Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Wisdom on Wednesdays: List Love

FIRST: If you haven't entered my 100 Followers Giveaway of Awesome yet, go and do it now.  All you have to do is be a follower, and leave a comment to win either a signed hardback copy of SHADE by Jeri Smith-Ready or a critique of your work by me.  Okay, now that you're back, we can move on to today's post.

I have major List Love today.  Lists are great.  Lists turn a daunting task into a simple achievable one.  Lists have items that get crossed out.  (And we all love sweeping our red pens through the completed items on our lists, don't we?  YES, I have FINISHED you, my life is COMPLETE!  Bwa-ha-haaaaa!)  Lists are how we remember everything.

I'm talking all kinds of lists: shopping lists, to-do lists, character lists...

Yeah, I said Character Lists.  When you get a piece of paper for each character in your WIP and write on it everything you know about that character, so you can refer to it as you write and make sure your character stays consistent and true to form.

You have those, right?

7 comments:

  1. I certainly do! I have lists coming out of my ears right now and I know my characters as though they are members of my own family! My main character is a little like me so that was easy to get to know, but lists are so important.

    CJ xx

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  2. I use files on a computer to refer to, but yes, I do have a few pages for my characters. They're not very filled-out though; I should work on them.

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  3. Good for you, CJ! I'll admit to starting with not much in the way of lists at all, and then realizing as quickly as half-a-page in that I REALLY needed to make some Character Lists, so kudos to you for having them all ready and there for you.

    Golden Eagle, I almost always learn new things about my characters as i write, or realize that there is something that I left out that I should have thought about - my lists are largely add-as-I-go. So I'm kind of with you there.

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  4. You know, I do have lists for two main characters, but I should do them for all. That makes sense!

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  5. Gosh, ya know, I don't use lists...no in writing and not in real life. I can see how they'd be handy, tho! I did outline my most recent WIP--that seems to be helping.

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  6. I have lists all over the place. Maybe I need a list to organize my lists. :) You're right, a character list is crucial.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog and following. Looking forward to reading your posts.

    Have a great week,
    Karen

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  7. Kelly, I find myself doing it automatically now. I'll be in the shower (because that's where I get all my best ideas, of course, where I have no way of recording them) and I'll find myself thinking about a secondary character and going, "Oh, yeah, that's why she does that!" And than I go write it down, and keep going until I have a huge list.

    Diamond, to each their own - maybe one day you'll find yourself making one.

    Karen, LOL! I enjoy your blog, as well. Thanks for stopping by!

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