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Title: Gods of Chaos (Red Magic #2)
Publication date: March 31, 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Jen McConnel
The gods of chaos cannot be trusted.
Since battling her best friend, Darlena’s grip on Red Magic has been shaky. She heads to Scotland after the Winter Solstice in search of another Red Witch.
On a sightseeing excursion with girls from her hostel, Darlena arrives at The Vaults, a mysterious underground city beneath Edinburgh. But there is something there that make Darlena’s instincts go haywire, as she lets loose a defensive burst of Red Magic, putting everyone around her in danger.
If there was ever a time when Darlena needed the help of another Red witch, it was now. But beware the witch who wields Red Magic.
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Characters who Bleed: by Jen McConnel
Last fall, I was teaching an 8-week fiction class to local beginning
authors, and we spent a lot of time discussing characters. What is it that
makes characters leap off the page (or not)?
Sometimes, it feels like there’s a mysterious secret to capturing real
characters; I remember that when I started writing, I felt like there must be a
magic word, a hidden key, a super special trick known only to the amazing
authors who’d already found their voices and their paths. Luckily, that’s not
the case; creating characters who resonate with readers, replete with flaws,
quirks, and baggage, doesn’t require a magic wand. What it does require is a
lot of concentrated effort (as with most things in writing). Keeping that in
mind, I wanted to share a few of my character strategies with you to get you
started.
First, a confession: my characters don’t start out very real. In fact,
for the first few drafts, I’d say most all of my characters (including
protagonists) are positively two-dimensional. That’s probably due in part to
the fact that I’m a pantser, not a planner; once I’ve got a really messy first
draft down on the page, that’s when I begin outlining and digging into
character development. It may seem backward, but I’ve learned to trust my
process. I guess the reason I’m telling you this is to remind you that the
first draft is just the first of many; don’t get hung up on making everything
perfect when you first get going. There will always be time to revise.
Character Strategy #1: Know thy characters
Remember when you used to take all those awesome “what color represents you”
type quizzes in magazines, or, more recently, on Buzzfeed? Admit it; you still
totally love those questions. I know I do! When you’re writing, you have to get
ready to quiz your characters. When all is said and done, you should know your
characters as intimately as you do yourself (even if only a fraction of that
information makes it into your actual book!)
How do you do this? Conduct a character interview! There are plenty of
wonderful templates available all over the Internet for this, but you can
always write your own, too. Get up close and personal; find out the character’s
favorite color, song, band, movie, but also take time to learn his or her worst
fears, most embarrassing moments, and deepest desires, too. Heck, you could
even take the latest personality quiz from the POV of your characters!
Character Strategy #2: Don’t Imitate Life (too much)
People always ask me if my characters are based on people I know. The
answer? No, but…
I don’t write characters that resemble my friends and family, but I’d be
lying if I said the personality traits of the people I’ve met through my life
don’t influence the characters I create. For example, Darlena’s mom in the Red
Magic series is a vegetarian (like I was when I started writing the series),
she’s happy in her garden (like my great-grandmother), she enjoys baking and
quiet, homey things (like my mom), and she’s a passionate social justice
activist (like many amazing men and women I’ve met over the years). I borrowed
some of her phrases (like when she can’t bring herself to swear in the first
book) from different snatches of conversation I’ve overheard, but at the core,
Mrs. Agara is totally herself.
Character Strategy #3: Listen to the Voices
I honestly don’t know where my characters come from. Some leap
fully-formed into my head and start talking at me before I’ve even begun
writing, pestering me to tell their stories. Others take lots of drafts and
hard work before they begin to breathe. But by the end of the day, once I feel
like a book is ready for readers, the characters who inhabit its pages are
usually chattering away in my mind. I refer to them as flesh and blood people
(which weirds some people out), and I think that’s vital: I BELIEVE they exist.
Belief is a powerful component of writing (and, as any fantasy fan will tell
you, magic), and I think the core component of creating awesome characters is
believing your characters exist separate from you. It might be hard to cultivate
that kind of belief at first, but as writers, that’s exactly what we’re asking
readers to do, so I figure we should be able to believe in our characters and
our worlds, too!
If I’ve done my job right, you’ll feel like Darlena and the rest of the
characters populating the Red Magic series could be walking down the street
right now…which might be a bad thing, given how crazy
some of the gods of chaos are! ;)
About the Author
Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).
She is also a former reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and a proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.
A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. She's a graduate of Western Michigan University, and she also earned her MS in Library Science at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.
When she isn't crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches writing composition at a community college. Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time.
Follow Jen on Twitter @Jen_McConnel, and visit www.jenmcconnel.com to learn more.
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