Writing Craft – K.M. Fawcett, Author

Buillding Character: Bringing People (and Aliens) to Life Through Words – Part 3

January 29, 2021 1 Comment

In Part 1of my Building Character blog posts, we discussed how a character’s unique traits will determine how they react to anything and everything in the story. I gave a list of 14 things that make a character unique. You can read that post here. In Part 2, we dove deeper into three of them: experiences, perspective, and beliefs. You can read that post here. In Part 3, let’s discuss the unique ways our characters can sense their world. SENSING THE WORLD Whether on Earth, another planet, or in a spaceship, your characters will sense their worlds differently. Everyone is familiar with the five basic senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But did you know there are other senses? Proprioception is the perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body. Dancers and athletes can be very in tune with where their body is in

Building Character: Bringing People (and Aliens) to Life Through Words – Part 2

December 8, 2020 2 Comments

In Part 1 of my Building Character blog posts, we discussed how a character’s unique traits will determine how they react to anything and everything in the story. I gave a list of 14 things that make a character unique. You can read that post here. In Part 2, I want to dive deeper into 3 of them: experiences, perspective, and beliefs. EXPERIENCES (Backstory) Many factors, including physical attributes, cause people to experience life differently. You can start imagining what impacts sex, color, and body measurements (height, weight, musculature, body fat, etc.) may have on a person, real or imaginary. These experiences aren’t just based on the strengths or limitations of their body, but by the way others who see them treat them. Were they treated differently because of their sex or their skin color? Were they unable to play a sport they loved because they didn’t have the correct

Building Character: Bringing People (and Aliens) to Life Through Words – Part 1

November 18, 2020 2 Comments

Characterization is more than physical appearance and word choice. When I give my Building Character workshop to writer’s groups, I discuss ways to use motivation, fear, conflict, flaws, backstory, belief systems, and more to write vivid, unforgettable characters that will come alive for readers. Characterization is an entire representation of a being, whether person, vampire, or alien. As a writer, your number one goal is to make the reader fall in love with your characters! If you succeed at this, your story will be a success. If your reader doesn’t like your character, they won’t care about anything else in the book. That’s not to say your characters must be likable. They need to be interesting. Perfect characters are boring and one-dimensional. Give your characters flaws to add dimensions to them. Multidimensional characters keeps the reader guessing. Your readers will want to read more to find out what the character

Improvised Weapons

September 9, 2020 No Comments

In a fight, anything can be used as a weapon. If you’ve seen a Jackie Chan movie, you’ve seen many unique improvised weapons from ladders to bicycles to jacket sleeves. Why not make your fight scene unique too? Adding a little razzle-dazzle with an improvised weapon can make an ordinary fight scene exciting and memorable. First, think about the setting of your fight scene. Make a list of what might be available in the scene to use as a weapon and then choose something interesting, something that hasn’t been done a hundred times before. If your scene is in someone’s yard, rocks and sticks can be easily found. But why not make it more interesting by having your character defend herself by smashing a clay garden gnome over the bad guy’s head? Let’s use the standard bar brawl as an example. What’s available to use as a weapon in a

What’s In A (Character’s) Name?

July 29, 2020 No Comments

When choosing character names, I try using names that represent the characters. In RENEGADE (Survival Race book 3), the hero is called Griffin. A griffin is part lion (king of the beasts) and part eagle (king of the skys). The name works for my hero on two levels. First, he was a prince, so giving him a name that meant king of all creatures was fitting. Second, gentleman Griffin must become a survival race gladiator in order to win a spaceship to bring his people to freedom. Griffin must slay all the “beasts” (the last man alive wins this blood sport) to take to the sky. The heroine’s name is Katana. I thought the name of a Japanese sword was perfect for my female gladiator. As Griffin explains to Katana, “Names reveal something about us. Take yours, for instance. A katana is a single-edge bladed weapon. It’s unique. It’s curved.

Increasing Tension Through Personal Space

April 8, 2020 No Comments

One of the oddest things I find in this Covid-19 era is how physical distancing affects different people. My family and I have been sheltering in place for four weeks now, but I remember what my husband, Scott, said to me the first week (like the second day into Shelter in Place). Scott: “People aren’t meant to stay at home. We’re social creatures.” Me: “Not all of us.” You can tell which one of us is extroverted and which one is introverted. Out of my family, I’ve been the least affected from the stay at home order. Even though the last three years I have been meeting my friend and author Stacey Wilk at Starbucks or Panera to write four times a week, we’re not socializing…much. We put on our headphones and fall into our own worlds. The rest of the time, I write at home in solitude. I’m still

The Adam & Eve Approach to Character Development

March 25, 2020 No Comments

A while ago someone asked me about my process for developing my heroes and a heroines. Do I make a character sketch? Do I use real world influences? Sometimes I get an idea for a character and then create a story around them. Sometimes I get an idea for a story and then create a character to fit the story. With CAPTIVE (The Survival Race #1), the story idea came first. I was watching the rescue of mistreated horses on an episode of Animal Cops. It was heart-wrenching to see those beautiful animals neglected and starved so thin their rib cages showed. How would their owners have felt if they were penned up and abused like that? This got me thinking. What if humans were pets, and someone—aliens perhaps—bred us and gambled on us for sport like we do in horse racing, dog racing, and cockfights? What if they wanted

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Category: Writing Craft

Buillding Character: Bringing People (and Aliens) to Life Through Words – Part 3

Building Character: Bringing People (and Aliens) to Life Through Words – Part 2

Building Character: Bringing People (and Aliens) to Life Through Words – Part 1

Improvised Weapons

What’s In A (Character’s) Name?

The Adam & Eve Approach to Character Development

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