I was surprised to find links between flash fiction and plays in my latest CFT post, which is on Plays - The Joys and Challenges.  More on that in the post itself but it made me wonder about links in our stories. 

Some of these are planned of course but others can crop up as you are drafting your story.  One of the great joys of writing I think is when you've drafted a story and you spot other links between characters/with your theme etc., all of which have come out of your sub-conscious mind. 

Reading widely in all genres and including non-fiction will help feed that sub-conscious mind which is why doing this is such a good idea for all writers, regardless of what you write. 

You want to be able to draw on thoughts that have occurred to you as you read something, which you may not have noted for a story at the time of reading the piece concerned, but which come back to your mind as you write/edit etc and you realise it could fit in really well with your character. 

So where to look for links then?

1.  Look at links between what characters fear.  Enemies can be united by a common fear of something or someone else.  Those links can be played on for good or evil.

2.  Look at links between what characters love.  That can also be used for good or evil.  If two characters love the same person, there's going to be fallout from that.

3.  Look at links with regard to what makes people tick.  The basic drives - the need to survive and pass on genes to offspring - are common to most of us.  It is how we act on them that differentiates us of course.  One of my favourite moments in Star Wars is the famous scene where Darth Vader reveals he  is Luke Skywalker's father.  Luke is horrified of course.  The very thought of there being any link at all between him and Vader is horrifying for Luke. What links can you use to make other characters react in a similar way?

My CFT post Story Analysis - Why Bother? looks at why story analysis works and why it is useful for writers.  But how do your characters work out if things are working the way they should be?

Usually your characters take a while to work out when things are going wrong (and this is particularly true if someone is a traitor to a group of characters.  It takes time to figure out something is not right and then deduce who the guilty party is).

I suppose it is a reflection of human nature that characters often have to realise something is wrong (as opposed to knowing things are going well).  But therein lies the drama and conflict and without all of that, there is no story.

Interesting lines of thought to follow for stories are when characters are put in situation where they are in a different culture and have to adjust their thinking.  How easy is it for them to do that?  Do they manage to blend in with their new surroundings or do they stick out? 

But there you have a character who has to got to work out how things work in their new environment.  Also work out what the consequences are for if/when your character gets this wrong.  Is the new situation they're in welcoming to strangers or not?  Increase the tensions and the pressures on your characters to get this right to ratchett up the stakes the character has to "play for" to achieve whatever goal has been set as the story aim.

My CFT post this week looks at The Highs and Lows of the Writing Life from the viewpoint of a writer (though there are some thoughts in there as to how readers can help too.  Okay, buying our books is the obvious way to help but there are others!).

For this post, I want to look at this from a character's viewpoint.  Your characters are not going to have an easy life where nothing ever troubles them, otherwise you have no story.  Who would want to read about characters like that?  So what a reader is after then is a situation your characters have to cope with.  It can be a threat to life of course, but there are other ways of turning your character's life upside down, and it is how your people respond to that which will keep readers turning the pages to find out more.

How do your characters cope with the highs and lows of their life? What situations do they find easier to cope with and others nigh on impossible?  (The latter incidentally could be something simple.  They have no problems crossing a haunted forest to get to where they need to be but struggle with communicating with others, which could put them and the others in danger if taken to a logical conclusion).

What are your characters' emotional strengths and weaknesses?  Do they learn from their mistakes immediately or do they need several "goes" to get something right?  If their core trait is courage, what opportunities do they get to show that and does that trait ever fail them?

Answer questions like that and you should get some interesting story scenarios to write up!

Image Credit:  As ever, the images are from the fantastic Pixabay. 

My CFT post this week looks at Experimenting with Words and Form and why this is good for writers.

Especially when starting out, experimenting with different kinds of writing is a great idea as it will help you find your niche.  Later, when you have discovered what that niche is, you can hone it and playing with form is a fantastic way of doing that honing.  Also, if you write flash fiction, as I do, there's nothing to stop you having a go at the standard length short story (which I also do from time to time).

The watchword here is to have fun with your writing.  Sometimes give yourself a break from what you usually do and be creative in other writing fields.  At worst, it'll act as a brief break and you'll find you really do want to stick to what you usually do.  At best, you'll find a whole new world of writing to enjoy.  This is what happened to me with flash fiction and I've ended up being published in it!  So be open!