by Peter Leavell, @PeterLeavell
Put down your pen. Give me three months of your best. Why?
Your characters are only as brilliant as you.
There’s only one way to strengthen your work.
You’ve studied the craft of writing. Excellent. I’m happy for you. You’ve taken English 101.
Genius and clever and smart have nothing to do with deep characters. Hard work, determination, and insanity are key. Now, make theology, psychology, and philosophy your life study
Study theology because everything done throughout history is a search for God or an escape from God. Knowing theology allows a writer to stretch a character’s crisis to unknown heights.
Psychology is my weakest point because I’m not interested in Myers-Briggs and his amazing personality quiz. Putting people into categories makes me uncomfortable. I prefer to do my own observations and answer to myself the eternal question resounding through the millennia—why in the world did he do that?
Philosophy is overlooked because we like to believe our lives are based on Doctrine and sound principles, not sheer reasoning. However, most of our daily lives are based on philosophy. The United States, simply put, is established on the philosophical ramblings of the Greeks and Romans, with an economic system built loosely on the ideas of a Scottish moral philosopher named Adam Smith. Our characters agree with these philosophies, or they don’t. If you’ve studied these philosophies, you have more tools to expand your characters.
You can’t write something you don’t know. When our character enters a crisis, his or her ability to reason through the problem and proceed is only as good as your personal studies. By studying theology, psychology, and philosophy, you may shed light on your character’s reasoning that will resonate with the reader that he or she hadn’t known about themselves. Is there anything more satisfying?
Expand your knowledge. If your character is in love with history, science, art, or some other aspect of humanity, your studies have exploded into so much more awesomeness. No one said writing deep characters would be easy. But if it were easy, everyone would do it.
How to proceed? The secret is to start.
- Read the Bible once a year. Twice, if you can, in two versions.
- Adding a book discussing doctrine or Christian history never goes amiss.
- Consider picking up a scholar such as C.S. Lewis or Dorothy Sayers and reading everything he or she has written. It’s a great starting place to stretch both theology and philosophy. And you’ll learn how to be a scholar-first-class.
- Don’t believe everything you read. Test the ideas with first the Bible, then other works.
- Psychology periodicals abound and are easy reads. Again, I prefer just studying people.
- Read classic literature, since most classics are a blend of intriguing plotlines and character development.
- Pick up summaries on Plato and Augustine. Grind through them, taking notes and outlining.
Give me three months of hard study. The work will change your life. And your education will reflect in your characters!
Philip Anderson keeps his past close to the vest. Haunted by the murder of his parents as they traveled West in their covered wagon, his many unanswered questions about that night still torment him.
His only desire is to live quietly on his homestead and raise horses. He meets Anna, a beautiful young woman with secrets of her own. Falling in love was not part of his plan. Can Philip tell her how he feels before it’s too late?
With Anna a pawn in the corrupt schemes brewing in the nearby Dakota town, Philip is forced to become a reluctant gunslinger. Will Philip’s uncannily trained horses and unsurpassed sharpshooting skills help him free Anna and find out what really happened to his family in the wilderness?
Peter Leavell, a 2007/2020 graduate of Boise State University with a degree in history and a MA in English Literature, was the 2011 winner of Christian Writers Guild’s Operation First Novel contest, and 2013 Christian Retailing’s Best award for First-Time Author, along with multiple other awards. An author, blogger, teacher, ghostwriter, jogger, biker, husband and father, Peter and his family live in Boise, Idaho. Learn more about Peter’s books, research, and family adventures at www.peterleavell.com