Tag Archives: tips & tricks

Morning pages, journaling, habits.

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I admit it: I sometimes struggle to prioritize my writing. There’s the house and the chores and the kids and the husband and the cats and the taxes and the business and… AND the writing. Too often I find myself tired at the end of a long day and not once did I pick up a pen or type something up. And I am furious about it.

So here’s an idea: I need to work on forming the habit of writing more regularly. Urgently! I know I can do it. Heck, there was a time when I got up at 4:45 just so I was ready to write at 5am – proud member of the #5amwritersclub on Twitter. But honest: I’ve not managed that kind of enthusiasm (and masochism) for a long while.

In Autumn 2019 I attended the SCBWI-BI (British Isles) conference in Winchester. I wrote about it here. And at this conference, I listened to Piers Torday‘s “Creating Characters to Care About” presentation. During this talk, Piers mentioned something called Morning Pages and his way of basically employing the well-known journaling method to pump out some prose. Not just in terms of writing something, but also in terms of learning to write no matter the mood of the day.
Of course, I had heard of journaling. Bullet journaling for chore and task tracking, journaling for working through tough times,…but I had never considered to just write unrelated pieces of prose, unconnected prose, a type of association game.

So I went through my stack of unused notebooks and picked just the right one for the job. LARGE! (It’s a DIN A4 size; does anyone outside of Germany even use the DIN norms?) Hard-over. Bound in black fabric. 500 pages. Hahaha. Optimism FTW. I had already written on the first few pages at some other point, but figured 480 pages will be good enough too. Here it is:

Pen for scale.
Welcome 2021

Now it’s the end of the January, and I am having the best time with this. No, I don’t manage to write every day. But it’s definitely more often than before. I’ve drafted two new short stories: 1) Aliens accused of terraforming earth need to defend themselves in front of an international Grand Jury and 2) a Sleeping Beauty Retelling.

I vary the methods from day to day. At some days, I pick up where I left the day before. That’s usually when I draft a short story and am immersed in the plot/story. Other days, I start with a random line – from a book (a bit like the Literary Taxidermy idea, or from my list of ‘this could be a good beginning/first sentence’. Some days I pick a random word. Or an idea/event/titbit I heard on the news and just let my imagination run free: what if…?

So far, I’m not disappointed. 🙂

Bullet Journal – a writers approach

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During 2017, I got increasingly frustrated with the progress of my WIP despite my regular attendance at #5amwritersclub. I had trouble getting my daily workload organized in a reasonable way and still get some writing done – all day every day something came up and interfered. So, I was searching for a remedy, something new worth trying. In came my first Bullet Journal.

That was in August 2017 and now, almost half a year later, I’m still using it. I’ve written a guest post for the SCBWI Germany/Austria chapter’s blog. Head over there if you want to know how I personalized my Bullet Journal and organize (not only) my writing.

Got a journal yourself? Any ideas how I could improve my journaling? Write me in the comments – I’d love to hear about it!

Webinar – Three interesting talks @ Agent Day

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Last Saturday, on 27th of January, the SCBWI-WI team held a half-day webinar featuring advice from three agents, namely Lauren Spieller, Taylor Martindale Kean and Natalie Lakosil.

Unfortunately, I could not attend the webinar at the time it was streamed but the SCBWI WI crew provided a recording of the talks just 24h later and I watched it the following week. Here’s a quick overview of all three sessions.

Lauren Spieller – How to write a decent query letter.

Author herself and an agent with Triada US Literacy agency, Lauren talked about the art of writing a killer query and get agents and editors to request a full manuscript. To do so, she broke down the structure of a query letter and explained basic information that should be given.

The most important thing is: a query letter is a business letter, therefore you should treat it as such. I knew many of the key points Lauren spoke about but here are a few crucial points to keep in mind: the agent wants to be intrigued, don’t tell the ending, don’t include smash-hits as a comp titles even if you think what you wrote is, of course, the next Harry Potter; and double check the triple checked spelling of the agent’s name!

Taylor Martindale Kean – Voice in MG and YA Fiction

Taylor Martindale Kean is with Full Circle Literacy agency and she gave a talk about voice in middle grade and young adult fiction.

What’s voice anyway? It is, in short, what’s gripping about a novel – a certainly intangible concept – and therefore one of the most sought-after achievements in the craft. Yet, no foolproof method for developing said voice exists. As it seems, it’s a matter of practice and, as Taylor put it, a combination of tone, style, and personality that is unique to the author. But there’s hope. At least there are a few approaches one might try and Taylor went ahead and gave her audience an idea where to start looking for one’s very own voice.

My main takeaway from her talk is to strive for a more tangible prose that fits the character’s origin. And of course, reader bonding by keeping the author intrusion at a minimum.

Natalie Lakosil – Tips and Tricks for Quick Revision

In her talk about how to revise a manuscript, Natalie (of Bradford Lit Agency) first pointed out how she likes to broaden the word revision to re-envision. A valid approach, since we often are stuck with the ideas we conceived first. It’s not easy to pinpoint the shortcomings of a manuscript (MS) if you are still deep within its grasp. So, unsurprisingly the first thing to do is to ignore the whole thing a for a while so you can come back with fresh eyes. I read that so often and still think it’s going to be very hard to do it.

What to do during this time, then? Natalie recommends extensive reading in the genre and researching characteristics the MS should meet. Think word count, for example. But looking up comp titles is vital, too. These help to discern what published books have or don’t have and compare it to your own work.

After the resting period, it’s time to revise at last. I can’t possibly list all the advice Natalie gave. The idea that stuck with me most was the Plot Dot Test – I am definitely going to try that one. Other than that I got some good info on improving the tangibility of the prose and working in motifs and symbols.

Natalie’s best advice, however, was to keep in mind your own idea of your story when you judge feedback by peers, beta readers, and even agents. It’s your story after all and impossible to make it perfect for everybody – so you might as well keep a firm grasp on your own idea and focus.

So. This is it–another webinar done and blogged about. I hope it was a good read and held at least a few new insights. Thanks again the SCBWI Wisconsin chapter for all the work in setting up the webinar.

 

 

 

Scrivener Webinar and 5 features I’ll use

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I’ve been using Scrivener since early 2016. Back then, I had been unsatisfied with the regular “word files plus project folder” – setup for my writing projects. It just took to long to organize research, pictures or backmatter. Even with the help of bookmarks and Pinterest, it was still a pain to find stuff again that I knew I had already looked up and saved somewhere. So, I gave Scrivener a try and have not looked back since.

But, just as it is often the case with any given application, I don’t use the tool the full extent of its capabilities. There are always some special tricks, features and hidden functionalities I never needed or just don’t know about.

When I stumbled over SCBWI_Dakotas chapter’s webinar on Scrivener, I signed up, positive I’d learn something new. I wasn’t disappointed. (check out their chapter website here – there’re more webinars to come.)

1) Split Document with ⌘K

When importing an already full or partially written manuscript (e.g. from MSword) to Scrivener, I’ve always assumed I had to specially format the original file with parseable identifiers and import using these to get one text documents per chapter in Scrivener.

Turns out, there’s an easier way: Import the whole text. In the text, click where you want your new chapter to start. Press ⌘K and voilá! Scrivener divides the document into two at this point.

2) Colour code documents and folders in the binder

I had used labels in Scrivener before but these only always showed up as a smallish ribbon on the folder card or notecard when the corkboard view was active. But when I’m actually writing and not outlining anymore,  I rarely use the corkboard view.

Turns out, there’s a way to show the label colour in the binder. In the menu go to the View tab. In the fifth section, you’ll find the submenu “Use label colour in….” Check binder here and say hello to a colourful binder!

3) Drag and drop matter from outside the application directly to Scrivener

It’s not that I’ve never used drag&drop across application before – I just wasn’t aware it would work with Scrivener, too and used the import function in the file menu.

Instead, it’s just as easy as you might imagine. Just plug any other document, URL or item directly to the place in the binder where you need it.

4) Compare snapshots of your documents

I already use snapshots. A lot! As in ten plus snapshots for certain scenes and I’m not even in the revision process. I just tend to rewrite often. It’s a stupid habit, I know, but well… *shrug*

Whenever I notice I’ve changed some phrase or sentence and want back the former version, I’d select the old snapshot and scroll until I’d find it.

Turns out, there’s a compare button. I’ve no idea why I ignored it so long without even trying it once. Now I know better.

5) Session and Manuscript targets

If only I had known this last November and keeping track of my progress during NaNoWriMo would have been a lot easier. There’s even a “allow negatives” checkbox.

Well, NaNoWriMo is done but I’ll make use of this feature anyway. Part of my goals for 2018 is to keep track of my progress in more detail – not only the time spent writing but the actual output, too. I believe I’ll get more done if I keep myself accountable. This is going to be easier now. Yay!

What else was new?

The webinar reminded me of the “composition mode.” I’ve used that before, too, but not as often as it would make sense. I’m planning on spending more time writing in this distraction-free mode.

Last but not least, I’ve learned there’s a new Scrivener version. I’ll have to check that out! Who knows what else I’m missing otherwise.

What about you? Do you (still) use MSWord or something else? Let me know!

Webinar with Kat Brzozowski

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As often the case with me, there’s a funny story in “Katja attends her first-ever webinar.” I’ve had, of course, heard of webinars before. But when writer friends at the last SCBWI meet-up in Stuttgart enthusiastically told me about time well spent and valuable lessons learned, I was determined to sign up for an interesting webinar somewhere soon.

The cool thing with the SCBWI is, they have chapters all over the world and naturally there’s always something going on somewhere. Given that I’m in the Germany-Austria chapter does not mean I don’t come across events hosted by other chapters, too. At least, I know that now – because when I went looking for something that might be of interest to me and subsequently signed up for the webinar “First Page Blitz with Editor Kat Brzozowski” I did not realise, that it was hosted by the Houston chapter. Only later did it occur to me, that the time of the webinar – 7pm – was 7pm Houston time aka 2am over here in Germany. Ohh dear….

Now, I am a person who can, if determined, raise to a challenge. I’ve had some good times with the #5amwritersclub and getting up early was nothing out of the ordinary, so I decided to pull through. And I am very glad I did. (Yes, I do know I could have just watched the recording later, but where’s the fun in that?)

Kat had given us attendees the opportunity to send in our anonymised first pages and many had done so. Going through the pages one by one, she pointed out what her thoughts on each example were, how the author could improve the beginning to make it better and more appealing to agent or editor. Between the pages she took the time to address general or follow-up questions of the authors and gave generous advise. Following are the points I regard as the most important recommendations:

  1. The reader wants to read about difference. Don’t start with the same old daily routine. Show something is special or peculiar – either for your character, or in contrast to what your reader would see as normal.
  2. Voice is important. Not just your author’s voice but the voice of the character telling the story. The manner in which the POV character starts out, sets the tone for the whole book. Try to avoid a tone that might put off readers. Who wouldn’t rather follow a funny and slightly sarcastic lad in contrast to an angry nagger? If you have decided on a tone – stay with it! Don’t change from funny to solemn mid-page.
  3. Pace is important, too. Shorter paragraphs create momentum and lead the reader into the story much more easily than large blocks of descriptive text will do. The reading flows better when the sentence length differs.
  4. Momentum comes from action, too. Not necessarily action in the sense of the character in a tight spot but as in a scene is happening. A scene is usually “stage-able” – you could play it with actors. As soon as you drop out of the scene to have the character remember events that happened who-knows-when, you halt the scene and the momentum is lost.
  5. The reader is smart. That’s crucial in more than one way. For starters: don’t spell everything out. Give the reader some credit to figure it out by herself. Don’t explain it all – write less, revise to write even less in the 2nd draft. If the smart reader does not know all connections from the start, she’ll be intrigued. Bet way to do that is to pose questions. If you do answer a raised question anyway, make sure you pose a new one before or right along with the answer.
  6. To convey how the character feels is more important than knowing why he is displaying that emotion. Of course the reader want’s to know it at some point – but figuring out motivation is one thing mankind is good at – we do it all day. So don’t spoil the fun for the reader and explain – if he works it out on his own, he’ll be all the more pleased.

Unfortunately, Kat did not have the time to go through all the submitted pages and while we were able to read many, mine was not among those. However, with the tips and tricks she explained I’ll be able to revise my first page and make it better.

I am glad I got up at 2am and I would do it again. So at this point I want to say: “Thank you, Kat!”, for giving us the opportunity to ask questions and clarifications from an experienced editor. ❤

Idea development

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Reflecting on the lessons I learned this year, one stands out: A better grip on the meaning of terms like premise, concept and plot and their respective purpose helps to solidify an idea. It also helps to judge if the idea is viable as a story worth telling.

Looking back to Dire Tidings, I now realise that I had no clear concept for the series, I had only a murky premise for the first book and don’t get me started on plot… After three month with my new WIP I can proudly say: I am doing better. So I thought I share with you my take on the subject, perhaps someone will find it helpful.

The basic ideas are collected and combined from what I read in (or heard about) not only but primarily works and ideas from K.M. Weiland, James Scott Bell, Jo Nassise & Nick Stephenson, Karl Iglesias and countless blogposts and online articles.

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

I think it all comes down to these beats: 1) find a concept, 2) conceive a character, 3) spin it both into a premise, 4) build the plot starting at the ending.

Between concept vs premise, premise vs plot, premise vs story, and some more comparisons along that line, it often get muddy. Some use concept and premise synonymously, some have another take on it. So for the safe of clarity, I’ll elaborate on my take on the terms concept, premise and plot. (I don’t think I need to talk about what a character is…:-) )

Concept:

I think of the concept as an idea that can be advanced from a simple “low” form to a more advanced “high” form by giving it an original spin. It states the general topic.

The “low concept” can be a statement like “The ruling class exploits everyone else” (Hunger Games) or “Magic is real” (Harry Potter) or “Mankind has found a way to do manned Mars missions” (The Martian) or “Evil tries to rule the world” (LotR)
There are not yet any characters in the low concept but there’s a landscape, a stage or setting of sorts. It’s a basic idea, sometimes even a common or well know sentiment.

To get from there to the “high concept” you then ask a what-if-question, that adds a unique spin it. What-if the ruling class forces everyone else into submission by having children fight to the death on live TV each year (Hunger Games)? What-if real witches and wizards live among us undetected (Harry Potter)? What-if there is a botched Mars mission turning into a rescue operation (The Martian)? What-if the power to rule is tied to a piece of jewellery (LotR)?

There’s still no character here, but the simple idea gets a fresh twist, or an unfamiliar take or an individual spin.

It can even be “just” a new setting. The Martians low concept could very well be “A member of a research team is accidently abandoned and has to be rescued” taken a step “higher” with an individual spin on the setting: “What if that happened on effing Mars?”

The concept pins down the seed of the idea.

Premise:

The premise is the story. Take the high concept and populate it with one or more characters who happen to have a goal. We all have goals. And wishes. And dreams. And motives. So do our characters and et voila – we have a story.

Without a character, the concept is nothing but an empty world. The character adds depths and focus. Imagine a pizza. Pizza is a well know concept. But plain dough? The character equals the toppings. She brings in backstory and goals and flaws and assets that enrich the formerly plain idea.

There are several takes on how to formulate a premise. Jo Nassise+Nick Stephenson describe it as a simple X must to Y in order to Z. The peace and freedom loving inhabitants of Middle Earth must destroy the Ring of Power in order to banish the dangers of enslavement. Or an abandoned astronaut has to survive alone on Mars for a time in order to get rescued.

That _is_ essentially the whole story. But it is not the plot. The plot is, how that comes to pass, all the obstacles the cast of characters has to face in order to succeed (or utterly fail).

I like K.M. Weiland’s approach on the premise sentence best. She first defines several key components a premise sentence might include, like the setup situation, the lead, the lead’s key objective, the conflict and the opponent. As soon as these items are determined, you can use different templates to mould it into a viable premise.

For example:
(LEAD) is in (situation) and wants change. To have (objective) would be great if accomplished but (opponent) stands in the way leading to (disaster).
OR
(LEAD) is in (situation) and forms (objective) relating to it. But (opponent) stirs up (conflict) that might lead to (disaster).

These are still simple statements with you might consider lacking in depth. But of course you can elaborate. Take for example this extended lineup of components: Situation and/or Setup: launching point or main plot threat, sometimes the hook; Lead: the main character and your hero; specifics of the Lead: details about your hero, heroic quality or promising character trait; Objective: what the Lead wants badly (from the start OR after the story’s launch); Obstacle or conflict: is holding back the Lead from winning objective; Opponent: who is trying to prevent the Lead from success?; Disaster: what will happen as worst outcome?

These components form a longer and more detailed kind of template:
After (setup) a (specifics) (Lead) is in (situation). In order to (objective) (Lead) must (Conflict) against (opponent) before (disaster).
Or if you have an important support character or a sub-goal, you could add those like this:
After (setup) a (specifics) (Lead) is in (situation). In order to (objective) (Lead) must (Conflict) with (supporting character) to (subgoal) before (opponent’s) action lead to (disaster).

Lets try the simpler version with The Martian: the components Lead: Mark Whatney; situation: thought dead and abandoned on Mars; objective: survive till rescue; opponent: Mars and disaster: death, take us to the following possible premise sentence:
After being thought dead, Mark Whatney is all alone and abandoned on Mars. To survive until he can be rescued would be great, but Mars is quite the harsh environment and will surely kill him.

And the more elaborate version for Hunger Games: setup: volunteered for sister Prim to take part in the hunger Games, Lead: Katniss Everdeen; specifics of the Lead: Seventeen year old survival expert; Objective: survive the Hunger Games; obstacle or conflict: evade her pursuers, navigate the arena, kill the other Tributes; Opponent: other competing tributes; Disaster: get killed:
After volunteering for her sister Prim, 17 year old Katniss Everdeen must compete in the Hunger Games. In order to survive, she must evade her pursuers, navigate the arena and if possible kill the other Tributes before the get her instead.

Plot:

Note, that the premise does only state the overall goal, not all the subgoals, that will emerge due to event-driven conflicts and obstacles. Therefore I would define the term plot here in accordance with Karl Iglesias’ definition of a story: A series of events that result in the Lead achieving or failing his main goal.

The character starts out at some point (or something happens to kick it of) with a goal, a mission, an objective. The plot is then the logically following events that lead up to the climax where success or failure of said goal is determined.

To achieve a logical progression from setup to climax, I find it helpful to know what the ending will be. Otherwise it is hard to set up convincing events that lead up to it. Furthermore stories are chiefly about change. The character or the situation at the end of the story is expected to be different from the outset. No change = boring story. If my Lead is as sad and miserable at the end of the book as she was in the beginning, my reader would disappointed and rightly so.

So what I think can work well, is to flip either the intended setup to have a contrary ending, or flip the desired ending to start from an opposing setup.

Andy Weir wanted Mark Whatney to survive in the end, so he made sure the outset was less than promising. Same goes for Suzanne Collins and Hunger Games. The ending of the book is in direct contrast to Katniss’ assessment of her situation at the beginning, too: “In District 12, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the corpse,…”

Summary:

If you have a concept and an idea for population the landscape of this concept with interesting characters with a viable opposition, you should be able to construct a striking premise. With that condensed information about your story, you can go ahead and construct a series of events and have a fitting plot at hand that will lead you from setup to resolution in a logical way.

Easy, right?

If only. 🙂

Bonus: the Main Dramatic Question (MDQ):

From the premise you can derive the MDQ: will the Lead succeed in his pursuit of his objective?

This, the overall goal of the Lead will be solved at the climax, more specifically at the climatic moment. At this point, the MDQ will be answered and the story is finished. The plot should bring up this question as early as possible, but at least with the end of Act I.

But more on this in another post.

First test with Critique Circle

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Few days ago I wrote about me picking and joining an online critique group – among the many available I chose Critique Circle.

Right after joining up and getting through the confirmation email process I started their “Welcome to CC” routine which left me with enough credits to submit my first piece of writing. It was up for its one week critique timeframe starting 6th of January. After submitting it all I had to do was wait and browse the forum. And of course – critique other writer’s work.

What can I say? This is fun and help at the same time. I like reading those bits and pieces of other writers. We are all just trying to hone our skills, advance our word-smithing and learn to put onto paper what we think someone else might enjoy reading. After a few days of critiquing several stories in different categories I have noticed that I do learn a lot – from the mistakes of others. Usually, when you buy a book there has been done some polishing going on with the original manuscript. Whatever writer, agent, editor, and publisher possible could do they did to make it as good as it gets. You don’t really get to see writings fresh from the author, let alone examples of the first rough draft.

So sometimes it is (at least for me) a little intimidating because as reader I don’t get to see all the work that went into the manuscript to make it smooth like it is when finally printed. But now I could (can!) see exactly that. And be part of it.

Whenever I notice something off in my fellow writer buddies texts, I learn. May it be a switch in POV, seemingly endless overuse of adverbs, weird dialogue tags, warped sentence structure … If I can spot it in their work, I might stand a chance to spot it in my own one day. I have since realised that spotting these things in the writings of others is a lot easier than spotting it in my own. But I figure writing is a craft like any other. The more you learn, the better you get.

During the week following Jan 6th I got seven critiques for my first submission. These helped me to come to a decision regarding my WIP. Apparently my English skills are good enough to justify me proceeding in English language. This was one of my major concerns.

Happy.

 

Advise from friends

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So, a few days ago I was in Munich visiting with Mel, Sara and Laura. Mel and Sara are not only writers like me – they are authors not less, both having a book due in Feb 2016.

We talked about my issues of finding someone who might review my writings regarding style and language skill. I am still wondering if it will be feasible to proceed writing in English. Maybe it would be better for my progress and my chances of ever getting published if I were to write in German.

Long story short, I got some advise how I might achieve finding a critique partner. Gonna set that on my bucket list for 2016.

Style issues – sentence, scene, paragraph and more

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Last night I tackled the third part of How NOT to Write a Novel: 200 Mistakes to avoid at All Costs if You Ever Want to Get Published. The authors discuss all kinds of style-related topics. Some made me laugh, some made me nod, some concerned me.

What made me laugh was the part about overly chatoyant choice of words and highfaluting terminology. What made me nod was the part about using vocabulary your expected reader will be able to understand. And it concerned me when the authors pointed out that one has to take special care when using not-so-common words. As the writer I need to make sure I have fully grasp the concept of the word myself before I use it.

If your read my About Me page you may know that I am German. Yet I write in english. Not exclusively, but chiefly. Writing is hard enough in your native tongue. When you write in a foreign language it is even more difficult. Concerned I reached out to Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark via Twitter (@sannewman and @HMittelmark) and almost instantly got some words of encouragement. “Native speakers get them wrong too. You might have the advantage of being forced to think before you write.” Howard wrote back. Thank you again! That actually is true. I spend a lot of time choosing words – especially when at first it sounds a little off. Now I am more resolved then ever to include an editor into the process _before_ I will show anything to a potential agent.

And here are some more points I took to heart from Part III – Style:

  • Exclamation marks are like speed bumps and almost exclusively reserved for dialogue. Use with utmost care.
  • While describing something or someone: no “bullet” lists, no explaining the obvious.
  • avoid time-jumps/gaps in the timeline
  • Using “said” is divine (I think I read that one in Stephen Kings On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft, too) – “asked” and “shouted” when the character does so.
  • Dialect and different speech mannerisms can help the reader recognise certain characters.

Characters – is this the hardest part?

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Here we go – I finished Part II of How NOT to Write a Novel: 200 Mistakes to avoid at All Costs if You Ever Want to Get Published – which concentrates on character development and character representation within your novel.

The authors, Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark, raise some very interesting points and include a Pop Quiz at the end of this part. I took the quiz – and apparently I suck. Way to much stereotyping and it seems my characters would behave to predictable, too. Dang! But hey, first step to solve a problem is knowing there is one. Now I know I will have to look into this and become better.

What did I learn? Here are some points I think are most important:

  • Don’t over-describe, don’t stereotype, no perfect people with perfect manners, thoughts and traits – they would be boring.
  • Ideas and mindset of the character has to fit into the time-setting of the story.
  • The villain needs a reason for his actions. The reader should be able to at least understand, but not necessarily relate to it – e.g. opportunity, money, revenge… . And the foe can’t be other-worldly smart nor a low-key opponent.

Additionally I learned new things about the roles of lovers/friends of my character and how to weave them into the social web of my story. I especially loved the box with the bulleted list naming traits and items that might make the reader dislike my character instantly.