Category Archives: character

Happy Ever After?

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Talk on the interweb today about a new digital novel by Caroline Smailes. ’99 Reasons Why’ is a family drama about obsession, told in 99 short chapters. So far, so normal. But Caroline’s book comes with a sting in the tail: a choice of eleven alternative endings, which are influenced by the reader’s tastes and mood and on their answers to a series of multiple-choice questions on colours, numbers and objects.

Caroline came up with the idea when she learned that several readers were unhappy with the rather gloomy endings of her previous two books. Readers with a Kindle or other e-reader device are asked simple questions about their interpretations of the characters to determine the ending of the story. If they’re still not satisfied, they can answer the questions differently to get an alternative ending.

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Recycling Works

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It’s a tried and tested technique: take an old, familiar storyline and recycle it for today’s audiences. Sondheim and Bernstein did it with West Side Story, inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; Helen Fielding based Bridget Jones’ Diary on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. So we’re in good company.

If imagination fails, old publications are great places to find inspiration. I work for the History of Advertising trust where we have large collections of vintage magazines; a quick browse reveals a storehouse of letters, problems and stories waiting to be recycled. There’s no copyright on ideas, so there’s no problem retelling an old tale, updating the setting and changing the characters.

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My Hero

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Try this as a creative writing prompt:

Choose a well-known hero or heroine – doesn’t matter what sphere they inhabit.  They could be literary, cinematic, artistic, philosophical, historical; fact or fiction, living or dead. Maybe they’re a favourite fictional character, or a hated politician. They might be the same sex as you; they might not.

List their attributes – these traits can be positive or negative.

Now think yourself into the character and build a story, from the point of view of this real or imaginary person. Mould this 2-dimensional cut out into a real person. What motivates them? What do they like? What do they fear?

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Stuck in a creative vacuum?

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Writer’s block? Or just having a blank moment? Bring out the Five Ws and One H.

Say what?? Rudyard Kipling immortalised the concept in the opening of  ‘The Elephant’s Child’, a poem that accompanied one of his Just So Stories, written in 1902:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Used widely in journalism, interrogative pronouns are basic tools for gathering information. Continue reading →