’ll be more enthusiastic in your craft, ergo, you’ll keep getting better as a writer. (E-writersplace link here.)

Copyright © 2003 Arlene M. Paredes

How many characters? May 22, 2006

Deciding on the Number of Characters in a Short Story
by Arlene M. Paredes

In our desire to write a story that is packed with insights emanating from different types of characters representing widely divergent point of views, we end up with so many characters who are either too underexposed or too vague for the readers.

So how many characters could we put in and develop effectively in our story, without confusing our readers?

For a short story that would not exceed fifteen (15) pages, at least one major character and a maximum of two should do well. Then you can add at most three (3) minor characters, even as other writers manage without any minor characters at all. It depends on what kind of writing technique you are going to use and how “short” your short story will be. At any rate, you should be careful not to give your minor characters very long speaking parts so as not to sacrifice space for your major characters.

Controlling minor characters

Minor characters could be friends, fellow customers in a restaurant, an antagonist’s ally or anybody whome the major characters would interact with as you expose them and as the story progresses. But even as you limit the exposure and speaking parts of your minor characters, you should be able to justify their existence and make them a worthy part of your story.

For instance, if you would write a story about a doctor who has been blaming himself for the loss of his child, you could make him interact with a doctor friend, or maybe his own patients who would like to console him. Your minor characters will exist briefly in your story and may or may not cause a significant impact in the life of your major character. With too many minor characters in a room or at any given part of your story, you may confuse your readers as to who is talking and what his/her relation is to your major character.

Controlling major characters

Major characters or protagonists need as much time and space as possible so you won’t be confusing your readers with their intentions and choice of actions. If you choose to use your major character’s point of view (POV) in expounding your story, you would help yourself if you won’t mix in too many POVs in a limited space. If you do well with one POV, then do so.

If you challenge yourself and put in more major characters than you can handle, you risk losing your readers or you can also expect them to get confused with your story. So to be able to expose your characters effectively, consider their number and length of lines in a given scene.

All characters present

When you’ll have a scene where everyone is going to be present for a confrontation, discussion, celebration or whatever kind of gathering, you will greatly please your readers if your characters can give a confusion-free, strong, engaging and catchy exchange of dialogues. If you can make this work, you can be sure you’ve successfully given your readers a story that’s definitely worth their time. (E-writersplace link here.)

Copyright © 2003 Arlene M. Paredes

Kontrabida! May 21, 2006

How do You Create a Good Villain?
by Arlene M. Paredes

Have you sometimes felt that your story could have been a lot better if you had only given your hero a more formidable villain? Did you once think you could have created a better villain or antagonist? But what exactly is a good villain?

For this issue, we are going to look into the interesting character that we create to spice up our short story: the avenging/bitter/pathetic/insecure/loser villain. He/She makes our protagonist’s life miserable from beginning to climax until the story finds a fitting resolution, which shall favor the protagonist, of course.

Before we further discuss what we can do with our villains, let us first discuss a very basic conflict we may want to consider for our story. Suppose we write about an obsessed ex-girlfriend who is willing to do anything to save her heart and get her man back even as he had asked somebody else to marry him. The ex-girlfriend, then, becomes our villain — the woman who can’t accept she’s lost a man and won’t let her supposed loved one be happy and free.

Basically, we know that our villains are supposed to thwart the plans of our protagonists to achieve their goals. In this case, the villain wants to prevent the wedding of her former lover to another woman. To do this, our villain shall work and conspire with “allies” to make our protagonist’s life miserable. She plotted with a hit man to kill the true love of her former lover but the villain’s plan didn’t work out and the wedding was still a success in the end. The villain then either ends up dead or in prison. Now that’s a rather very ordinary plot but let’s use it for the purpose of this discussion.

Some questions we can use as guides in coming up with our own villains are:

1. Does the villain have sufficient reason for her wrath?
2. Does the villain have sufficient exposure in the story such that her motives, goals and history are well narrated?
3. Is the villain consistent and realistic in dealing with her own conflict and with the story’s hero?

Since we are faced with the limitation of space, we are normally inclined to think that if any character deserves a lengthy description in our story, it’s our heroes. But the truth is, a good hero’s victory in the story will not bear much sense if he/she didn’t have a worthy opponent with a reason clear and significant enough to make an impact and even earn sympathy from readers. We can’t fool our readers. They would see through our story and make conclusions like we’ve never really explored nor understood our villain, hence, our villain’s actions as well as choice of words are inconsistent and even blurry. So how can we possible make the readers feel that our villain is not a mere character we included in our story just for the sake of having a villain? In other words, how do we give life to our villains such that the readers can hear them speak their heart out and explain the root of their bitter character?

Among other things, we can try giving our villains some good friends. Good friends, who can also be close family members or relatives, stick with their friends through the best and worst of times. Our villain also needs some allies who completely understand the source of his/her wrath against the hero.

What storywriters need to remember is that a short story using man-to-man conflict need to effectively expose both the villain and the hero. Otherwise, the story will leave many questions in the reader’s mind, especially with regards to the motives of the characters. In effect, it will make readers feel that the story is missing some very important parts.

So sit back now and look through the short story you’re working on. How is your villain doing.
(E-writersplace link here.)

Copyright © 2003 Arlene M. Paredes

A Writing Equation May 20, 2006

Coffee Plus Friends
by Arlene M. Paredes

Have you been through one of those days when you feel that you have written about every possible story conflict that you can think of, or you simply cannot motivate yourself to write a story? Others call it writer’s block; I would like to call it a “sign.”

When you begin to question yourself and your ability to whip up a short story even after trying numerous writing prompts, it is a sign that your creative spirit is thirsty, hungry and longing for something new. A new experience. A new strong feeling. Perhaps your writing soul needs to go through something before you could conceive a story material that you have not created in the past.

There was a time when I needed to write a short story with the feel of Christmas season. I kept on typing, erasing and starting over and over again but in each attempt I made, I was not satisfied. And I felt I was being unfair to myself by trying too hard when I obviously could use a little break.

Believing I needed fresh air, I phoned a close friend whom I have not talked to for several weeks. I asked her if she was free for an afternoon chat over cups of coffee. Fortunately, she was and I got more than a company.

As we talked, she filled me in with what she had been up to the past weeks — the people she met, places she visited and annoying creatures she had to deal with. I was not only entertained by everything she told me, I also heard my inner writer’s voice taking notes of the characters she was unwittingly introducing to me.

At the end of our talk, I had a story in mind: about a young professional who was obsessed with work. Of course, the story I wrote was not exactly the story my friend told me but my writer spirit had taken over, revived, and was able to whip up some completely fictional situations direct from the realm of the living.

I went home that day happily reconnected to a close friend and gratefully closer to my writer self.

I realized there are three things I could do tap into my creative juice and create satisfying output. First, I can surf the Net. It’s amazing how writing sites like ewritersplace.com could reach and speak to writers as if it knows exactly the right buttons to push and when to do it so a writer could work despite “writer’s block” and maximize his/her potentials. Not only does it offer great and useful writing prompts, it also tackles at length the various hurdles we, writers usually go through.

Next, I can check and read my past stories. They are usually open-ended stories and sometimes, I feel I could work on them and make the entire story different and better simply by adding a twist and some new important characters. If you had written stories before, try to think of other ways which you could have used to end a specific story and combine that idea with another plot and another until you could come up with a whole new plot.

Finally, if all else fails, then I can try this very simple formula: coffee plus friends equals a definite story material. It has been tested and proven surprisingly effective. (E-writersplace link here.)

Copyright © 2003 Arlene M. Paredes