Claire Waller

I seem to be following @katemachon round the den and repeating everything she says. So once again… Thanks @squidge. It was a great blog. That Julie Cohen is a very clever person.

OK – here’s the link to Julie’s workshop at York (back in 2013! Yikes…) https://squidgesscribbles.blogspot.com/2013/09/playing-at-being-god-creating-characters.html

In this post is the link to a more creative – literally tear and stick version – way of answering questions about plot, characters etc. At the end of the post……[Read more]

I’ll try and dig them out later today. Think I might even have blogged about it, but we’re going back a few years. Also got something that might trigger the unconscious brain into devising your character…

@squidge I’d be interested in seeing those notes too.

I agree with you both about using the character questionnaire and other exercises at the early stages. It isn’t helpful for me. I need to write stuff and let them emerge. However at the end of first draft stage (which is where I’m at) I am finding it very useful for pinning down things about…[Read more]

Wonder if it’s worth doing Julie Cohen’s character idea from York? I’ll have to dig out my notes – it shows the character in action more than anything by posing a series of questions.

Starting to wonder if I read the right bit of Burroway, as I can’t remember reading anything about a waitress! Must revisit…

Afraid to say I find Burroway a bit wordy – which is ironic, given that I’m often too wordy myself! Still not had a chance to play with the characters yet…

Ah another person in search of their murderer. I wrote 90% of my first draft before I identified mine!

I too found it fairly alien until recently but it works for me in a weird way, nudging my unconscious to sort problems out if that makes sense.

I am absolutely loving doing the character questionnaires, using the characters from the splurgy and shapeless first draft of my current WIP. Like @squidge though, I am not sure if I would get so much out of doing it before I had written extensively about them. It would feel like inventing a character rather than discovering one. Has anybody tried…[Read more]

Ditto from me @katemachon . Another quote from, I think, later in the chapter is ‘There’s nothing generic about fiction’- probably misquoted as I didn’t write it down. And also from The Art of Character – ‘It’s through character that we bring the general down to earth.’I am feeling both inspired and daunted!

Or choose a character you’ve developed already and see if the character questionnaire sheds any new light. Like you, I tend to discover who they are as I write.

I’ll try…but it feels so unnatural! Maybe I’ll have to do two exercises – one that challenges and one that feels more natural?!

Yes! I think that is what the MA is all about.

I bought myself an academic diary and I’m jotting in it things I do connected to writing, especially to do with this MA.
I don’t write every day, so my target is to have at least one, hopefully two sessions a week. I’m currently NaNoing, so that’s changed the focus somewhat over this month.
I also want to go back to blogging more regularly again…[Read more]

This will be interesting for me – I don’t normally have a clear picture of a character up front – they develop as I write them – so the character questionnaire will be a real challenge. Do I stick with how I usually work or try something new…?

I hope I’ve understood what is required/suggested for this part of the course. My overall aim is to expand my range in terms of writing habits and the type of writing I do which up to now has been very focussed on writing one novel after another.

I write every day already unless I am away from home or it is really impossible.

My plan t…[Read more]