Creating Characters Part II

You know, Tom Sawyer was a very memorable character.  How did Mark Twain create him?
Sherlock Holmes' character was based off of someone in real life that the author met.
People are very interesting in real life.  I have crazy friends at church with wild personalities.  If I made characters based off of them, my books would be very colorful.
Look for and observe people you live around.  Each one has their own way of thinking, their own way of talking, their own habits and traits.
For example: I sit on my hands to keep from biting my nails.  When my hands are cold, I put them on my neck to warm them up.  These are odd traits.
Just like in the Prince and the Pauper, the Prince had a habit of being ready to draw his sword at any time if someone mocked him.  When he switched with the pauper, he forgot that he didn't have his sword, and tried to draw it when someone mocked him when he said he was the Prince.
I wrote down questions to ask my characters.  It'll be a while before I answer them all because there's about one hundred questions! 
It is very important to know the answers to them though.
What is your character's favorite color?
Do they have a favorite hat or scarf they like to wear all the time(like Red Riding Hood.  Everyone knew her by her red hood she always wore)?
Are they smart?
Are they mature?
Are they random?
Knowing the answers to these questions helps you to keep your character from doing something they really wouldn't do, or being an all around character that's shy in one scene and talkative in another.  That would make no sense to the reader.
Comment below if you want me to post my one hundred eight questions that I got from other websites and making my own up.  You could make up your own questions for your characters that would apply to your book/s.

Pilgrim's Progress and New Year

My bedroom is being made like new.  New curtains to replace old ones, new bookshelves and new books given to me by someone who is transforming her own small house.  C S Lewis' nonfiction books in a boxed set, books about being your own unique self and not becoming a copy of everyone living around you, books by Gene Edwards(someone like C S Lewis and Jim Stoval), books on hearing the Voice of God, and a special book: red wrinkles and golden designs on a classic red hardcover book that doesn't look dirty like many old books I've seen.  The Pilgrim's Progress.  A wonderful book.  I have only read "Little Pilgrim's Progress" for school a long time ago, but reading this will be a treat for my poetry-thirsty mind.  A red ribbon bookmark and words written from the author to the reader defending his book.  "I took my pen up with delight.  Quickly I had my thoughts in black and white."  "... Forbear to judge till you do further see."  And this "apology from the author" is an actual poem many pages long.
I am waiting for the Hobbit Part One: An Unexpected Journey.  But I shall have fun writing my books as I wait.

Christmas and The Hobbit Trailer!!!

Kneading thick, sweet bread dough, pulling just a small bit off to taste.  Rolling the dough out, pushing it down, pulling it and stretching it till it stays in place.  It is now a large spread out square of dough.  Spreading soft butter all over it with a metal spoon, then sprinkling cinnamon, brown sugar, and raisins over that, and then rolling the square over itself into a scroll made of dough.  Taking brown thread beneath the 'scroll' one inch, then taking both ends in both hands.  Then putting each end of thread in the opposite hand, a circle of thread is made around the scroll.  Pulling gently till thread is taut.  Now there is a cinnamon roll just waiting to be baked.  Breathing in the sweet smell of fresh bread and sweet dough, everything finally feels like Christmas.  Especially now that its snowed just a little.  I'm thankful that more is on the way since it didn't even stick to the grass when it did snow.
I'm still here.  I haven't made a post in a while, sorry about that.  If you didn't know yet......
The Hobbit Trailer is here!!!!!  :D  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0k3kHtyoqc
Its making me so excited for the movie!  Now if you want to see the trailer on the big screen, go see the Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in theaters.  The trailer for the Hobbit is playing at the beginning with the other trailers.  The Adventures of Tintin is about a young reporter and his dog named Snowy, living in Europe.  They go on a splendid adventure around the world to find the Secret of a ship called the Unicorn.  Its a lot like Indiana Jones and its a Steven Spielburg film.  Peter Jackson had something to do with the movie too but I forgot what.  Steven Spielburg was copying from Tintin when making the Indiana Jones movies, but he didn't even know he was doing it!  The movie is a motion capture film, between animation and real action.  MC is what I'll call it for short, since they don't have a short name for it yet...  just maybe it'll get around.  Still writing in my books a little, although I don't think I'll be able to finish the first draft by Christmas as I thought I would.  Anyway, God bless you! 
Merry Christmas! :)  

Review for Hugo

My dad and I got to go see the movie Hugo recently and since I've liked reading movie reviews, I decided to write one.

The soundtrack of this movie was made by Howard Shore, the one who did the soundtrack of Lord of the Rings.  He did a very good job with the soundtrack of Hugo, although it doesn't sound at all like something you'd hear from Lord of the Rings.  So there's one thing to be excited about when seeing the movie.

Now if you don't know what movie or book I am talking about, it is about a boy of twelve who lives in a train station in Paris.  He is an orphan and takes care of the large clocks, while trying to avoid the Station Inspector, who takes orphans to orphanages and thieves to prison.  The time period is 1931(or nineteen thirties somewhere).  He has to steal for a living.  But there is a secret he has been keeping and a girl he meets is very set on finding out what his secret is. 
I have read the book that the movie was based off of.  The book is called "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" and at first glance looks like a very very hard book to read since it is so very fat.  But half of those pages are hand drawn pictures that capture the action.  The book was good.  I liked it. 

Now the making of the movie:  the director has been known for many rated R movies but decided to make a family friendly movie.  And he did a very good job.  He went all out on 3D.  The colors and cinematography are amazing.  And the characters are well drawn out compared to other hastily made movies.

I don't mean to say that this movie is a 'kid' movie.  Not at all.  In fact, I think this movie is for tweens and adults more than for eight-year-olds.  Its a fantasy like movie in a realistic french setting with a haunting story of a boy trying to find a message from his father, somewhere around him.  I haven't told you the tip of the iceberg, but if you want to know more of the plot, you can just go see the 2nd trailer on Youtube.      

Note: the movie is in 3D and in 2D.  I saw it in 2D as 3D gets weird on the eyes, and for a lot of movies, people just don't take much advantage of the 3D when making it.  But in this movie, they did a lot of work on it, or so many people say.  I think that this movie was actually meant to be seen in 3D, or so many many people say, because I haven't seen it in 3D yet.  But my dad wants to.  We were both near to tears near the end.  But all ends well.

There are some very good themes in the movie that I liked, and this movie is worth going to see.

At the moment, ninety-three percent of people on Rotten Tomatoes liked the movie.  I definitely aim to go see the movie again.  And when it comes to DVD, I will buy it.
And this review is long.....
God bless you all!

Music!

Yay, thanks to BohoRose, I got a playlist up!  Let there be music!  Enya is the lady who sang in Lord of the Rings, and Moya is her sister.  I think Moya's a Christian, through the lyrics of some of her songs.  The original spelling of her name was Mairre or something similar but its pronounced Moya Brennan so she changed the spelling for her newer albums.  Its kind of like Irish Celtic music and a lot of special effects on the voice to make it sound cool. 
I like a few songs from Plumb, and Barlowgirl is one of my favorites too.
Man I should get back to writing if I want to finish the first draft!  I found out a whole other side of the plot and it adds to the story so.... Yeah.
I write music on our piano.  It was just tuned around yesterday or the day before.  It's a beautiful black grand Yamaha and it sounds so beautiful right after being tuned.
One day I will record the songs that I write and maybe put them on Youtube.
And perhaps I'll be able to put them on here too.
My family is musical.  My dad was given the Black piano as a donation.  He wrote music and made three whole albums from it.  People listen to it at night(including me) to help them sleep.  Its contemporary beautiful music. 
My sister plays the violin and guitar and a little piano too.  I just started Piano lessons a few weeks ago.
God bless you!  Enjoy the music :)

Blogging and Character Creating Help

Hallo!  I am sort of new to this blogging stuff even if I already started months ago.  I don't exactly know how put a playlist(a music thingy that plays a list of music for free) on here or other things but...  If you know how to, could you comment and tell me how?

Character Creating:

Creating Characters is more than just describing him/her and giving him/her a list of things to do within the book according to plot.
In writing, many authors say that Characters come first.  Characters make your story(name of a book that I'm reading.  It has a blue cover and is by Maren Elwood in case you want to go looking for it), and plot doesn't make characters. 
I also got some help from a clean video series on Youtube made by Scottishbooktrust about writing books.  The person who made it has a Scottish accent which made it even more cool.  The video was called Creative Writing Masterclass 2. You can look that up if you want.  I got a lot of this from that one.
Characters develop through plot just as we ourselves develop through crisis.  I have read in the book that readers are more interested in the characters than in the plot.  You could have a character hanging over a cliff and readers might not even care because the character might not have much color or character, being not much more than a puppet.
To change that, you give that character different traits.  Is he or she shy?  Or is he/she very talkative?  If you choose one or the other, they should keep that character trait unless they go through something that helps them to overcome their shyness or realize that not talking as much is better than talking a lot.
If one is shy, then show your reader that he/she is shy and why they are shy, or why they avoid talking as much; the character's reason for avoiding talking.
Another thing is talent: what is their talent?
What is their passion?
What is their secret?
Who do they look up to?
Who do they try to avoid at all costs?  Who is their worst enemy?
What have they lost?  A parent?  A sibling?  A toy?  An heirloom?  A key?
What do they keep in their pockets?  If they carry a guitar pick, than you will probably think that they are a musician.  If they carry an American dime, then you know they're American.  If they carry a rock, then you'll think they're a rock collector.  If they wear a wedding ring you'll think they're married.  And so on.
I hope this helps you in creating good characters.
God bless you!

Autumn is Here

Orange.  Red.  Purple.  Gold.  Silver.  Blue river dancing through the rocks and down a waterfall.  Wind blowing through skeleton leaves.  Rustle.............
Rereading the Dragon Keeper Chronicles books one, two, and three(really really good Christian Fantasy books about dragons and wizards and a girl who collects dragon eggs and raises the dragons when they hatch).  I haven't read the fourth or fifth book yet but I will soon.

I'm going to finish the first book in the Greenvine Manuscripts soon, I'm trying to finish the first draft by Christmas.  Trying to push myself.  It really does help if you know you have a dead line or if you make one.
If you really need to write what happens in your books and you come to a part that explains things that's important but you'd rather write into a different part of the book, it has helped me to just explain everything important that happens in the scene just to get it out of the way for the moment and then go on to write in the part of the book that you've been wanting to write in for a while.
 
I am sorry that I have not posted for so long.  School has started.  I have finally taken myself out of my normal world to write in this beautiful world of blogging.  Hallo all.
You are never alone for Jesus the shepherd sees everything and will never leave you.

God Bless you all!
           ~Emilyn(this is my pen name)