Wordsmithing: ASK YOURSELF, MC, DO YOU DESERVE TO SIT ON THE SHELVES?

Thursday 10 January 2013

ASK YOURSELF, MC, DO YOU DESERVE TO SIT ON THE SHELVES?

SO, ASK YOURSELF, MC, DO YOU
DESERVE TO SIT ON THE SHELVES?

I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper. ~ Steve Martin

If you think about it, the MC in your novel, if he wants to be noticed, will need to develop in an unpredictable way. This is because the shelves are stuffed with MCs.

It occurred to me, as a wanna-be author, that the question I need to ask my MC is What is it about you that means you deserves a place up there? What makes you so special?

From an idea and authorly discipline, every MC started as nothing but a keystroke but it should keep on changing as the word grows.

Enthusiasm and large dose of inquisitiveness has prepared the wanna-be writer with two basic tools for the job.

Research backs-up that fiction up with facts.

I think characters mess with your head.

Dot to dot development is the predictable way to go but, when I was younger, I just wanted to slash about with free-form strokes and add a little variation to those early-learning puzzles. Some things never change.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER THAT MEANS THEY DESERVE TO SIT ON THE SHELVES?

2 comments:

Shell Flower11 January 2013 at 03:33
That is an excellent question to ask an MC. It's also a good idea to explain just that in your query letter. If your MC is boring, your book probably doesn't deserve a place on the shelves. Sad, but true.
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RETURN: YA Paranormal Romance

I was running late. But, it was nothing I couldn’t make up with a bit of effort. I shook my head. Confident and happy? I smiled. Increasing my stride, I pushed until the muscles in my legs burned. I kept up the pace even when the hill grew steeper.

Magpie Lane was hardly wider than a ribbon that edged the woods but that didn’t stop traffic using it to get to the motorway quicker. Large trucks and fast cars loved Magpie Lane. They sent vibrations running through me rising from the soles of my trainers. I felt the disturbance in the ground, even before the air pressure tried to knock me off balance. I hunched my shoulders as the cab hauling a container spat stones up at me.

Jogging on the spot, at the entrance to woodland, I ached to leave the road and go inside. My Mum was probably still asleep but I could hear her you-never-know-what might-be-in-there lecture buzzing on repeat inside my head. I should run safe. Not even I would argue that running through the woods on my own was the best definition of safe but I wanted to run-wild and the woodland offered me that. This early, I should be safe from axe murderers or perverts in the trees and besides, I was fast.

I jogged down the slope into the trees. From two paces in, I felt different. Freer. It felt so right. Running in the woods did great things for my style. Avoiding the roots and dodging branches forced my stride longer, I had to step higher. The woodland, The Weald, was only a sliver of ancient woodland that the developers forgot to build on but it felt like it could have been anywhere. Everywhere. At any time. The oaks and beech trees dominated the space and the skinny, silver-birches squeezed up beside them. I laughed. For a second, the woods reminded me of school and I needed to run a lot faster.

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Thursday 10 January 2013

ASK YOURSELF, MC, DO YOU DESERVE TO SIT ON THE SHELVES?

2 comments: