Out Of Character @ MindSay

As you know I'm always talking about writing and everything but never really show anything. There's been lots of thoughts in my head about the stuff I have. so I'm just going to put all the stuff I have. The stuff I actually have written down, fix it up a bit as I go along, and talk about the ones still in my head. The title is "The End of Martial Arts." So please take a look and give me some feedback on this I've put in a good bit of hours into this entry!

"The End of Martial Arts" Project

Overall plot - A series of events about a African Amercian boy growing up taken in by an Asian family. The boy struggles to be fully accepted, however ends up being the key to keeping friends and family together, even if they are not his own. The story will have a large number of characters and their own stories, but connect to help build the overall story and what role they play. The story will space itself out, to where the characters do get older.

Subplot #0 - Considering this to be the eplogue. This would explain a part of how the main character ends up living with the Asian family. Also find out about what the family is like (Mixed cultured Asian family), and how everyone grows up around the new things put into place.

Subplot #1 - After a few years the main character and one of the daughters from the family develop a friendship deeply bonded, depending and learning from each other. The parents notice and also even give it thought of the two children to be married one day. however the family is attacked at home one night. And that daughter is kidnapped in the process. With that certain event, the family seems to fall apart and turning their backs on each other.

Story Ramblings and Thoughts
That's pretty much all I have right now. I'm not sure how big I want the family to be. The cast I had was of course the main character, the father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters. What I was thinking, sure it was going to be an action adventure, but I want it to be very personal and about who people are, and who they want to be as they grow. I wanted to do the story on heritages, racial, and religous views. The first two are strongly going to be focused on. Religous wise, it's more of the person believing in themselves, pretty much soul searching. The thing about this family is that they are a mixed Asian group. I'll go more into it, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to write out what the characters are like and everything. The first part will be the family but I'll write out what other characters I have in mind to be in the story. There won't be any background on those guys too much except for their description of their jobs.

First off the family.
The father: The father is a Chinese man. He is a house doctor who also makes improtant visits to famous people. This is how he gets his income in a way. However he does disappear after the daughter has been kidnapped. There's a dark shadow casting over him, a lot that isn't know about him really. He once served in the People's Republic of China's army. This could have a lot to deal with the story. (I just looked up a whole bunch of stuff on what he could have been and all. There's lots of stuff so not sure what's up with all I have. I've been reading into china's special forces, what branches they have, all sorts, what happen certain years.)

The mother: Once a famous Japanese pop singer, born in Japan (has partial Chinese descent) I noted to myself that she could have been visiting China on her tour and there ended up being a terrorist act, so she was taken hostage for her Japanese heritage. Could explain how she met her husband; with him being in the military.) For now I have her working from home to take care of the kids. Later on starts to travel the world for bigger jobs. I haven't really fully went into detailed on her yet, I'll be doing more research on that. Should probably make her into an actress or something.

The brothers now. The eldest one I'm going to talk about just a little. Not sure what exactly I wanted from him. But I wanted him to one of the ones to have a good bit of the struggle. He becomes a doctor just like the father. However he's always wanting to overcome him and is very arrogant towards his heritage and tries to throw it all away. He conflicts with the rest of the family a lot, especially after the kidnapping of the sister. The other thing I want to do is have him be a big conflict with the main character. since the main character is totally opposite of him, envying him, on how lucky the guy is to be adopted by his parents and all. Lots of stuff. I really want to touch more on him alot. I was going to base him off of "Monster" the Japanese Doctor Tenma who lived in Germany. The thing different though is he's negative. Just about everything. You know you meet those people in life where they just focus on the negative stuff throughout their whole entire life. I want to change him, and get him to realize what's going on, but I want him to put up a huge fight on how difficult it really is to change. People forget it takes years, but doesn't mean it can't happen and have to brace for impact of what's going to happen.

The younger brother now. This is one interesting character I some how came up with. Not sure where I want to lead this one. But he's becoming very famous as well. He's actually a basketball player. You don't see very many asian basketball players. His personality is quite friendly, maybe too friendly where he gets caught up in things he shouldn't be in. There really isn't anything on him in my head. How I came up with him was that I went to an AND1 streetbasketball event. I got tickets to watch these guys play. They're pretty much the modern Harlem Globetrotters. I have this look for him, a guy not really trying to break away, but more likely to fit in. This star basketball player with a natural talent of leadership. I'm no sure what I want to do with him or why he's even in it. It kills me so much because I've been thinking about all sorts of stuff. But I think this is just to throw out the character idea here.

Okay eldest sister. She's pretty much the first accept the main character fully. The  kind of girl that parents want, always hard working, helping others in need. I haven't devloped why she would fall for the main character. But This is the one that gets kidnapped. What I want to do with this character is create a huge massive problem.  It'll take years to search for her. But with those years gone by, lots of things change. She changes and I'm not sure if it's for the better or for worse. I don't want to give away her just yet. I have a lot planned, or at least have some events I want to happen to her that'll rock the whole story. Her and the main character will meet perhaps in the middle of the story arc. And things change, even to where the main character is rocked by all the stuff that goes o on from then. So basically she has a big impact on everything. Been doing a lot of research on kidnapping

The younger sister. She's the one who is not affected by the kidnapping, since she was really young. She does remeber bits in peieces. But she helps move the story along that helps the main character finally decide what he wants to do in life. The younger sister loves the main character a lot. More of the brother always being there. She's probably going to be the normal one, but will end up getting caught up in a lot of the stuff. Still there isn't anything else on her just yet. But I wanted a normal family member really.

Out of all of this, I haven't even really touched on the main character. The thing that stops me is that anytime I come up with a main character of course they have to be based off me. Probably because I always wanted to be in a role where I change the world in a way. So that's hindering me a lot, because I don't know exactly what I want from him. I always like basing characters off me . Probably because it makes the story more personal oh and I like girls @_@ lol (FIGURES). However I need to figure out things about his past, and how he ends up ding what he's doing. The title I'm also having a tough time with it. I know I haven't talked about any martial arts of any but it's going to be in there, and the main character one other person she reminds me off is Ryu from the Street fighter games. Ryu always traveling to get better, and to find the strongest. So that helps a bit, butI think that's it for now, I've spent the past 2 to 3 days typing and getting it ready for this. It's a lot to take in I know @_@ but thanks for reading all of it.

So I did it.  I sent some query letters out.  

Twenty to be exact.  Then I will reevaluate and send some out again, to different agents.

But to what types of agents did I send them?

One agency describes itself as, “Smallish agency handling no more than 25 clients looking for new writers with a unique voice in the horror, suspense or mystery genre.”  Sounds perfect, right?

Another says, “Large agency with over 200 clients.  Receives 25,000 queries a year, likes fast moving fiction with lots of action."  That's interesting.  Might have so many clients they don't have time to focus on me, but might have so many clients they're willing to take a chance on me.

"Accepts 1,000 queries from new authors every year.  Handles children’s fiction, non-fiction, romance and suspense.”  Has potential I suppose, although I bet they get a whole lot more than 1,000 a year.  Probably like ten times more.

“Does not accept genre fiction like science-fiction or suspense-thriller.  Send a one-page query detailing your historical or biographical work.”  Sorry, guys, you just missed out on a good thing.

It’s all about the description.  The way an agency describes itself determines which authors are going to contact them, so it determines what opportunites they get to discover some great new talent. 

Whether you are an agency describing the types of queries you want, or you are an author describing your main character, it's all about the description.

Proper detailing of a character is so important to a good book.  You could have the greatest story in the world, but if the reader can’t relate to your characters, it almost doesn’t matter.  

You can describe an impossibly attractive male or female to get the reader to go, “ooooooh, I like that,” and automatically, maybe even subconsciously, be sucked in, or you can describe a character in an unflattering way and then slowly have their actions transform the way the reader views that character, even unconsciously changing the appearance they have fabricated in their minds.  You can describe a character as one way and then let his or her words or actions say or do something else to show that the characters is lying or untrustworthy.  You can create a formulaic character with a typical appearance to make the reader feel comfortable in the story.  You can make a character totally normal and grounded in reality or totally wacky and out there and unique.

You can describe a character's appearance in one paragraph or slowly stretch it out across the whole of the manuscript.  You can explain a character's personality in the first chapter or let it gradually reveal itself throughout the course of the plot, until you never fully "know" him or her until the last few lines. 

But whatever you do, you must make sure the description is perfect, or you will completely lose your audience.  

Harking back to last week’s entry, you can either map out the appearance and personality of a character long before you begin writing, or you can just start typing on a blank page and let the character dictate to you how he or she should look.  Sometimes you’ll be surprised at what your subconscious creates for you.  “Eww, did I just write the sexy femme fatale to resemble my mother?  Gross!”

Okay, Oedipus, that’s a little weird, but still, description is important, and the method of description is also important.

There are multiple ways to describe a character.  There’s the, “Just the facts, ma’am,” method:

Robert McKey stood 6’ 2” tall and weighed 210 pounds.  He had broad shoulders and tan, muscular arms.  A flaming skull with “Semper Fi” written underneath it was tattooed on his left bicep.  He had short, light brown hair that he spiked up with strong gel and dark blue eyes that he always hid behind Ray-ban sunglasses.  His jaw was square and his cheekbones sunken.  His face always shaven and his shirts always pressed.

Or there’s the imagery route, incorporating metaphors or similes to help you describe the appearance:

A short bald man with tiny strands of hair fighting their way to the surface of his scalp like weeds try to fight through pebbles and rocks amidst patches of soil, and rosy cheeks that made him look like a twelve-year-old girl after she’s discovered her mother’s makeup supply, grabbed a hold of Suzie’s hand and said, “My name’s Bobby Mackey.”

And of course, you can combine the two styles, describing the facts and comparing them to other images.  You can do this either in a straight description:

Officer Carl Brennamen was a fairly tall man with fairly broad shoulders.  While his driver’s license said he was 6’ tall, he was actually closer to 5’ 10”, and the five o’clock shadow sandpapering his face was more like quarter past four facial hair.  He had brown hair trimmed down from a buzz cut and bushy brown eyebrows forming umbrellas over tough, dark brown eyes.  When he smoked cigars he looked kind of like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.  

Or through the course of action:

Susan slapped Karl’s elongated face hard enough to leave a red handprint in his pasty flesh.  The impact snapped his oval-shaped head to the side, twisting his thin neck like a barbershop poll and causing his long stringy, black hair to flip through the air like the tassels on a graduation cap after its been tossed into the sky.  He remained frozen in that pose for a moment before turning his head slowly to face her, his pupils expanding and overpowering the ice blue of his irises until all Susan could see were two deep black pebbles floating in creamy white eyes.  

Karl took a step toward her with legs that were twice as long as his torso and she shuffled backwards quickly.  He took another long stride and she backpedaled until her back rammed into a wall.  She hit the wall and stiffened instantly, holding her breath.

He towered over her, staring down at her from above, stringy hair falling in front of his face as if forming a barrier between them.  She gazed up, hazel eyes widening until they were perfectly round inside her sockets.  He pulled his hair behind his ears and then reached a large, hairy hand out and grabbed hold of the back of her smooth neck.  He tightened his grip and flicked his wrist, snapping her head back, and she winced in surprise, shutting her eyes tight and forming deep crevices in the smoothness of her dark skin.  He bent down and his oval face moved toward her round one.  His sharp, angular beak brushed against the tip of her small, upturned nose softly and he took one heavy breath that blew hot air on her cheek.  Then he tilted his head and leaned in close until his coarse lips touched hers.  She grabbed the back of his head and pulled tightly on his hair as their lips pressed further together.  Then she pushed him away.  

Their eyes locked.  He smiled.  She winked.  Then she slapped him again.         


Now, I know all the examples in this post were half-assed writing samples that I slapped together in between celebrating my birthday this weekend, but hopefully you can at least get the idea.  Character descriptions are a vital aspect of your story, and the way you introduce them can determine whether a reader is going to get sucked into the world you have created and spend long nights tucked into bed next to a warm light, or keep putting the book down to do other things and eventually forgetting about it, a worn bookmark forever stuck between the early pages.  

Make sure you mix up your method for describing characters.  Giving straight descriptions in a paragraph or two is the typical system, but can often take a reader out of the story by pausing the plot for a moment.  Weaving descriptions into the action makes the character development a part of the story, and has readers learning about the characters and the plot without really realizing it.  Instead, they are simply engrossed in the story, and don’t even notice that they are now more familiar with the people populating the adventure.

Use whichever method feels right for you and right for the particular character.  To once again reference my own work, let inspiration guide you.  The characters will tell you how they want to be introduced.  Listen to them.

But, of course, maybe you shouldn’t listen to me.  I mean, this is already Chapter 5, and what do you really know about the main character of this story?  I’m corny, arrogant, and a total failure at being published?  Wow, I’m quite a complex character.  Too bad I break the golden rule of marketable writing – make sure the character is likeable.  

my dad came in and actually gave me a sincere speach about how proud he is of me for going to college and how be believes in me. if that wasn't weird enough, then he kissed my forehead. i'm not sure how to feel now.