Housekeeping

No, I totally don't mean the kind where you get your bathrooms cleaned. But that would be awesome!

Anyway, there's a few things I have to tie up, and I'm using today to do it.

1. WriteOnCon Live Panel!

It's tonight, on the WriteOnCon site, at 9 PM EST. Be there or be square. We've got two literary agents--Jessica Sinsheimer and Roseanne Wells--and two editors--Jocelyn Davies (Penguin) and Kari Sutherland (HarperCollins).

You so don't want to miss this. (And the winners to all the WOC giveaways will be up on Tuesday!)

2. The Great Blogging Experiment. I can't even think of the words to describe this awesomeness. If you missed it, you can click here to see my post and then all the other people who signed up. If you forgot, post yours and send me a link.

I think I got to all the posts, but there were several of you who snuck in after I'd read. And some of you who didn't have your posts up when I went to your blogs. If I missed yours, send me an email with the link.

It was fabulous. I think I might get to keep my kidney.

3. Winners. I had a contest on my blog for signed copies of LOSING FAITH by Denise Jaden and BREAK by Hannah Moskowitz. I used random.org to determine the winners.

LOSING FAITH: Joseph D Miller
BREAK: PK Hzero

Please email me (elanajohnson (at) gmail (dot) com) with your mailing address, so I can get these books out to you.

Whew. I think that's it. What else did I miss? What loose ends do you need to tie up?

How to Write Compelling Characters

Dude! It's Friday, September 24--which means The Great Blogging Experiment is underway. Today, over 150 people (holy. chocolate. cows. I will try to get to every post) will be talking about Writing Compelling Characters.

It's an experiment, because I believe wholeheartedly that every single post today will be unique. Because we're all unique. I hope I'm not wrong, but I suppose anything is possible. ;-)

So let's get to it. How to write compelling characters.

I only have one bit of advice: Exaggerate their humanness.

1. Humans have flaws.
2. Humans have secrets.
3. Humans have fears.
4. Humans have emotions.
5. Humans do stupid things and pay the price because of them.
6. Humans grow and change.

So to create a compelling character, they need to do/have these things too. Easy peasy, right? Uh...right.

I think that all characters in a novel should be made human. I'm sort of tired of the perfectly sculpted male in YA lit. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of cute boys (who isn't?), but if they're too beautiful, too fearless, too perfect, I just don't believe it. Even if my MC sees them that way, they can't actually be that way.

I think it's actually more interesting to allow your narrating character to have a glimpse of their boy/girlfriend's humanness. And love them anyway. That's real life.

That's human.

That's compelling.

What do you think? How do you make your characters more human? I actually make note of interesting things I see in the human life around me. That green hat. Those earrings. His personality trait. Her quirks.

And then I exaggerate them into (hopefully) endearing characteristics into (hopefully) compelling characters.

Want more opinions on this? Check out the (amazingly awesome) list below.