A new writing exercise every month. When you focus on one aspect of writing at a time, you can concentrate on making it the best you can possibly create. That way you can reach a professional level that may be harder with longer works. We’ll explore one aspect of the craft each month.

If you comment on other writers’ efforts, they’ll usually comment on yours. So you get lots of critiques, advice, and encouragement.

Please don’t post your entry in comments here. Create your entry on your own blog, and then click <“An InLinkz Link-up“> to join the link-up and read other people’s work.

Character Desire and Plot

Plots engage our interest, but characters engage our hearts. For a story to grip the reader, the main character must undergo change. Once you have a character with a desire, you have a plot. The plot is about how the character struggles to overcome obstacles and achieve their desire, or fails to do so.

Exercise:

Think of a character. Then ask yourself: what does this character want?  What is stopping them achieving their desire? What must they do to overcome these obstacles?  Write a brief scene, the climax of the story, in which your character confronts the obstacles.

This is my response to the first Scrivener’s Forge exercise. Click on the link to see the exercise details. Click here to see other responses.

 

Sarah leans in close as her friend adopts a conspiratorial whisper. The clatter of cutlery and the hum made by the chatter of two hundred students masks the confession.

“I know Malky must love me because of what he does.”

Sarah leers, with what she believes is a woman-of-the world grin. “Why? What does he do?”

“He brings me his washing.”

Sarah blinks.

Her friend sees the blink and frowns, “That’s intimate, right?”

“Malky’s knickers, yeah. Very intimate.”

“Well there you go – he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t love me, would he?”

Sarah scratches her temple. “Sounds like a bond.”

“And he does other things too.”

The pause is masterly, leaving Sarah no choice but to arch an eyebrow and ask.

“Malky doesn’t like going out. Always wants to stay in. Like, together – just us.”

“Is he … is it … I mean, is it good?”

Sarah’s friend giggles. “A bit quick. But then boys are, aren’t they?”

“Does he go again?”

“Sometimes, but usually he falls asleep and I watch telly.”