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7 Cliche-Free Character Development Spins

BY NEW READER MEDIA

No one, literally no one, ever escapes the magnet of falling in love with that hero or heroine—and even that villain, sometimes—from the pages of your favorite titles. At one point, you can’t deny that you cried, laughed, or got frustrated with that character.

And when your turn to write the next Edward Cullen, Dolores Umbridge, or Joker comes, it is upon you to carve a solid character development to flesh the next threedimensional iconic characters that bookworms will either fall in love with or hate to the core.

In this treat, we bring you character development tips in writing your iconic characters—protagonists and antagonists—to life.

Here are ideas on how to develop characters in your story:

1. Paint a picture of your character. 2. Give the character a strong backstory. 3. Reveal the character’s motivations and goals. 4. Balance their traits, nothing too perfect. 5. Give them the right skill and/or powers. 6. Drop the stereotypes. 7. Give your character a distinct voice.

Paint a picture of your character

When you read the name Harry Potter, you picture a thin bespectacled boy with jet black hair and bright green eyes. Being able to visualize how your characters would look like if they were real would help them leave marks on the readers’ minds.

Write about the character’s physical appearances such as the color of their hair, eyes, and skin, and their height and built. You can include their distinguishing features such as Harry’s lightning bolt scar, Hermione’s prominent front teeth, or Ron’s freckled face. Also include their mannerisms when they’re sad, excited, angry, or happy.

These features will make the characters more relatable to the readers. Sometimes, readers even picture themselves as look-alikes of the characters in the books that they are reading.

If you’re thinking about prospects of your book making it to the big screen in the future, paint a clear picture of your characters.

Give the character a strong backstory

A peek into the past of your characters may be all it takes to make your readers love, understand, or hate them even more.

Giving your characters a strong backstory may explain their personality. Their history will give the readers hints on what choices would the characters make in the later parts of the book or when they face pressing conflicts. Backstories also change the readers’ perspective of a character. Remember how a drift to the pensieve made Severus Snape “the bravest man” Harry ever knew.

Mind, however, that incorporating flashbacks is not a universal way of showing backstories for all characters in all books. Although there are details about a character that will not make it to the pages, still maintain notes of what they are and where they are from. It will guide you on how to progress your characters into the story.

Reveal the character’s motivations and goals

An effective character development shows the goals of the character and the motivations behind his or her actions. Take Leo Valdez of the Percy Jackson series. His perseverance in the mission to defeat the giants is fueled by his heartbreak in the death of his mother at the hands of the primordial deity Gaia.

An effective spin in your character development also includes giving your readers access to the inner thoughts and feelings of the character. Let the readers see through the character’s inner conflict, motivations, opinions, and personality. The character’s internal monologue is also a neat way to establish information about the happenings in the book through the writer’s perspective.

Balance their traits, nothing too perfect

Drop the cliche of making the protagonist too good to be true or the villain too evil. You can give the good a tinge of misdemeanor and the evil a pint of “values” or an extent of morality.

A too-perfect protagonist makes the narrative boring. Allow the character to lose his or her temper when faced with hard or frustrating circumstances in the story; let him or her make mistakes like how any normal person would. An imperfect protagonist is more relatable and likable than a purely upright one.

Antagonists are also not just plain evil. No matter how twisted, they still maintain some values—the most common of which is loyalty. In the Harry Potter book series, Lord Voldemort showed how he chastised and tortured those who have abandoned him but showed his delight over the Lestranges who were imprisoned in Azkaban when they tried to look for him after his downfall in 1981.

Give your characters the right skill/power

In most stories, the goal of the protagonist is to overpower or topple the rule of the antagonist. While there is the desire to see the hero succeed, it is undoubtedly lame to just let him do it. No reader hero is celebrated for slaying an ant, really!

What makes a story more interesting is when the hero faces an insurmountable challenge that would almost break them in the process. The main character, while possessing innate skills and motivations, must go through the process of improving himself and collecting skills, equipment, and allies in order to make the win worth the wait.

Drop the Stereotypes

Using lazy stereotypes such as “the damsel in distress” or “strong muscular man” may at worst be offensive for your readers. You can be archetypal—that is, the use of patterns such as the common behavior of similar characters, without needing to be stereotypical—which shows when you write a preconceived belief about a certain character based on his or her gender, age, or ethnicity.

Have you heard of Clarisse La Rue? She’s a female demigod from the Ares Cabin in Camp Half-Blood in the Percy Jackson series. Instead of being a female that stereotypically needs saving, Clarisse’s strong and hot-tempered character is written in the archetype of her father, Ares, the God of War.

Realistically, everyone sounds different from another. That is precisely how we know when a letter or text message sent to us was not really written by the sender. There is something in the way we speak that gives our identity away.

This is still true for the characters in your book. The characters’ voice echoes loudly with the common words or phrases they use or their humor. Think of Joey Tribbiani and you can literally hear him ask, “How you doin’?”

Now that you’ve got this quick guide on how to write your characters, grab your pen and paper (or anything you can write on) and start scribbling the names you’d want to be in your debut or next book. For more tips like this, visit newreadermedia.com!

Agnali

The Entertainer: The Sad Story Behind America’s First Pop Star

BY NEW READER MEDIA

To begin with, America’s first pop star died a penniless man, buried in an unmarked grave, and with a series of unfinished and unrealized compositions.

The second born of six children, Scott Joplin was introduced to music because of his parents: Giles Joplin, a former North Carolina slave, and Florence Givens, an AfricanAmerican freewoman from Kentucky. Giles Joplin used to play the violin at plantation parties while Florence is a skilled banjo player.

At the age of 7, Scott Joplin learned the basics of music from his parents and was allowed to play the piano while his mother did the house chores. Scott was obsessed with the piano, playing it every afternoon.

His prowess in playing the piano was further developed upon meeting German-American music teacher Julius Weiss. Weiss became a big factor in Scott Joplin’s life, having taught

him for free after knowing of Joplins’ financial difficulties. He fell in love with Scott’s perseverance and passion for music. The two became lifelong friends until Weiss’s death.

When his father left for another woman in his teenage years, Scott worked as a railroad laborer and performed at a number of local events. Not long after, Scott left for Texarkana to pursue a career in music but it wasn’t until when he moved to Missouri in 1894 that things began to change for the great Scott Joplin.

Though the ragtime music did not originate from Scott Joplin himself, it was his theatrical play around the melody and syncopation that differentiates him away from the usual ragtime music that was already played around Minstrel Shows, a racist entertainment during the era of slavery and post-Civil war in America.

After being exposed to ragtime music in the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Scott Joplin knew just what to do to innovate what was once a piece of simple dance music. Working parttime as a piano teacher while performing in Missouri shows, Scott Joplin published his own music in 1895; and in 1899, he scored his first successful ragtime composition called “Maple Leaf Rag”.

Maple Leaf Rag was no sleeper hit. In its first six months, it sold a hundred thousand copies and soon sold over a million copies making Scott the first musician to do so. Maple Leaf Rag influenced ragtime music, having been recognized as one of Joplin’s most copied compositions which would become the model for ragtime tunes to come.

Though It was believed that his contract with John Stillwell Stark, his music publisher, only allowed him 1% of the royalty, Scott Joplin did not slow down and managed to compose three other ragtime music pieces: The Ragtime Dance, March Majestic, and his most famous tune and also, the first music piece to gain worldwide fame, The Entertainer.

The immortality of “The Entertainer” is undeniable. These days, “The Entertainer” is usually associated with ice cream trucks and even silent films.

Scott Joplin was undeniably gaining a reputation and it won’t be long he grasps on another ambition: to make an opera.

But Scott Joplin’s life was never the same after the financial failure during the tour of A Guest of Honor, his first opera, showing early signs of syphilis, and the death of his wife, Freddie Alexander, ten weeks after their marriage.

His failed attempt at getting a producer in New York to produce his next opus in 1907 and upon making ends meet with his second opera, Treemonisha, led to his deterioration and soon after his confinement and death because of Syphilitic Dementia on the 1st of April, 1917 in Manhattan State Hospital.

His second wife Lottie Stokes, whom he married in 1909, composed one last music with her husband in 1914 under the name Scott Joplin Music Company called Magnetic Rag.

Though unnoticed, like Scott’s second opera, the composition (in fact, all of his compositions) received posthumous appreciation in the 1970s when the 1974 film The Sting used his music, was released, and won the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

Scott Joplin’s grave was finally marked at St. Michael’s Cemetery in East Elmhurst after 57 years.

His music resurfaced once again and by the late ’70s. Treemonisha, his second opera, was produced in full and he was awarded posthumously the Pulitzer Prize. In 1976, his rented home in St. Louis was recognized as a National Historic Landmark; and in 2002, Joplin’s own recorded performances in the 1900s is included in the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, forever cementing his legacy in music and recognizing Scott Joplin as America’s first pop star.

Branwell Brontë

Stories of the Storytellers Who are the European writers behind their byline?

BY NEW READER MEDIA

What was the first book you’ve read? Or the first play you’ve watched?

Most of the responses one could get would be Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, or if you go for more modern, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

The names of European writers and playwrights never miss being mentioned in conversations like this—and for good reasons. From the classical period until contemporary times, European influence is highly cognizable in writers’ and playwrights’ storytelling styles in their respective mediums.

But while many seem to be familiar with the long list of European writers and their works, don’t you get curious about their backstories, interests, and life behind their bylines? Surely, you are now and that is why NRM has prepared this to look deeper into the persons behind their pennames. Homer (circa 750 BC)

If you are into classical figures, you couldn’t have missed Homer— the man believed and known to be the author of the Illiad and Odyssey. While he is regarded as one of the most influential writers, with his epics becoming the basis of Greek education at the time, the identity of Homer remains hazy.

Details of his birth, the years he walked this earth (if he ever did), how he looked, and what was his life like are nothing but guesses and probabilities put forward by scholars based on his works. He is believed to have been born around 750 BC, predating the birth of the calendar itself. Oftentimes, Homer is depicted as a blind man with curly hairs, as shown in busts and statues built in his honor. This image of Homer is based solely on the character of Demodokos, a poet in The Odyssey. Mysterious!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did not need to find a job, at least for the first half of his life, being born to a wealthy parentage in the wealthy commercial and financial center, Frankfurt. He was the eldest of seven children and developed a rather intense affection for his sister, Cornelia, the only one among his siblings to survive into adulthood; and had a lovehate relationship with his younger brother, who died at age 6, and this relationship is believed to be one that affected his later development.

His energies showed no decline even when his age was advancing. After marrying off his son and resigning the directorship of the Weimar Theatre in 1817, he completed more literary works until the dusk period of his life and even took a new scientific interest in meteorology. His last heartache came when he, in his 70s, proposed marriage to 19-year-old Ulrike in 1823, which the latter refused. He returned to Weimar where he continued to write, producing the Trilogy of Passion in 1827. He passed on from a heart attack while sitting on his armchair in the spring of March 1832, months after he sealed the manuscript for the part two of Faust.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are just two of Victor Hugo’s works that survived time, still being read by enthusiasts close to two centuries since they were first published. Hugo is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the romantic movement in France.

He was born to parents with incompatible political beliefs, his military man father being a loyalist to successive governments and his mother being a royalist. He graduated from the law faculty in Paris and memories of his life as a poor student later purportedly became the inspiration for Marius in Les Misérables.

Dante (1265-1321)

Born as Durante Alighieri in 1265, Dante grew up among Florentine aristocracy. His parents died in his childhood but not before he has been arranged to be married to Gemma di Manetto Donati and he did, in 1285 although he was, and remained, in love with another girl, Beatrice Portinari who died in 1290. Dante channeled his grief over her death by committing himself to study the works of Boethius, Cicero, and Aristotle, to writing poetry. Dante purportedly wrote Vita Nuova (The New Life) between 1292 to 1294 in commemoration of Beatrice’s death.

Dante has been educated in grammar, language, and philosophy and was took an apprenticeship with Brunetto Latini. Dante’s most noted work was The Divine Comedy.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Literally, who doesn’t know William Shakespeare? From poetry to plays, Shakespeare’s works command respect and recognition. His most popular work, arguably, was Romeo and Juliet. Could he have been a romantic man besides being an author with a knack for moving his readers’ emotions? Most likely, yes.

Shakespeare married at age 18, which was way below the acceptable marrying age in his time. His wife, Anne Hathaway, was 26 during their marriage and was already expecting their first child at the time of the wedding. They have three children throughout their marriage.

Shakespeare’s works include 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and other types of poetry. Although you might grow up watching Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, none of his original manuscripts have survived today and the ones available are all thanks to actors from Shakespeare’s theater company who collected the pieces for post-humous publication.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

Joining this roster of European writers that shaped the history of literature is Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, most popularly known for his work Don Quixote. Unlike his contemporaries, he did not attend university although supposedly studied under the Jesuits for some time and was an avid reader of books.

Miguel de Cervantes was a soldier for the Spanish Crown and was involved in the battle with Turks of the Ottoman Empire then occupying Cyprus. Cervantes, however, would return home to a country with very high inflation and struggle to gain employment, taking him a quarter-century before he scored success with Don Quixote in 1604.

Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Famous for his absurdist works, Albert Camus is a Noble Prize for Literature winner in 1957, his noted works included The Stranger and The Plague. A champion of individual rights, Camus was among the few journalists to condemn the use of the atomic bomb in Japan during the second world war.

Camus was born to a family with little money in 1913 and lost his father, a soldier, to World War I. A bright student, Camus attended the University of Algiers and obtained his undergraduate and graduate studies in Philosophy in 1936. He was married twice and divorced both times in his younger years.

The Brontë Sisters (1816-1855)

There can’t be too many artists in a family.

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë are sisters born in Thornton, Yorkshire to an Anglican clergyman father. Accounts of their life say all the Brontë children started to write at a young age owing to them being left alone at home often. The sisters had each used pseudonyms: Currer for Charlotte, Ellis for Emily, and Acton for Anne, and went on to publish novels that would be known as classics in today’s time.

Some of their published works include Jane Eyre by Charlotte, Agnes Grey by Anne, and Withering Heights by Emily. All of the Brontë sisters, as well as their brother Branwell, died of tuberculosis.

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

If you’re a writer who is frustrated to find a publisher, do not fret. Even Jane Austen’s priced Sense and Sensibility took a while before finding its way to the printing press.

Jane Austen was born as the seventh of eight children of a close-knit Hampshire family. Much like the heroines in her works, Jane shared a loving alliance with her sister Cassandra. Both refused to wed for the sake of marriage and instead went to support their mother since their father’s death in 1805.

According to the British Library, the comedy, wit, satire, and romance in Austen’s works reflect her social and geographical background in Hampshire, Bath, and Dorset. Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Charles Dickens had a rather bitter start as a child. After his father was imprisoned for bad debt, he was withdrawn from school and sent to work in a factory under horrible conditions for three years. The appalling experience never left him and seemed to have been immortalized in his novels David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

The Victorian author started as a journalist covering the parliament before publishing a long list of novels, including The Tale of Two Cities; edited weekly periodicals, wrote books and plays, and performed before Queen Victoria in 1851.

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924)

If you think of Frances Hodgson Burnett, then you’d probably think of The Secret Garden.

Like Charles Dickens, Burnett endured a difficult childhood that started from the passing of her father, Edwin Hodgson. They had to move from one house to another, each one becoming far less like their old house in St. Luke’s Terrace and the fascinating gardens until they end up in a log cabin outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.

They continued to financially struggle while in Tennessee until Frances tried her chance to earn money from writing by sending stories to magazines. Later, she would become the highest-paid female writer in America at age 18.