Recently, while out for lunch with my editor, she remarked that my work always contains strong female characters. While this is true, what she said made me think more deeply about my motivation and what I look for in a strong female character.
Not long after that I did a beta read for a fellow author which made me think in a new way about my own writing and what I look for as a reader. Yes, the author you do a favour for may not be the only one to benefit. Haha. Continue reading “A Different Take on Strong Female Characters”
Writers are well aware of the value of observation for giving us the details we need to make our settings come alive, for rounding out our characters by giving them habits or for providing details in our descriptions that help identify them. Today I’d like to take a closer look at a specific form of observation – listening – as apart from merely observing. As writers we can use less obvious aspects of listening to deepen our understanding of our characters and their relationships to each other.
I had no hesitation choosing Charles Ray as my Indie Hero and asking him to indulge us by answering a few questions about his writing, indie publishing, and reviewing because I have come to know him as a gracious man who is generous with his time, even though we have never met. Charles has written and published several books which have, in my mind, clearly earned him the right to be named a success. But what makes him my “Indie Hero” is his staunch support of other Indie authors. Where he finds the time or energy I don’t know, but he reads and reviews Indie books daily, not limiting himself to only one or two genres, but covering several. He writes blog posts on writing and self-publishing, where he is gracious and generous in supporting struggling and fledgling writers, and participates on the blogs of others as well. He always looks for and encourages excellence, and I see him as a man who educates both by example and through his gentle feedback.
Most of us know that memory can be a slippery, elusive thing. Ask any small group to describe the same incident and each one will recall it differently.