SCBWI's Statement in Support of Trans Members, Youth, and Adults

This made me so proud to be a member of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators:

From SCBWI's Instagram Feed

“ SCBWI strives to provide a safe space for all creators of content for children. Today, we specifically choose to unequivocally acknowledge that Trans youth, their families and Trans creators are an important part of our organization whose stories must be told. We choose to support your truth. As a nonprofit that supports creative people everywhere, we value the contributions that Trans people have added to the story of our human family everywhere around the world. Your stories matter. You matter to us. As always, SCBWI welcomes you. #TransLivesMatter ”

July 9, 2020, as posted to SCBWI's social media, as well as the SCBWI website here.

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

I'm doing the Writers Happiness Challenge! (Starting Today) If you're a writer too, I hope you'll join in...

My friend Lori Snyder, a writer herself and the leader of yoga and mediation sessions at the SCBWI Summer Conferences for many years, is once again leading her fellow writers on a "Writers Happiness Challenge."

As Lori explains on the signup page, the Writers Happiness Challenge takes five minutes a day, and is a

“series of curated daily exercises designed to help you expand your happiness, access flow states with greater ease, and create more space for and around your writing. It’s for all writers of any kind, and it’s free.

These exercises are not writing prompts in the traditional fashion. Some of them don’t even involve writing, though many of them do. They are happiness prompts written specifically for writers, designed to help create a baseline of happiness to lead to more creativity and innovation and a deeper joy around life and your writing.

You can do the challenge on your own, with your writers group, or with a writing buddy. It’s free and accessible to all.”

What does happiness have to do with writing? Lori shares,

“new studies are showing that the best emotional state for innovation and creativity is a state of high energy and positivity. In other words, it’s looking as though happiness fuels creativity more than any other emotion. Happiness does lots of other happy things, too. It makes us more able to see ourselves, our art, and our lives with more clarity, thus allowing us to see how and when we might fit in pockets of writing time. It reminds us what we care about most and how to make space for that. And, not least of all, it feels good.”

And Lori is absolutely a friend an ally to our LGBT community, so we can all feel welcome to be our true authentic selves in her Writers Happiness Community!

You can find out all the details and sign up here: http://splendidmola.com/writers-happiness-challenge-2019/

Here's to a happy and creatively fulfilling 2019 ahead!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

Repost: "It's Taxing. A Eulogy for Two: The Loss of Los Angeles' Gay Bookstore "A Different Light," and a dream... And how to SAVE Independent Bookstores!"

This post originally ran on this blog on Wednesday April 15, 2009. I share it here because I just did my first-ever signing of my debut novel, Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill, at ALA 2018 for librarians who either knew about my book from this blog and social media or were drawn to the large Gay Pride Rainbow Flag I had draped over the signing table at IBPA's booth. My very first book signing. A dream that finally happened (okay, it was ARC copies that I was giving away to librarians, but it was my first taste of this particular part of my dream coming true...)

And then, serendipitously, I stumbled upon this post from more than nine years ago, and I thought it was poignant, and important, and worth sharing again.

**

Los Angeles' "A Different Light" Bookstore, 2 weeks ago.

The sign in the window...

Los Angeles' Gay bookstore, "A Different Light," is dying. It is, in fact, already dead as an institution, and were the cliched machines of soap opera hospitals hooked up to monitor the store's heartbeat and breathing, we'd all hear a loud steady beeeeeeeeeep. No signal.

Sigh.

This makes me so sad.

As with any death, there are stages of grief to go through. There are questions to be asked. And a future to look forward to, armed with lessons hopefully learned and hope restored.

I'm sad. Angry. Disappointed.

Why couldn't the second largest city in the USA keep a single bookstore serving the Gay (GLBTQ) community vibrant and financially viable? Was there anything that could have been done to save it? Is there any hope for the remaining independent bookstores?

I feel the loss.

I think the biggest loss is for our community. A Different Light was one of the few places to go in West Hollywood and congregate that wasn't about drinking or dancing. It was a destination, and its loss further polarizes our community in this gigantic sprawling metropolis. How many places really cater to the whole GLBTQ community, and not just a specific letter of our alphabet soup?

For me personally, it's the loss of a dream. I've been to readings at the store (Like this amazing one I saw Alex Sanchez do), and I had always envisioned having my turn to do an author signing and reading from my book there. I'm sure, when my time comes, there will be SOME bookstores and places out there who would be enthusiastic about my doing an author signing and reading, but I'm sad that my local gay bookstore won't be around anymore for that milestone in my career.

What could have been done?

I wish, as opposed to the store leaning more and more heavily on the adult sexually oriented material, that it had taken a different tack into the prevailing winds. (Interestingly, I could never link to their website to send you, my readers, their way to buy the books I'm talking about because their site is so completely adult and sexually-oriented.) What if they had offered internet access and charged a small fee for it? Make it a cafe/bookstore? Hosted writing groups, and book clubs and events (like open mike nights) beyond the ones they had - truly make themselves a social and community gathering spot? Might they have been able to have classes there (they had a greeting card moment, they could have taught how to make your own cards, or hosted a class on blogging) - it was a great, safe environment to meet other GLBTQ people and our Allies and I wish they had been able to capitalize on that more. They could have stayed open past the clubs, become a 24 hour a day HUB of community and ideas. Poetry slams, Beatnik revivals, a calendar of events that would approach community building not like the non-profit Gay and Lesbian Community Center, but in a leaner, swifter, more dynamic and responsive style. A vision for a new kind of bookstore.

"A Different Light" did do some things right - they had funny t-shirts, fun music playing, and the store DID function for a time as an alternative gathering space - at one point even staying open until 11pm. But the overall vision didn't materialize.

And here's the bottom line, and why I'm blogging about this today, TAX day:

They couldn't make enough money to stay in business.

What A Different Light and many of the remaining, struggling independent bookstores are doing wrong is that they are trying to ignore the changing landscape of bookselling. They're trying to pretend that Amazon and other online ways for people to get most of the same books for less money and more conveniently delivered to their homes doesn't exist, or will go away...

Independent bookstores need to think about how they can make coming to their stores SO VALUABLE that the experience CAN'T be replaced by clicking a mouse.

It's all about the experience - now that purchasing the book has become a commodity, available at the lowest cost, the EXPERIENCE of the book - of hearing about it, listening to it read by the author, seeing the other books on the shelf next to it, buying it, reading it, discussing it in a group with others who have read it, talking about the issues it brings up, getting to know about the story behind the story, getting other recommendations for amazing books from people that are experts in what they carry... all of that becomes King.

But with no experience, A Different Light became just a few bare shelves, a handful of books on each one.

And I found myself walking in. Silently walking the large circle of the store. And walking out again. I hadn't purchased anything. Even though I saw one or two titles I've been meaning to read. It was just too sad. Too overwhelming.

In it's final clearance sale, A Different Light betrayed the very thing that might have saved it earlier. It commodified everything it was selling. And there was no sense of community.

I'm so sad at it's passing.

But I'm also hopeful that some kind of new renaissance of community spirit, of gathering around literature and books, can rise again. Maybe in coffeeshops like LA's Literati, or maybe here on the internet in some kind of virtual GSA meeting space, or somewhere real or virtual or both that I've yet to discover.

But I think there's a power in gathering around ideas, around stories. An undeniable power of experience, internalized and shared.

We had it around stone-age fires, long ago.

We used to have it in local and independent bookstores.

I wonder where it will go next. For as fantastic as the blogosphere and the internet are, there's no replacing BEING somewhere in person - meeting others who share your passions and affiliations, and witnessing these stories as a community.

So today, as we send in taxes, I offer this Eulogy for what's past. A store. A dream.

And I acknowledge a sense of Hope for what's to come. Stories will always be with us. And we, as humans, will always want to share those stories.

And someday, I'll have my reading and author signing at some great location - maybe a library. And I'll think about "A Different Light" in West Hollywood. And the reading that never happened there. And I know that moment, as much as I've dreamed of it, will hold a piece of this lost dream. A bittersweetness that will travel through time. The dream that can't come true anymore in exactly the way I'd envisioned.

But it will come true.

Thanks for letting me share.

Namaste,
Lee

**
Happily, the state of Indie Bookstores is better today than when I wrote this - they've been expanding in number over the past 2-3 years. (Also, there's no more Borders.)  And it does seem that the Indie bookstores that are thriving have embraced their community hub roles. But I still miss having an LGBTQ bookstore in my city. It would have been so cool to have a reading and signing event at one.

Fangirl - a college Freshman juggles hetero real-world romance with her fan-fiction homo romance!

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life-and she's really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.
Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

It's a New York Times bestseller... And the framing-story for Carry On, the gay-Harry Potter-esque novel that I loved, which is ostensibly written by Rainbow Rowell's character Cath. This book includes excerpts from Carry On's gay romance, which is why it's included as "Ensemble includes GLBTQ characters/themes." 

Add your review of "Fangirl" in comments!

Words Inspiring Me Right Now

"Don't let them colonize your imagination. And write." - Lucy Jane Bledsoe at the first Lambda Lit Fest in Los Angeles, March 11, 2017

The Pseudonymous Closet... Or should I say "Wardrobe"

This recent piece in the New York Times Book Review, on the pluses and unexpected perils of writing under a pseudonym, was really excellent. Pseudonymous has had such success, and now, the gimmick that served him so well as a middle grade author has unexpectedly landed him back in the closet... while at the same time the author himself is an out and proud gay man.

It's fascinating reading.

And well worth considering, for those of us who write for young people, and for the subset that have thought about writing under a nom de plume...  

(That's French for "pen-name.")

Thanks for reading,
Lee
(and yes, that's my real name!)

The LGBTQ Q&A sessions at SCBWI's Twice-Annual International Conferences - A Resource And Community For Writing (and Illustrating) LGBTQ Characters & Themes For Kids, Tweens and Teens

It started in 2007, after Ellen Wittlinger, the author of Parrotfish (which at the time was one of only a handful of transgender teen novels), gave a session at the SCBWI Summer Conference about writing LGBTQ characters. After her session, a bunch of us writers and illustrators hung out, wanting to talk more about our work, and challenges, and triumphs and questions, and really – maybe more than any of the rest of it – just continue to bask in the company and knowledge that within our larger tribe of writers and illustrators for kids and teens, we were not alone in wanting to tell stories about and including queer characters and themes.

Starting in 2009, I've been thrilled to both moderate and host the LGBTQ Q&A sessions (sometimes called 'Find the LGBTQ in SCBWI') at both the New York Winter and Los Angeles Summer SCBWI International Conferences.

The New York 2013 LGBTQ Q&A

Chatting after the New York 2015 LGBTQ Q&A

Poolside Cabana-Style LGBTQ Q&A in Los Angeles 2011

The format has been this: We sit in a large circle (we've ranged between 30 and 50 attendees) and we go around and everyone introduces themselves and what they're working on, and then we get into the questions for our conference faculty guests and a great discussion. Afterwards, everyone hangs out, exchanging cards and basking in the sense of community.

Those conference faculty guests have included Ellen Hopkins, Emma Dryden, Jane Yolen, Arthur A. Levine, Kristin Venuti, Tracey Adams, Bruce Coville, Michael Stother, Natalie Fischer, Danielle Smith, Neil Porter, Sonya Sones, T.S. Ferguson, Jen Laughran, Alvina Ling, Laurent Linn, Ari Lewin, Jim McCarthy, Aaron Hartzler – we've even had Judy Blume attend!

Most of the sessions have been covered on the SCBWI Conference Blog, with photos and brief write-ups. There's lots of information and great advice there, including:

Bruce Coville: "Write what you believe in. Anything else is going to be false to you and false to the world as well."

Tim Federle: "You will get pushback and you will be celebrated."

Danielle Smith: "Don't be afraid to write the characters you want to write. Kids need them."

Ellen Hopkins: "Books don't create queers. They just offer empathy and understanding to that space."

Emma Dryden: ""Stop thinking about them as queer and just think of them as people."

Jane Yolen: "There's nothing off the table when you're writing a novel… if you do it well. And then you set a new benchmark."

There will be another LGBTQ Q&A session at the upcoming 2015 SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles, Friday evening July 31 from 7:30pm - 9:00pm. You can find out more information about the conference here.

And as I always sign off at the SCBWI Blog,

Illustrate and Write On!
Lee

Food For Thought Thanksgiving, Part 2: Fiction To Truth - As Readers, What Do We Need To Find To Connect With Fiction?

We're all readers.

And so I put it out there to you all: How do we manage to emotionally connect - to care - for fictional characters who are - on the surface at least - nothing like us?

I think it's because below the surface, under the spacesuit, or saffron robe, or Cowboy chaps - below all that exterior stuff of the story, good writers manage to tap their fictional characters into our common humanity.

We've all felt hurt. And fear. And longing. And hope.

And when fictional characters feel that, whether they're Tally Youngblood in Scott Westerfield's "Uglies" or Liza in Nancy Garden's "Annie on My Mind" or Harry and his Wizard friends in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling - we feel connected to them.

The magic of reading - of fiction - has happened through that common humanity of emotion, and so we get to experience the adventures with and through those characters - at a safe distance.

That's the Greek Catharsis- and as readers, I think it's what we crave. Characters we care about. In a good story. Well told.

What I need to connect my truth to fiction? Emotion.

How about you?

Food For Thought Thanksgiving, Part 1: Truth To Fiction: The Personal Connection That Makes An Author's Book The One They HAD To Write

I asked Cheryl Rainfield, author of "SCARS,"




"Do you have a personal story behind "SCARS" that made it the book you had to write?" Here's her powerful response:

I know what it's like to be a queer teen who was raped, sexually abused, ritually abused, bullied, a misfit--and in so much emotional pain that I often wanted to die. I know what it's like to use self-harm to try to get through the pain (as well as art and writing). And I know how alone I felt. To feel like you're the only one, to have a society hate you for who you love, to have to struggle so much to get through a day--it can feel unbearable. And to have those things have to be kept secret--especially the sexual abuse and the self-harm--it makes the emotional pain so much worse.

All those things I put into SCARS. I had to write it--for myself, to break the silence, to get out some of the pain, to be heard--and for others, to let them know that they're not alone, to encourage healing, and, for people who don't have those experiences (self-harm, sexual abuse, being queer), to encourage greater compassion. I also wrote SCARS because it was a book I needed and couldn't find as a teen--even as an adult. I think we all need to see our lives reflected (in a positive light) and to know that we're not alone. And I think truth needs to be shared.

So though SCARS is fiction, is has huge chunks of my own story in it, and a lot of my heart, my soul. It's actually my arm on the cover of SCARS; the scars are my own. The outside scars only hint at the pain inside. But there is also hope in SCARS--hope, love and healing--things that are so important for me, for us all.

I am grateful that SCARS is reaching so many people, that it's helping them feel less alone, or more understood. That feels like such a gift to me. I hope SCARS will be a book that speaks to you.

I also asked Author April Lurie the same question





- "Do you have a personal story behind "The Less-Dead" that made it the book you HAD to write?" Here's what she said:

The Less-Dead began solely as a mystery. I planned to write a story involving a serial killer, but when I realized that it was going to be a homophobic serial killer, I decided to explore my own personal experience of growing up in a strict, evangelical home.

I grew up in the seventies, and when I was taught that homosexuality was a sin and that gays led perverse lifestyles, I didn’t really think twice about it. After all, I was straight and I didn’t know any gay people. They certainly didn’t attend our church!

But when I went to college and my world broadened, I began to see the incredible hypocrisy of the statement, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” Why was being gay a sin? Why were my loving and wonderful gay friends sinners – destined for hell if they didn’t change their sexual orientation? It made no sense.

In The Less-Dead, my main character Noah became an extension of myself as a teen. He’s the son of the Bible Answer Guy, a radio talk show host who interprets the Bible literally, including the passages on homosexuality. Noah is fed up with all-things-church, and he believes that his dad is spreading hate. Suddenly my story became very personal.

But it became even more personal when I was writing the second draft of the book. During that time my daughter’s friend – a sweet, talented and charming young man – came out in his middle school. He was attending a private Christian school at the time, and when the administration heard the news, they told him he had to leave. They were not going to allow an openly gay student attend their school. I was told that his parents immediately put him into counseling in order to change his sexual orientation.

That’s when I decided to include the lengthy author’s note at the back of The Less-Dead, where I refute the six “clobber passages” in the Bible that pastors use to condemn homosexuality. I also listed several websites and organizations where gay teens can go to for help.

Lately in the news we’ve seen so many heartbreaking stories of gay teen suicides, and while there are many factors that contribute to the prejudice that gay teens face, the teachings of the evangelical church remain a root problem. If a teenager is raised to believe that being gay is a sin, and that loving a person of the same sex is shameful, how can he or she rise above that? If straight teens are being taught from the pulpit that gay kids are perverted and going to hell, how will the bullying and hatred ever stop?

The Less-Dead is a mystery surrounding a serial killer, but it’s also a story about a boy who challenges what he’s been taught. I hope the book will not only entertain, but spark discussion and encourage teens, both gay and straight.

Now for New York Times Bestselling Author Ellen Hopkins, she's spoken and written about her personal connection to her first book "Crank"



(followed in the series by "Glass" and most recently with "Fallout.")




Ellen's shared it was "loosely based on my older daughter's story of addiction to crystal meth. ...Crank began as a personal exploration of the "why's" behind my daughter's decisions, and what part I might have played in them. By writing the story from "my daughter's" perspective, I learned a lot, both about her, and about myself. But I also learned a lot about the nature of addiction..."

But Ellen has also written four books outside this series; "Burned,"

"Impulse,"





"Identical," and "Tricks,"





- and I asked her, "Was there a personal story behind every one of your books that made it a book you HAD to write?

Here's her answer:

I actually do believe we bring threads of real life into our work. Sometimes it's a personal story. Sometimes it's tapping into the emotion of a previous event in our lives. First kiss, for instance. Or first time we have sex. Or having a baby (or perhaps losing one).

BURNED was inspired by a rash of school shootings in the news. I wanted to explore what might put a girl behind the trigger. As I wrote her, she began to resemble a friend of my daughter's, who was Mormon and had weapons experience. Aunt J in that book looks very much like a woman who runs a bed and breakfast in eastern Nevada, where I spent time as an artist-in-residence. So the whole setting--Caliente--is a place I came to know and love.

With IMPULSE, I wanted to gain some understanding of why a teen, who has so much to live for, would choose suicide. I live in a small valley and we lost two teens to suicide in a year. One was the brother of a classmate of my daughter's. Vanessa in the book is a combination of two friends--one my age, who is bipolar and who has been suicidal; and a young friend who is a cutter.

IDENTICAL is dedicated to three friends, all of whom were sexually abused by their fathers as children. Their stories inspired the book completely.

And in TRICKS, all three of the female main characters' stories came from readers, who shared their heart-wrenching personal histories with me. And Seth (the character, not his story) probably resembles my oldest son, who is gay.

I find it fascinating, as a writer, to consider that no matter what I write that's "fiction" there's an element of my own personal truth to it - otherwise I don't know that I could make it sing. Make the characters feel real. Make readers care.

What about you? Is there a personal connection that you have to the fiction YOU write?

And for those of us in the U.S.A., Happy Thanksgiving!

Namaste,
Lee

Pitch It! The Agonies of telling your story in 30 seconds or less. Your (and My) SCBWI Conference Homework!

"So, what are you working on?"

You know someone's going to ask you this.

It may be the person in line behind you at the conference bookstore. The person on the plane sitting next to you. Or it could be an agent. Or an editor.

"Its... uh...."

Ugh. 30 seconds.

How can you possibly boil down all that work - all the complexity and wonder that is your Work-In-Progress, to a couple of sentences?

Here's a Tip: You don't have to freeze up, because the question will NOT be a surprise. You KNOW it's going to be asked. I just told you, someone's going to ask you.

And you have 3 days left before the conference starts, including today - it's time to prepare.

But how? How do you get your two page synopsis of your magnum opus distilled down?

Try this:

Imagine your book has been published. You're standing in the bookstore next to a PILE of your books on a table by the front, and you notice an ideal target reader has picked up your book. They're holding it in their hands. They look at you, then at the flap's author photo, and then back again.

"You're the author?" They ask, awe-struck.

You smile. Nod. You've been waiting for this day for so long...

"Wow," They say. "What's it about?"

Now go: Just talk about it.

What did you say? Write it down. Tweak it. Practice it. Learn it. (I didn't say memorize it - no one wants to listen to a rote speech.) But know your story. Be able to discuss what you're writing and convey why you are passionate about it. (For illustrators, same thing: what are you working on, and what fires you up about it?)

Because hey, someone's going to ask:

What are you working on?

And the conversation you have with them will be a lot more fun (and productive) if you're able to talk about it.

So what are you waiting for? Go do your homework!

And I'll see you Friday, at the 2010 SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City. (You can still register for the conference!)

***

Oh, and remember that this Thursday, January 28, 2010 is the FINAL day of The 2010 Comment Challenge - 5 comments a day, 100 comments in 21 days, (with one day off for good behavior!) You can check out MotherReader's blog today for our prize package announcement!

***

Namaste,
Lee

Four Days. Five Elements. The Alchemy of Magic: The SCBWI 2009 Summer Conference

Blogging the 4-Day conference, as part of SCBWI Team Blog, was exhausting, exhilarating, and one of the best professional experiences ever! Thank you, SCBWI Team Captain Alice Pope, SCBWI Director of Communications and Creative Director Aaron Hartzler, SCBWI Executive Director Lin Oliver, and my fellow Team Bloggers Paula Yoo, Jaime Temairik, Jolie Stekley, and Suzanne Young, for letting me be part of this Magical adventure!

So many moments swirl for me.

The Water: The incredible flow of information I was part of creating, on the official conference blog and on the twitter feeds. I personally posted over 50 blog posts in the four day period, and tweeted over 100 times (quotes, impressions, conference photos) on both the official @scbwi twitter feed and on my own @leewind

The Air: Getting to learn from stratospherically talented writers who are so accomplished in their craft was heady! Linda Sue Park. Holly Black. Kathleen Duey. Ellen Hopkins. Melinda Long. And so. many. more!

The Earth: Getting to listen to and talk with brilliant editors, and agents, and illustrators, and fellow writers - all of whom, like me, are passionate about children's books! That shared foundation of energy was energizing and so much fun! We - the children's book community, and the members of SCBWI, are part of a tribe, and I felt - more than ever before - that I have found MY place. My people. My friends.

The Fire: I feel so inspired! All the advice, and writing tips, and career counsel, and brainstorming, and writing exercises... I want - no, I NEED - to write!

The Fifth, Secret Ingredient: All the KINDNESS that was shown to me, and that I witnessed. So many moments of generosity of time, and spirit, and knowledge, and more...

And in the alchemy of the past four days at the LA SCBWI Summer Conference, all five of these elements came together... and I had a BLAST!

I know that it will take me the better part of the next two weeks to process through all the amazing things I experienced.

For today, here's one photo I truly love. It shows one of my conference Highlights: My Story's Spine getting a Chiropractic Adjustment from Holly Black!

My friend and fabulous writer Rita Crayon Huang (on the left),
the unbelievably smart and generous Holly Black (in the middle),
and Me (on the right!)

#SCBWI09 - The SCBWI Summer Conference - was magical for me. I hope it was transformative for you, too. And if you weren't able to make it, check out all the amazing information here and on the official conference blog for a taste of it.

And hopefully after that taste, you'll be inspired to come to the next one. And you'll get to experience the full BLAST of magic, and of SCBWI, yourself!

Namaste,
Lee

On Writing: Take Your Character To Therapy!

Freud next to his analytic couch

As a supplement to this schmooze blog on Character, I want to share here one of my favorite techniques for working on the Characters in my books.

It's a psychiatric questionnaire that was adapted in a SCBWI Bulletin a few years ago, that I've added some questions to as well.

I find it's a great tool for figuring out the backstory and WHY my characters would act certain ways. For main characters it's been indispensable. And it's been really useful for creating minor characters, too. I really like not figuring out the character name until after I know quite a bit about them - that's why the name and what they look like section is at the bottom.

Also, I want to mention that often my characters won't tell the truth when asked these questions- so I'll write down both what the character would say, and then in parentheses, I'll add what they actually know the truth to be... Why? It's more fun to write it that way, plus it gives me a better take on the character's voice.

So, try it out. Take this Character Therapy Questionnaire for a test spin. And see if it works for you, too.


1 Do you see the world the same way your friends and family do? Do you feel your parents/friends/community understand you?

2. If you could change one thing about yourself or your life, what would it be? What would happen if you did?

3. What’s your home like? Who lives with you? What rules (explicit or unspoken) must you follow?

4. Describe your hometown. How has growing up there shaped you?

5. Who is your best friend? Do you have a significant other? What traits attract you to these people?

6. Do you have any enemies? Why is there friction in these relationships?

7. Who do you admire? Why?

8. What do you fear most?

9. What is your proudest achievement?

10. What is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? Did it pay off?

11. Do you tend to worry? What do you worry about?

12. Are you shy or outgoing? A leader or a follower?

13. Do you take things seriously or are you a class clown?

14. Do you have a favorite place? Why is it special?

15. Have you ever been singled out for something? How do you feel about it?

16. What’s the most important thing you’ve ever learned? How did you learn it?

17. Are you truthful? If you have ever misled someone – why did you do it? Are you likely to do it again?

18. Do you have a secret? Who might be hurt if your secret were discovered?

Full Name:

Age:

Outfit:

Personal Grooming:

Body:

Face:

Posture:

Tics/Habits:


CHARACTER ARC:


By the time I've figured out everything else, answering "Character Arc" is much easier. And once I've figured THAT out, I look to my outline to figure out where those character arc moments might happen... And suddenly, the plot fleshes itself out...

Okay, off to work on my characters!

Namaste,

Lee