I’m gonna have to reread Seger’s book. I’m very analytical yes, but usually through some practical application. I like knowing the whys and all, but sometimes seeing the hows isn’t so easy. Dunne’s book was better for me in that respect. Not a magic pill, but something I could take and reshape to my own purpose.

Reading workshops is kind of similar. Usually, I find lots of great info, a lot of it very common sense-ical. However, they often leaving me sitting there going, yeah… but HOW do you set that up so the WHY works? I know: practice. I need to be a patient little grasshopper.

I know, I said I hated busy work and then went and did it for today’s post. Go figure. The questions were more relevant to the types of questions I needed to answer about him. Or that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I think I was just writing to work stuff out in my head, sometimes you have to talk about it to get it straight, and unfortunately blogger and wordpress doesn’t have an “edit after commenting” feature.

It’s those character questionnaire sheets with questions like:

Favorite Movie/TV Show, Favorite Sport, Favorite Restaurant/Ethnic Food, Salary, etc….

Now, put in the correct context, they can be useful, but not the details I’m interested in. But they also strike me as a lot of busy work, which I detest.

KIDS UPDATE: DD went to field trip with DH whose trip was completely cancelled! Yay! DS is home again. grrr.

Yeah, writing is hard. Bad writing is easy as all hell. That’s why there is so little “good” writing. It’s like the brain goes somewhere when you sit down. That’s why rewrites are so important. Once in a blue moon, the words will come out right, but blue moons only happen once every two months, so creating a skeleton to flesh out, and yes–change the words for greater impact–happens all the time.

Linda Seger is a pyschologist, lol. She approaches characters like Pimsleur approaches learning a foreign language. Tools create knowledge and using a tool creates “roundness”, you know–that feeling you get when you think someone can literally walk off the page.

Believe me–I know, good writing, good mechanics and logic create a stellar impression. Probably because so little of it is out there.

Hmmm. If it meant the heroine would smile at him, he might just go for that costume for the ball. I’m thinking of interviewing him for a TT tomorrow since I’ve been avoiding those like the plague lately and to see what he has to say for himself. Hmmm.. off to find some leading questions…