How to Meet Your Characters Without Doing Tons of Character Worksheets

JennethArtwork, Writing3 Comments

If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you’ve probably come across that one blog that suggests character interviews is the solution to every writer’s writing block. Then they’ll give you a long fill-in-the-blank worksheet that has questions entirely irrelevant to your character’s interests. Why do you want to know about their love life? Who cares if they have a theme song? And they don’t have time for sports — the world is at stake, for Pete’s sake!

I will say that Charahub is a pretty legit place for these kinds of questions, but I personally think interviews are mostly useless unless you’ve already got a pretty good grasp on the character’s main interests that pertain specifically to the plot of your story. Only after you figure out their most immediate concerns (saving the world), can you focus on love lives and sports.

That being said, over the years I’ve discovered different ways to learn your character’s psyche — and some of these ways I’ve never heard recommended anywhere else.

Know Your Characters

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To Fix a Rubix Cube (Children’s Story)

JennethNarratives, Writing1 Comment

For Advanced Creative Writing, we had to write a children’s story. I decided to go with a subtle allegory with this one, the Rubix cube representing life, and Ada (short for Adam) representing mankind. Mr. Joshua (derived from Yeshua) represents Jesus. Inspiration may or may not have come from Max Lucado’s You Are Special. At the end of the semester, our teacher is going to require us to submit this story to a publisher, so I guess I’ll see what happens!

Update 11/14/17: I received an A on this project.

Rubix Cube

Ada’s favorite teacher was Mr. Joshua. He was her only teacher, but that just made picking favorites even easier. Every day he would let her play with the toys on his desk, which were also favorites. Mr. Joshua let her swing the marbles on his Newton’s Cradle and press her hand in his pin art toy.

But Ada’s favorite favorite toy on Mr. Joshua’s desk was his Rubix cube. It had six colorful sides that could turn however Ada’s fingers wished them to go. She loved watching all the colors spin together into wonderful patterns and jumbles, and when she was finished, Mr. Joshua always knew how to put every color back in place.

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Writing Sample: Novel Excerpt

JennethNarratives, Writing5 Comments

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been writing a book series for basically my entire teenaged life, but I rarely share any of my writing — for multiple different reasons. Recently, though, I’ve found part of a chapter that I enjoy submitting to writing contests on occasion, and I thought I might share here. The excerpt, although not heavily weighted with the story, I imagine to be a piece that represents the spirit and feel of the book fairly well.

Character names and events are mine and cannot be used without permission.

Division Excerpt

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New film hobbies amongst young people have creative and educational benefits (Editorial)

JennethNews Articles, Writing3 Comments

For my journalism class this semester, we had to write what our teacher called a “packet project.” A packet is a collection of different news stories on one broad topic. I chose my topic to focus on the impact of online videos, which was both fun and challenging. We had to write a feature story, profile, and an editorial, which took us about half a semester.

This is the last of my packet stories. For my editorial I got to interview high school filmmaker Elijah Perry, a founder of Coming in the Clouds Productions, who’s a YouTube friend of mine. Through our common ground of filming, we’ve gotten to know each other a little bit and hope to collaborate with one another in the future.

For my feature story, click here.

For my profile story, click here.

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Perry as his lead role in CITC’s short film, Paladin’s Conquest.

PENSACOLA. Fla. —In the late ’80s, the average cost of a camcorder was about $1,500, according to Videomaker.com. Modern young people, however, have access to video and multimedia content wherever they turn. If a child or teen doesn’t have a smartphone, tablet, GoPro, or camcorder of his own, his parents or friends probably do. With the rise of the digital era, young people are adopting a new hobby to fill their post-school evenings and hot summer afternoons: filmography.

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Teenager creates online presence with YouTube (Profile Story)

JennethNews Articles, Writing2 Comments

This is the second of my packet stories. For my journalism class this semester, we had to write what our teacher called a “packet project.” A packet is a collection of different news stories on one broad topic. I chose my topic to focus on the impact of online videos, which was both fun and challenging. We had to write a feature story, profile, and an editorial, which took us about half a semester.

For my profile story, I got to interview Kenneth Knight, a high school teenager who enjoys video editing and spent long hours building an online presence through YouTube.

For my feature story, click here.

For my editorial story, click here.

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Knight: “I liked YouTube because I could put up whatever I wanted and I also could get feedback from anyone in the world.”

PENSACOLA. Fla. —It’s one in the morning with everything silent in the house save for a single voice coming deep from within a walk-in closet on the second floor. Inside the closet is set up like a studio, complete with cameras, a large desk and computer, and even sound panels mounted to the back wall. At the desk is a teenager known by YouTubers as KnightDukeGaming, RestartBurger, and ActualKenny — depending on the name of his YouTube channel at the time — as he busies himself with filming his newest YouTube upload. With giant noise-canceling headphones clapped over his ears, a Blue Yeti microphone, a webcam hooked up to his computer, and several empty Mountain Dew cans scattered around him, he cracks jokes and talks video game lingo to his online viewers.

Kenneth Knight, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, has enjoyed video editing and creating YouTube videos for several years. With nearly 4,000 subscribers on his channel, Knight is just one of many teenagers who have delved into the current YouTube trend, a trend that allows anyone to establish an online presence by filming videos, creating content, and voicing opinions for others to enjoy or learn from.

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Organizations turn to online videos to further reach their audience (Feature Story)

JennethNews Articles, Writing3 Comments

For my journalism class this semester, we had to write what our teacher called a “packet project.” A packet is a collection of different news stories on one broad topic. I chose my topic to focus on the impact of online videos, which was both fun and challenging. We had to write a feature story, profile, and an editorial, which took us about half a semester.

This is the first of the packet stories. For my feature I had the opportunity to interview Rob Bluey of the Heritage Foundation‘s Daily Signal. Probably the best thing that’s come out of this project isn’t the paper or grade itself, but that I scored an internship with Mr. Bluey for this summer after the interview. At the beginning of the semester, I applied for Heritage’s Young Leaders Program (a highly competitive internship position that selected forty college students out of 470 applicants). After contacting Mr. Bluey for an interview request, I received word that he would be happy to help me with the project, but also wondered if I’d let him interview me. By the end of the interview, he sent me an official request to join the team.

For my profile story, click here.

For my editorial story, click here.

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Rob Bluey is the editor in chief of the Daily Signal as well as vice president of publishing at the Heritage Foundation.

PENSACOLA. Fla. —An ordinary day for Rob Bluey often consists of a single idea. A single idea that is then bounced around with members of his multimedia team, who then draws up an outline including budget, headlines, and interview questions. After filming and careful editing, Bluey and his team release a new video to the Daily Signal’s website.

Organizations are now turning to online videos to promote themselves and reach the public.

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Behind the Scenes of “Faint Not”

JennethProfessional Videos, VideosLeave a Comment

Screen Shot 2017-03-13 at 9.28.59 PM

Several people have asked me how I put together my Scripture For Life chapel challenge video (If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here!) So I thought I might take the night alone in my room to write a basic tutorial explaining how I made the animations using just Photoshop and Final Cut Pro X.

I started out with the idea. My roommate suggested doing an animation versus a live-action video because I wouldn’t have to feel bad about collecting the prize scholarship when so many actors would have helped with the project. With a cartoon made completely from my computer, I would have done the entire video myself.

The first thing to do was come up with a verse I’d like to center my video around. That was easy, since my college verses are Isaiah 41:10,13. I liked the visual image I got when I read the verses, since it specifically talks about the God of the universe holding our right hand and leading us along through our life’s trials.

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