Fun Foundational Materials for Plotters

Let’s be real, the beginning of a writing project is the most fun part. There is an enthusiastic energy of the new project – anyone who started to write a book in a month challenge has felt it. But then there is the exploring part where you are trying to mold and shape the characters and the story so this awesome thing in your brain can be seen by other people. 

It’s the hot and fast energy to get the words out of your body that will drive you to the laptop, but then you’ll hit a road bump like, what would my character be wearing? Or what would be playing on the radio in the car on this road trip? 

One of the lecture series I offer is Saints and Sinners, a guide to creating well-developed characters. And in that series, I discuss tools that are helpful in creating real people as opposed to types.

One of the points in the lecture is how writers sometimes will fall into a trap of making all their characters like them … but better. Or they will make their characters somewhat flat so the reader can project their own personality or preconceived ideas onto them. And when that happens the characters can become a two-dimensional, forgettable, or worse, stereotypical.

Angelica Pickles charged through every scene of the animated series Rugrats with her lieutenant and greatest confidant by her side – Cynthia, a mostly hairless lifestyle doll inspired by the trademarked Barbie. Cynthia was a no-nonsense businesswoman, much like Angelica’s mother. 

Many young creators had a Cynthia – or a Captain Oats – because dolls are an excellent way for children to recreate their world in a smaller form. However, if you were like me, you were mostly emulating what you were witnessing on television. I was an avid Barbie child, creating small plays and tableaus that mostly resembled the soap operas that were on in the background. One of my childhood friends liked to create scenarios like soap operas during sweeps, always with plane crashes and botched kidnappings.

As a child, there would always be one doll that got more attention. They were given a name and a backstory. They were given the best clothes that fit their personality, ripped from the nameless rabble that eventually were left naked in a pile. Their hair was always styled. They drove the car – or the cardboard box that you called the car. 

And maybe you had those parents that tried to convince you that your Cynthia wants to encourage you to do something – like eat your veggies or brush your teeth. And as a child you might have listened to them with that dual knowledge of “Cynthia is not real” but also “Cynthia would never say that!”

If you are a writer and this rings true to you … guess what? That was your first character. You looked at this doll as a being capable of living a life. So you treated it as if it were real. Like the Velveteen Rabbit.

As a fiction writer, you get that chance to play Barbies again. If you treat your characters like real people, they will feel like real people to the reader. And the reader will care more when your characters have both victories and defeats. 

To do that, you need to spend some times getting to know those characters at the beginning, so when they are confronted with certain situations, you’ll know what they would say and how they would respond.

Here are a few helpful foundational pieces that plotters (or pantsers) can use to guide how your character will respond to events in a realistic way. 

1. Create a mood board. A mood board is a collection of inspirational scraps that have been gathered in one place so the person who looking to set a mood can reference it easily. These are often shown on TV or in the movies as an actual cork or fabric board hanging over a desk or drafting table. And it can be used for characters or settings when crafting a story. I like to use Canva for my mood boards. I will pull in any photos from the internet of people who resemble my characters, the colors they would be likely to wear, books they would read, movies they would watch, and more.

   

   First mood board when I started writing Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder

2. Look up their Star Chart. It doesn’t have to get into too much detail, but if you give your character a birthday, you can identify their astrological sign and make it akin to the supposed personality of someone with that sign. If you are someone who is not into astrology, at least think about the difference between a person who celebrates their birthday in the summer as opposed to the winter. The difference between someone is born right at the cut off of entering youth sports or Kindergarten. These are the little things that help determine personality.

3. Go on Zillow. Look for homes they would likely live in. What’s the going price right now? What school district would it put their kids in? What is a common floor plan for homes in that area. For example, if I were writing about where I live, I would have to comment on how most of the homes were built in the 1970s and 80s, which is why there are so many atrocious shed style and split-level homes near me. 

4. Create a playlist. I love, love my Spotify account because it has made it so simple to create playlists for my projects. First, I determine that type of music my characters would listen to, which means I need to know the year my story takes place so I can listen to the most popular songs of that time – like things that would be playing at events, in Kroger or Sephora, etc. I also look up what would be popular during their formative years. People usually start developing their musical taste when they are 14 years old, so I look up what would have been the most popular songs and musical genres when they were that age. What songs during that time would have been their favorite and which ones would have been inescapable. In Pretty Girls, Gabbi spends most of her time in the gym, so I looked for upbeat songs that would likely be played at the gym for that playlist. For Mothers of the Missing Mermaid, because so much of it happens in the late 70s, I loaded up my playlist with Fleetwood Mac and Bob Seger.

   

   This is the playlist I made to listen to while writing Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder

5. Pull your reference texts. If a style of book is particularly inspiring to me, I will pull it and allow it to rest on my desk while I work. If I get stuck or want to see how they handled a particular moment, I will study their moves. For Pretty Girls, I kept Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and In the Woods by Tana French on my desk, but for Mothers of the Missing Mermaid, I referenced Paint it Black by Janet Finch and Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov.

A couple of cautions

1. Make sure you are not diagnosing any of your characters based on information you are pulling from the internet. For a while there were many shows looking to diversify and they would include children with autism, and these depictions were based on textbook markers as opposed to interaction with real people who are on the spectrum. You can probably also point out examples of flat diagnosis of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, or even the experience of otherness whether it’s racial, class-based, etc. It might for a moment feel exciting to try to write a character because you are interested in the experience or diagnosis, but you should take the time to get to know people who have had that experience and not base it on a Web MD article. Talk to people. Read survivor stories. Listen.

2. Don’t create a room so cozy you never want to leave. Worldbuilding and character development are the fun part. In fact, it’s the perfect part. It only exists in a play space where nothing can harm it and if it has even a little flaw, you can still tinker and polish it. Many people never take that first step of putting anything down on paper, because ruminating and tinkering with this world of your creation is yours alone and without any outside interference. The second that you type the words into a laptop, the beautiful thing you have been playing with suddenly becomes a real thing. And even people who love you will prod it assessing it’s quality. They don’t mean to. It’s very human. And then as the creator of this world will be confronted with it’s imperfections. This is the first real leap of faith that you will survive even if it’s not perfect. I’ve had many conversations with writers who have never actually written anything because they cannot make that leap. So don’t spend too much time in your play space. Make the leap early, before you are ready.

I love the early part. This is as close as I get as an adult to playing Barbies again – dressing people up, giving them sassy things to say, thinking about their favorite things. And yeah, because of the nature of my work I will be exposing them to heartbreak, betrayal, grief, and the consequences of their choices. So before I have to rip them apart, I like to imagine them happy: wearing their favorite colors and falling in love with their favorite song.

XOXO,

B.

It’s beach read season and my feed is full of photos of my friends on vacation with their books! Books are best for planes, beaches, poolside, and tiny little cafes. Before you embark on your next journey – or even if you are just taking a 15-minute break from the grind – make Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder part of your summer plans.

Also, don't forget. $1 from all sales during the month of June on brandibradley.com will go to Lost-N-Found Youth of Atlanta, a non-profit assisting LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness.

Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder

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