A Character-Building Lesson for Thanksgiving

I had the pleasure today to speak to the students in Providence High School’s Creative Writing Class. My mission was to talk about developing characters and how to make them believable and likeable. We had great fun with the hats I brought as we brainstormed who would wear them and how the character could change by modifying the angle of a hat.

What the students didn’t know was I was stuck in my current work in progress (The third Mitch Malone Mystery with a working title of A Case of Hometown Blues). I wasn’t sure how to proceed and had been agonizing for several days trying to get unblocked. In addition, I had my Mitch Malone character in my head trying to get me going if nothing more than jumping forward to write the end and then back tracking. I’d convinced myself I was going to do that just as soon as I talked to the class, but I wasn’t happy about it. I had the rest of the morning to write and I was going to do something productive if it killed me.

Like most things, I was in the middle of my presentation when disaster/inspiration struck. I knew what I had to do in my book. I needed an impartial third party character. Unfortunately, I completely lost my train of thought to the students as the creative wheels started rolling again. I looked around at the students, regrouped and continued my presentation after a couple of seconds, which to me seemed like minutes. I’m not sure if they noticed or not.

After I left I realized I had never given them an opportunity to ask questions. I was excited for a date with my computer, not dreading it. As Thanksgiving approaches in less than 48 hours, I have realized an important lesson: Don’t stress and fret over a problem. Get out and share your craft with others. It is the best therapy for writer’s block. While it may not solve your problem, you will have accomplished something. For me, talking about how to develop memorable characters led me to the fix I needed – a new character. Now that is character building and something to be thankful about. Happy Thanksgiving!

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A Character-Building Lesson for Thanksgiving

I had the pleasure today to speak to the students in Providence High School’s Creative Writing Class. My mission was to talk about developing characters and how to make them believable and likeable. We had great fun with the hats I brought as we brainstormed who would wear them and how the character could change by modifying the angle of a hat.

What the students didn’t know was I was stuck in my current work in progress (The third Mitch Malone Mystery with a working title of A Case of Hometown Blues). I wasn’t sure how to proceed and had been agonizing for several days trying to get unblocked. In addition, I had my Mitch Malone character in my head trying to get me going if nothing more than jumping forward to write the end and then back tracking. I’d convinced myself I was going to do that just as soon as I talked to the class, but I wasn’t happy about it. I had the rest of the morning to write and I was going to do something productive if it killed me.

Like most things, I was in the middle of my presentation when disaster/inspiration struck. I knew what I had to do in my book. I needed an impartial third party character. Unfortunately, I completely lost my train of thought to the students as the creative wheels started rolling again. I looked around at the students, regrouped and continued my presentation after a couple of seconds, which to me seemed like minutes. I’m not sure if they noticed or not.

After I left I realized I had never given them an opportunity to ask questions. I was excited for a date with my computer, not dreading it. As Thanksgiving approaches in less than 48 hours, I have realized an important lesson: Don’t stress and fret over a problem. Get out and share your craft with others. It is the best therapy for writer’s block. While it may not solve your problem, you will have accomplished something. For me, talking about how to develop memorable characters led me to the fix I needed – a new character. Now that is character building and something to be thankful about. Happy Thanksgiving!

Photo: Author W.S. Gager is pictured with students from Providence High School’s Creative Writing Class. Thanks Samantha, Chance and Grace. You were the perfect inspiration!

A Case of Accidental Intersection will be on Kindle in time for Black Friday!

Iritating Outlets

I'm backing into a series of blogs I'm planning on doing just because this one annoys me so much. To bring you up to speed I've been busy moving, then moving and caring for two houses and one apartment. As of yesterday, I no longer have to take care of one house. It was sold! I live part time in a small town so my son can finish his senior year and on the weekends in a larger city 2.5 hours away. This can make me crazy. What is even worse is the electrical outlets in my apartment aren't consistent. For some you put the plugs in with the ground on the bottom and others it is the top. Then on weekends I have to adjust again. Not a big deal. Just a pain. This morning when I tried to plug my hair dryer in the wrong way...again, I thought about my characters and how they would react to an upside down outlet. Would they go ballistic? Would they shrug and walk away? I, in my postage-stamp apartment go from one extreme to the other depending on my mood and how much cabin fever I have.
What little annoyances make you go ballistic?

New Author Connections

I can't believe it has been August since I last posted to my blog. Shame on me!!! I have some great reasons which I will be sharing soon. (A humorous look at my new life.) I have a lot of them ready just haven't gotten here to post them, but the dust is settling and I'm ready to come out of the closet or in my case, living in one. Stay tuned for that one.

I just wanted to publicly thank one of the newest authors to Oak Tree Press, Marja McGraw. I can't wait to get to know her more. We will be meeting in person at Love is Murder in Chicago in February. She just posted a great review on Amazon for my first book, A Case of Infatuation. She has a great blog at http://www.marjamcgraw.com
Check it out.

Here's the review...
When I picked up this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. And then I met Mitch Malone, a hard-nosed, lone wolf reporter who soon finds out that there's more to life than his reporting.

Saddled with a gorgeous intern, he heads to the scene of a double murder, where he discovers there's a very young survivor hidden away. With the help of the intern, the child and only potential witness is spirited out of the house and taken to Mitch's apartment in order to protect her.

Mitch works alone, so involving the hot intern is something new to him. Mitch also doesn't like kids, so he's breaking all of his own rules. And then he's accused of the murders and has to take his small entourage and go into hiding, and try to solve the murders and find the child's missing mother.

This book had just the right combination of humor, suspense and heart to make it an excellent story. I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and Mitch, and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Thank you Marja!