Category: Katie Ganshert

GMC: Looking at the G

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Besides Brandilyn Collins’ Getting into Character, I am also reading Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon. These two are excellent books to read in tandem, since they sort of feed off one another.

Today I thought I’d blog about the G in GMC – which is Goal. Every main character in a book should have a goal – both internal and external. Debra says this goal needs to urgent and/or incredibly important. There should also be serious consequences attached to each goal. The “So what?” addendum. If this character doesn’t accomplish this particular goal, so what? Is the consequence big enough to make the reader care?
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Once we have the G’s established, we need to make them evident right off the bat. We don’t want to leave our reader guessing what it is our character wants. This is all so incredibly obvious…. in hindsight. Now that I’m reading about it, I’m having a fun time searching for the G’s in the books and movies I read and watch.
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For enjoyment, I’m reading Reclaiming Nick, by Christian fiction author, Susan May Warren. Right away (in the first chapter), she establishes the goals for all three of her main characters (MCs). I was amazed at how effectively she accomplishes this!
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Nick’s goal: Make sure Cole St. James doesn’t set foot on Silver Buckle land (external) and make amends for his past choices (internal)
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Piper’s goal: prove that Nick Noble lied and framed her brother for murder (external) and in the process, find healing/forgiveness for not believing her brother (internal)
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Maggie’s goal: to claim the land Bishop Noble left them (external) and start a new season of hope with her family (internal)
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The author really just lays it out, doesn’t she?
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I decided, before I start plotting out my next idea, that I need to have my MC’s goals firmly established. Remember how I said these two craft books I’m reading feed into one another? Well, currently, I’m having a hard time figuring out what my hero and heroine’s goals are going to be… especially the heroine. In order to discover them, I’m going to utilize Collins’ interview strategy. I’m making some progress with Gavin – but I haven’t quite hit rock bottom yet. I’m patiently waiting for his cooperation so I can discover what it is that makes him tick. And hopefully, in the process, figure out his goals for the story.
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Questions to ponder: So what about you? Do your MCs have goals? Are they working toward something? Are the goals important enough? Are there consequences for not meeting them? How do you establish these goals for the reader? And if you feel like it, please share your MC’s goals!

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Getting into Character: An Interview with my Hubby

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Right now I’m reading two writing books. Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon (which I’ll blog about later), and Getting into Character by Brandilyn Collins.

I just finished reading Chapter One: Personalizing in Getting into Character. The method of personalizing goes something like this:

You start by interviewing your character. For example, my character is an architect. So I might ask, “Bethany, why did you decide to be an architect?” I stick with this line of questioning until I hit rock bottom – which leads me to a “So what?” moment. This so-what moment leads to an inner value, which gives rise to a trait, which gives rise to a set of mannerisms. Brandilyn Collins says that many times, writers take a character, pull a few mannerisms from a hat, and slap them on the character in hopes of making him/her identifiable. But really, as she so appropriately puts it, we’re just dressing a mannequin. We want our character’s mannerisms to be a window into something deeper. We want to build our characters from the inside out. It just makes sense, doesn’t it?

To give the process a whirl, I decided to interview my husband. Meet Ryan, my hubby (in the picture above). He was a very cooperative participant. I started with a basic question: Why do you deliver beer for a living? I kept asking more questions based on his responses until I got to some inner values. It was a very enlightening process for both of us. Here’s what we discovered:

Some of Ryan’s inner values:

– He wants to be the best at what he does
– He expects the best from the people around him
– He treats people the way he wants to be treated
– He loves to not just overcome a challenge, but to blow it out of the water

So what traits arose from these inner values?

– hardworking (you can slap me if you’ve ever met a harder worker)
– impatient (when people don’t perform to his expectations)
– considerate
– competitive

What mannerisms align with these traits?

– He walks very fast.
– He looks straight ahead (tunnel vision – he gets in a zone).
– If a worker at one of his stops starts talking to him, he’ll often stand by the door and listen, but quickly searches for an appropriate time to bring the conversation to an end so he can do his job (a combination of considerate and impatient)

Some conflict:

Often, his impatience to get the job done and to do it well conflicts with his desire to be considerate. If somebody interrupts him while working, his body language might express his impatience. And afterwards, he often scolds himself for his negative attitude and “rude” body language. He feels bad about it and promises himself he won’t fall into the same trap next time.

This was such a fun process to do together. I found out a whole slew of interesting things about my husband. I couldn’t help thinking that I might like to borrow some of his traits, values, etc. for a character in one of my books someday. I’m probably bias (since I love him), but I think he’d make an excellent hero in a contemporary romance!

Question to ponder: How do you get to know your characters on a deep level? How do you make sure they are round instead of flat?removetweetmeme

Stretched

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Over the past couple weeks, my writing prayer has been: Lord, help me grow. That’s my goal for the next four months. Not to find representation. Not to get a contract. But to simply grow. And boy, has God answered. I think I am officially going through my second growth spurt as a writer.

My first occurred last summer, after I submitted fifteen pages of Through the Storm for a professional critique. I naively believed my feedback would go something like this: “There’s nothing to critique! I’m quite shocked this isn’t already on bookshelves, actually. In fact, here’s my card. Give me a ring and I’ll set you up with one of my agent friends.”
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Okay… so maybe I wasn’t that naive. But I did live in La-La Land.
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Here’s how the comments really went: “You are bringing the reader into everybody’s head. You need to pick a point of view and stick with it. At one point, you even bring us into the dog’s head!” This is a true story. I actually wrote a sentence where the family dog could smell the wife’s grief. I head hopped all over the place, and I didn’t even know it was wrong. That critique was the impetus of my first growth spurt. I checked out a stack of books from the library on the craft of writing and completely rehauled my first two manuscripts. God used last summer to stretch me in a big way.
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And it seems He is using these four months before the ACFW conference to stretch me again. I am learning so many things at such a fast rate that I wish I could crack open my skull and dump them in at once. Only I want to coat everything in super glue first – just to make sure it all sticks. Between my contest results, recent articles/blogs, and some new people God has placed in my life – my writing muscles are stretching further than I thought possible. It’s like I have this insatiable appetite that won’t go away. I want to get my mouth around every morsel of information and digest it as quick as possible. It’s a very exhilarating time.
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As a side note: I just ordered Goal, Motivation, and Conflict online. I’ve heard is a phenomenal book.
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Question to Ponder: What growth spurts have you gone through during your writing journey? What caused them? What did you learn from them?

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