Hey all, I’m on a deadline but didn’t want to ask our handy-dandy David, assistant extraordinaire, to repurpose another old blog for me so, I found some notes I’d taken during a Donald Maass seminar and thought I’d pass them onto you.

Nothing earth shattering here. Nothing we’ve not talked about already here in MBT Land but it’s good to be reminded.

I sometimes like bullet points, don’t you? Or maybe an esoteric, eclectic gathering of ideas and thoughts that might jog a creative, off-the-beaten-path part of my brain.

If we’re too linear, too sequential, we run the same worn path of our creative brain and forget their might be other less traveled paths to take and just might lead us to something extraordinary.

So here’s my non-sequential, out-of-context, come what may list of character necessities. Ready?

Here goes.

Characters are the reader’s way into the story and what brings them back to us as authors.

More specific and detailed we can be the more powerful we become.

Remember special relations.

How can protagonist show these heroic qualities some how, in a small way within the first five pages?

PUT THESE CHARACTERISTS IN FIRST FIVE PAGES

• “Do we care about this person?”
• “If I want the reader to experience what they are experiencing, I can’t just ‘go about my day.’”
• “Put ordinary people in extraordinary circumstance, but readers want to care greatly, care enough to read the book. What creates the bond between reader and protagonist?”
• “Why do we care about people in general?”
• “What stirs us is extra-ordinariness, qualities of strength. Stir admiration. Those are the people we care about deeply.”
• “Heroic qualities. We tend to think of historic greatness or extreme survival under worse conditions. But heroes and heroines are people we know.”
• Demonstrate heroic quality of protagonist right away so reader cares.
• Have one line to catch readers attention.
• Hint enough to give us a clue. “Don’t worry, this individual is worth your care!”

“Show heroic quality right away even if it’s small.”

• Characters can become their own stereotype. Open them up. Show dimensions.
• Work actively work to shake up characters and show other sides of them.
• “What does the protagonist most want? What is her goal? Internal or external goal?”
• “Can they want both simultaneously? When does it occur that she realizes she wants the opposite of what she wants most?”
• First moment: “What’s the first moment of wanting the opposite?”
• Second moment: “What action will she take to reject her dream and go the opposite way.”
• What triggers this moment in the story? What do they do or say to go the opposite way?
• “If you don’t want them to do it, get over it. Make them do it.”

Rachel Hauck is the best-selling, award winning author of over 15 novels. Her latest, The Wedding Dress appears in bookstores in April. Rachel serves My Book Therapy as the lead MBT Therapist and excels in assisting aspiring authors to find their story and voice via her one-on-one book coaching.