Three Attitudes that Give Impetus

Beatrice, Irene, and Dora

As I can't picture three attitudes, I thought my grandmother, and my two great aunts might just capture these mental positions.

1. Need
A leading character, either male or female or both, should have some sort of deep need.

2. Determination
If they want to reach their goal, this is necessary to reaching it.

3. Hope
This is that wonderful something to keep striving toward.

Need can be physical or mental. And it can be a real struggle for your character to face the challenge to overcome and when they have the odds against them. They remain conscious of their need throughout the story. Maybe others are aware of it, maybe not, but it's as if it mocks all their efforts.

Determination can also be considered as Perseverance. As we say, 'hanging in there' no matter what. We want to root for our main character - though at times bloodied and nearly beaten - to hold on and come through. Maybe at times with so much thwarting them at every turn they feel like giving up, but still they 'grit their teeth' and get on with pushing toward their goal.

And Hope. What would be do without it? Hope gives us courage. Hope promises better things. Hope helps push us forward. And so with our characters.

As in real life, the great thing is to see our leading lady or man developing stronger characters by what they've been through. Even though, being human, they stumble along the journey, they pick themselves up and move forward.

As Christians we soon learn to trust God in every area of our lives, which means we often need to search out the root of our problem and ask the lord to help us overcome it. So if we write inspirational novels, let's also write our characters so they learn some great lessons along the way.

This is something I am working through right now with two stories, as part of a series. At first my characters were thin. But they are slowly developing as each is showing me throughout the plot how they would react. I am really liking them now. Even though at first I thought, "Oh, you're so boring!" There's no doubt throwing difficulties for them to overcome pushes the story forward, at the same time leaves me, as the writer, scratching my head as to how I am going to get them out of the trouble I've thrown their way. Thankfully, they just seem to find their own path, despite mean old me!

Indie Publisher, Rita Galieh, has written a trilogy of historical novels & has also contributed to several US anthologies. She is now completing a second historical romance series. She can be found on Facebook and www.ritastellapress.com  

Rita studied art at the National Art School then joined the family ceramics studio. After their marriage, she and her husband attended Emmaus Bible College, and currently co-present Vantage Point, an Australia-wide Christian FM radio program. She enjoys giving her fun-filled presentations of ‘Etiquette of the Victorian Era’ in costume.

Around the World in Eight Years

Nine-and-a half years ago I started cycling to work. It began as a fitness thing but soon became a habit. After a while it was a matter of principle. More recently, I started to suspect that it had edged into the realm of obsession. I now refuse to take the car. After nine-and-a half years of cycling to work every single day, I cannot bring myself to interrupt what has become a very long unbroken run of obstinate determination.

The distance from door to door is 7.5 miles, which isn't huge. It usually takes me thirty five minutes traveling at a comfortable speed. I don't get too sweaty and I can listen to my audio books comfortably. Taking the car would cut the time to a theoretical twenty minutes, but there are usually delays and the stress levels are always much higher, so the pros and cons even out.

Some time ago I was talking to a colleague and he asked if I was still cycling. We got onto the topic of distance and I realized that I had probably covered quite a few miles. I entered the data in a spreadsheet and found that I was on target to circumnavigating the globe. At 7.5 miles per trip, I cover 15 miles a day and 75 miles a week. In an average year I cycle a total of 3300 miles.

The circumference of the earth is 25,000 miles. Yesterday I checked my spreadsheet and saw that I traveled far enough to go all the way around the globe at its widest point sometime during my eighth year. I am now almost a quarter of the way around the world for the second time. Had I kept going in a straight line, I would have completed a fairly epic journey by now.

Sadly, there are no medals for this sort of thing, but it has taught me a thing or two about writing. let's face it: writing is a slow business. Even if you devote all your energy to it, a novel is not something that happens overnight. An average novel is 70,000 words, which is about 375,000 key presses. If you were to sit at your keyboard and hit a key every second, it would take about three-and-a-half twenty-four hour days to write a novel. If you were to pace yourself and only work eight-hour days, you could get it done in thirteen days. That's with no breaks and no deletes or backspaces.

Of course, being able to type more quickly would change that. Typing at 60 words-a-minute would allow you to finish a novel in nineteen hours, but how many people can type at that speed for that long?

And this does not include the plotting and planning you have to do. There are characters to flesh out, plot points to identify, motivations and twists to incorporate. There are mistakes to rectify and all that navel-gazing to be done. All of this is just to get a first draft. After that there are countless reads and revisions to complete.

At my quickest, I can get a first draft finished in three months. It then takes me about as long again to get it polished. So, even on my best day, it takes me six months to get a novel ready for submission to a publisher. Then there are the days spent preparing letters, sending them out, reading the stock replies, and fighting depression. Add to that the time spent making revisions your editor wants once you eventually do manage to find a buyer.

Sometimes it can all seem like too much. Sitting at your keyboard, staring at the blank screen, it can be tempting to quit. After all, there is no guarantee that the work will ever see the light of day. Chances are it will end up on a slush pile or, even worse, generate a small mountain of stock rejection letters. Looking at that spreadsheet was quite motivating for me because it showed me what can be achieved if you do a little bit on a regular basis and apply some obstinate determination.

Given enough time you can even go around the world.