Creativity Sessions: The Minutiae of Characterization

People are weird.

I don’t mean in the cynical I-don’t-want-to-engage-with-anyone way. I mean in the myriad ways in which we generally conduct ourselves; our ticks, habits, vocal cadence, personality quirks, the way we laugh.

Think about your closest three or four friends; the people whom you (hopefully) trust and know intimately. Don’t they each have a distinct laugh, whether the high-pitched titter or the soulful bellow? And, not one of them speaks in exactly the same manner, with the exact same inflection or vocabulary. Kind of weird, right? Continue reading “Creativity Sessions: The Minutiae of Characterization”

Creativity Sessions: The Little People Matter, Too

We are one week into NaNoWriMo. As of this moment I have written 10,616 words of my story, which exceeds my initial expectations for this week. When I first signed up for the novel writing contest way back in September, I told myself that achieving  50,000 words in one month was not important; as long as I wrote a substantial amount of my story, I should be satisfied. Even 25,000 words of this story seemed like a fair goal, considering it sat in development limbo for four years prior to November. Continue reading “Creativity Sessions: The Little People Matter, Too”