Episode 124

Pencils&Lipstick podcast episode

Fleshing Out Characters

To find the Five Days of Writing Sprints Course click here.

Sometimes editors and writers use these phrases that make sense and yet don’t make sense. Maybe you understand the concept of fleshing out a chracter, but how exactly do you do it? List their favorite snacks or their favorite movies? Describe in detail how they look?

The story is in how the chracter reacts to things going on around him/her, therefore fleshing out your character is more than just knowing what books they like. Let’s talk more about that today.

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TRANSCRIPT STARTS HERE:

Kat (00:14)

Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast, a weekly podcast for writers.

Grab a cup of coffee, perhaps some paper and pen.

And enjoy an interview with an author, a chat it with a writing tool creator, perhaps a conversation with an editor or other publishing experts, as well as cat sauce on writing in her own creative journey. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.

Well, hopefully not actually cry.

But you will probably learn something. And I hope you’ll be inspired to write because as I always say.

You have a story. You should write it down.

Kat (00:51)

This is Pencils and Lipstick. 

Hello, everybody. Today is March 26, 2022. The episode will be going out two days from now, March 2022. It is episode 124 of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast, and I am Kat Caldwell, Your Hostess. You can find more information, including the transcripts of each episode at Pencils and Lipstick.com. That’s all spelled out the and included. You can find the transcript specifically of this episode at Pencils and Lipstick, episode 124. So trying to make things easier for you guys to find the transcripts of. And of course, inside the transcripts, you can find all the relevant links. You can also find the links below in the show notes. But I guess and I’m hearing that it sort of depends on where you listen to the podcast. Sometimes the links don’t show up. I am trying my best to make sure that they do. But since there are so many platforms from which you can listen to a podcast, I just don’t know all of them. So from where I can upload the podcast, I am trying to make it so that you can click on those links. But if you cannot, find them in whatever app you use, do go over to Pencilsandlipstick.com, episode 124.

Kat (02:24)

Today’s show is sponsored by My Five Days of Writing Sprint’s Course. This is a five day course that is a video course. Every day you get a link to a video in which I walk you through a writing prompt. It is able to be used both fiction and nonfiction. I give you a few ideas about it, and then I let you lose. And I suggest that you put on a timer. Now that is up to you. Of course, nobody is watching, so I like the idea of a timer just to sort of get things moving and then slowing it down later on if it’s something that I want to move forward with and of course, just fleshing it out and seeing if I can get a full story from it. And sometimes, especially for nonfiction, I find that the timing is nice so that I don’t get bogged down in maybe memories or grocery lists that I need to do. It’s funny how the mind works, and for me personally, a timer sort of helps me focus. Doesn’t mean that I don’t get interrupted at times, but sort of lets me know this is what I’m doing now at least I’ll get 15 to 20 minutes of writing done before we go on with the podcast as well.

Kat (03:43)

Please be sure to subscribe wherever you are listening to this podcast. Share a podcast with anybody who is a reader or a writer. I have some amazing guests coming up. Alexander Torre is going to come in and talk with us. I have a great new memoir writer who’s coming in to talk with us, and her book is pretty interesting. I’m very excited to be setting up that interview. And then I’m also having Becca Boogeesi, who I believe that’s how you say her name. She has some great thesaurus that writers use that she has written with Angela Ackerman. So we’re going to be talking about those as well. And then I’m just getting in the works, setting people up for their interviews. I’m really excited about I think as winter goes and as Covet lifts, people are just wanting to get out into the world, even if it’s like a virtual interview. And so I’m sort of juggling the schedule to try to get as many people that are amazing writers on for you guys to hear. So stay tuned for more announcements of who else is coming on. There’s also some changes going on in the creative writing community.

Kat (04:58)

We are going to start adding in. We’ve already added in marketing Sprints. We have brainstorming once a month on Friday. And there’s a few new things that I am putting into the work. We’re going to start doing some workshops. And as I set this up and talk to you guys about it, you’ll get a little bit more information. But I think it is really important to get feedback on your writing and constructive feedback on your writing. And so it takes a little bit of organization to set that up. And I have to figure out how I want that to go. But there will be a little intro course for you guys as listeners if you are interested in joining the community and getting feedback on your writing and really moving your writing forward so that you have the confidence when it comes out that it really is the best story that you can write in this moment. I think one of the problems that we have as indie writers is we will publish the book and we’ll feel really great about it. And then we might get a review in which maybe it’s not their niche or they just didn’t like the book, or maybe they didn’t feel super excited about it.

Kat (06:10)

And that one review will crush our entire world. And we need to know that we need to have the confidence to be able to take people’s opinion and say, okay, that’s your opinion, but look at all the other people who like it and who have helped me along the way and made sure that it really is a worthy book. It’s worthy of being out there and sure, some people might not like it, but it’s not a bad book. I think it’s important to have that to fall back on. And you have that to fall back on. When you’ve worked with other people, when you’ve worked out the whys that a reader might have. And you do that by workshopping with other writers. We do it kindly and we do it together in a friendly way, and we do it constructively so that it doesn’t just tell you it’s all wrong. But we work together to find the plot holes and find the character holes and make sure that it is an amazing book. And getting workshopped or getting help or getting feedback on your book and making changes does not make it not your book at all.

Kat (07:18)

We have to remember that people who are working with agents are getting feedback constantly, people who used to have their editor. Cs Lewis had his editor. Tolkien had his editor that would work through the stories. Even Jane Austen when I was in England, she worked with her sister constantly and with her brother on where the story was going, who the characters were, where they were going, where the plot was going. Very rarely do people only live in their head. Even Stephen King says his wife is the one that rips apart his books and makes sure that there aren’t any plot holes. And some people have opinions on which she’s missed some of those plot holes, which just goes to show that we’re going to get those critiques and we need to be able to fall back on, oh, you know what? The book is good. This is the book that I wanted to write, and not all 8 billion people are going to like it, but it is a good book. We have to be confident in our art. So today, what I want to talk to you guys about is flashing out your characters.

Kat (08:27)

And this is a thing that Editors say that book coaches say that lots of people in the industry say you need to flesh out your character more. And I don’t know about you guys. Before a very long time, I really didn’t have a concrete concept of what that meant. And I think that I’m not alone, because I have listened to several people who are even book coaches or mentors or Editors not really know how to say what it is, what they mean. Like they know what they want when they read it, but they don’t exactly know how to explain to the reader what it is they want. I’ve heard things that give me more detail. Well, detail is a pretty vague word. It can mean give me exactly what she looks like. It can mean give me what she eats for breakfast every day. It can mean what is her morning and evening routine, what are her ideas or his ideas on the modern world or the past world? So it’s not always just details. What does this mean? Fleshing out the character? What is it that they want right now? And that is a very good question to ask.

Kat (09:55)

But again, as a writer, especially if you’re a new writer, but even still, if you have a story but you’re not quite sure where to go, what do they want? And you can broaden this out. We’re funny people as writers, we sort of balloon out and like, well, technically, what they want is to understand how to navigate the world. Like, we suddenly become all these psychologists. And so we’re fleshing out exactly like their therapy sessions almost. And I don’t think that helps as much. There is something to that, but I think we’ve become overwhelmed almost. I’ve been curious about storytelling, the craft of it for about two years. And I know if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know this, because I have talked about it on and off for quite a long time now. And I asked the writers who come in because there’s something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And so whenever people say things like, you need to flush it out, I had a story in which I got feedback on and said, well, you need to really flesh out who this character is. And I think all this character is an eleven year old who’s about to find out that her father is not her father, that he’s her stepfather.

Kat (11:16)

Okay, well, there is a character for you. No, but I want a little bit more like, where is she in the moment? What’s she doing in the moment? Okay, well, where is she in the moment? She’s fine right now. And then in 2 seconds from now, her life is going to be shattered. And I wonder if you guys understand where I’m coming from as a writer. Just like frustration because we can feel the character. We can see the character. But what I have finally comprehended is like, OK, I see this character. I feel her. I want to tell her story. I am sympathetic to her and empathetic to her story, and I want to write it out for her. And basically, what fleshing out is getting to know that character. Sitting with that character and understanding who she is now, sitting with the character is another thing that we hear. And you can go on Pinterest and find a ton of worksheets on getting to know your character. What is their favorite game and food and color and thing that they eat for breakfast and what do they hate and who is their first boyfriend and all these things?

Kat (12:37)

And that’s not exactly what we’re talking about. So what are we talking about when we’re flushing out character? First of all, all these different things that they say, sitting with your character, understanding your character, where is your character coming from? Fleshing this up. This needs to be fleshed out more. Basically, you need to start digging in. And I know that’s another term that we use when is digging in. So sit down and probably give your character a name and you should understand the immediate circumstances in which they are there. Okay, so let’s take my character. We’ll call her Alice. I don’t know why. Sorry. Okay. Alice, she’s eleven and she’s in her bedroom, which is pink. Okay. And she hates pink. I don’t know why I know this, but the AI is creating this character. She hates pink and she hates frilly. She doesn’t really know what she wants instead. But she has all this frilly stuff and she is sitting on her bed and doing her homework because she is tedious. She is first born girl and she is going to do her homework and it’s very important to her to get good grades.

Kat (13:53)

And her father is going to come into the room and he’s going to tell her that he is not her father. He’s her stepfather. And then from there, of course, her world falls down. Well, talk me through this and I’m going to be honest with you. The first few times I tried to write this story, I was very much in this little girl’s head because we want to watch. We need to talk about this moment, this horrendous emotional experience. And so I got feedback of like, I feel it. I feel that she’s there. And yet everyone as I was sharing this story, but there’s something missing. And I knew this. I went into being having a workshop to say I’m so lost with the ending of this story. Like, where does it end? Because you’re eleven. You’re still like, you’re like, oh my gosh, this guy’s not my dad. And I’m supposed to pretend that he is like it was catapulting into a whole novel because I mean, my goodness, where does this end? As a short story? And I really couldn’t put my finger on it. Okay. So if you’ve ever been there, know that you’re not alone.

Kat (15:12)

And she was telling me, I like the detail here, but I don’t understand why this scene is connected and why that scene is connected. And again, I didn’t know what to tell. I wanted to convey this idea that here was her family over here and this is how she’s perceiving her family on this side. So what I have now really put my finger on and I have thought for a long time about this. And quite frankly, I’ve read quite a few craft books. And again last week, I told you guys, Wired for Story is an excellent craft book. Story Genius is also an excellent craft book. They’re both by Lisa Krone. Lots of craft books are good, right? And what I realized is as I was really digging into character these past few weeks, I’m really thinking about it. And I was thinking about Jane Austin’s characters and a couple of other books that I’m reading. Like, there is something about the character. So the books that you read and that linger with you that you just esteem as really great stories, I think has to do with character, with the characters. And we even as indie writers, sort of separate ourselves.

Kat (16:38)

I’m character driven writer. Right. And yet we all want to be character driven writer because really the story is about the person, not about the things happening. And this has taken me a while to figure out. Okay, I’m getting to my point. Just a second. We are getting to flushing out characters. So I was telling the writing group, okay, there’s something about and I can’t quite put my finger on it. And this was a couple of months ago. All right. There is a difference between an anecdote. Right. A joke. This is when I was writing the microfiction in doing those contests. Ok. What’s the difference between an anecdote and a story? And a lot of people were like, yeah, there is a difference. What is it? Yeah, I don’t know. We have a hard time articulating this. And so I’m going to articulate it like this. The story, whether it’s 100 words, 25 words or 25,000 words or 125,000 words, the story is about the person, right. About the human or the dog. We have some of those, too. But what happens to them in the midst of what’s happening outside? Okay. So a lot of times and I’m very guilty of this.

Kat (18:01)

I think of a story with the surrounding things happening, like a tornado ripped through the town. It’s pulling this out of my hat here. Let’s say a tornado rips through a wedding and it makes the person realize that they’re marrying the wrong person. I don’t know. That’s not a very good one. You think of these moments, the what if statements like, what if my kids went to school one day and then they never came home? What if, I don’t know, XYZ we do these what if that is like the surrounding circumstances. Right. What we really want to do is not just what if one day your dad comes home and tells you or this dad comes home and tells Alice that he’s not her dad, that he’s his stepdad. Okay. Well, that could go into so many hundreds of different ways. Like, how old is Alice? What happens afterwards, what’s happening in the moment? And that family. You see what I mean? And so it’s not just about this thing happened because this is why not all of us write memoirs. It’s not just about this thing happened. It’s what happened to us in the midst of this thing.

Kat (19:31)

Right. So it’s not just that some dude went to the Inferno, like Dante’s Inferno. Some dude didn’t just go to hell and come back. Like, what did Dante do? Why was he there? Who is Dante and why do I care? So who is Alice and why do we care? Because quite frankly, this could happen a lot sometimes. Bad are not who they say they are. People are not who they say they are. So who is Alice and why do we care? In order to flesh out Alice, I’m going to say that she’s eleven because I want her to be a kid. I want her sort of in that turning point here. Right. Probably because my kids are eleven, too. They know a lot at eleven, but they don’t know everything. And that is kind of a time in life in which if something big like that happens, it could really affect you. Right. Okay, so fleshing out your character. What’s missing in that and what I’ve really learned by reading Lisa Crohn’s Wired for Story, Reading, The Science of Storytelling, which is an excellent book as well. I don’t have it next to me, but I’ll have the links and Shona’s and just honestly sitting and thinking, reading lots of good short stories and realizing, okay, it’s about the character.

Kat (20:55)

When you flesh out this character, what you need to know is not just seeing them. Right. I need to see them. I need to know what they think. Well, Alice is eleven, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of ideas on the war going on. Probably bad. It’s like you’re eleven bad. She probably has quite a few opinions about her teachers, quite a few opinions about her siblings, but she has a favorite color and she doesn’t like frills. There we go. Probably not enough and probably too much. Okay, so when you’re flushing out the character, you need to know pretty much what the idea of the story is. And it’s too much to go into that. But you should really know what is the premise of the story. What are you trying to say? And what you need to know is not just this is about how she navigates the idea of her father coming in and telling him that he’s not her dad. Like, okay, that’s super vague. All right, so what I need to know is, honestly, it only matters to me. What she thinks about her teacher is if it pertains to this moment in time and what she believes beforehand, where she is and what she believes afterwards.

Kat (22:22)

Okay, so as a short story, I’m sort of setting up this misbelief idea and lingering out the misbelief in which this is the change. So she goes from one misbelief of my family’s, okay, we got some issues, but we’re okay, too. Holy crap. I don’t know who my family is. Okay, so that is the only change for a short story. Now, for a novel, you would probably want to be like, and then how does she work through that misbelief to probably onto another change? Okay, so for the short story, in the moment, she thinks that life is okay. Let’s say she doesn’t really get along with her bad. I mean, they’re not clicks, but whatever. Things are good. I don’t need to know if she loves green or loves Turkey sandwiches, unless it has to do with the relationship with her father or if somehow her mother is coming in like maybe she comes in. I have to think about that. Okay, so what is the mother’s role in this? How long is this short story? Basically. But if we’re going to focus on okay, actually let’s do this. If she actually gets along really well with her dad and adores him and this is going to really upset her, he just feels like it’s gotten to the point where she’s old enough to know and he thinks that she’s just going to be okay, we’re just going to move on and like it’s good because we love each other and let’s go play some softball.

Kat (23:59)

And she’s going to be like I have no idea what’s going on. Okay? So the only reason that I would bring in she loves Turkey sandwiches is if he has taught her to love Turkey sandwiches and they make Turkey sandwiches every Saturday before they go play softball. Okay. And maybe she hates Frills because she doesn’t really get along with her mom and now she’s going to blame her mum for not telling her just like she brought home the friendly bedspread, not having any regard for her feelings whatsoever. And so we’re connecting these two things. Okay, what I don’t what if I bring in the day that her brother took her out horseback riding and that was a great day and Yay brother, that doesn’t help me at all. It doesn’t help me to know what she got in her coursework. And this is one thing that I did wrong. I went all into why it was so important to her to have good grades. Looking back and rewriting the story, I don’t think that has anything to do with anything. It could be a one sentence of that. She’s like this is how she is.

Kat (25:11)

She’s studious and she wants to impress her father, had good grades, she wants to do the same. That could be fine. But going into four paragraphs on how she relates to her parents, her teachers and her peers was like, oh, those are nicely written paragraphs. But they didn’t advance the story because what the story is about is about her in the moment, her misbelief of thinking that her family is okay. Normal wish to know. My family is not normal at all. What is going on? I’ve just lost all my bearing and maybe if he’s lying and mine didn’t tell me she’s lying, maybe everyone’s lying and maybe everyone know when is who they are. You see how that’s a much more impactful and insightful focus. And so when you’re fleshing out your character, you don’t need to know anything about the reader, doesn’t need to know anything about them. That doesn’t have to do with that particular thing in mind. We don’t know if Frodo ever had a girlfriend before. Do we care if he was five and he was the kid running around kissing girls on everything? We don’t care because it has nothing to do with the story.

Kat (26:26)

Right. We just don’t know. We don’t care. Now, in Jane Austin and Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth is kind of a non nonsense girl. Her little sister, what’s her name? I forget the one that runs away is a little more self indulged. And so Elizabeth prides herself on not being that selfindulged. And that’s important to know because she has a whole worldview of self indulged people and rich people and how that’s not her. And she takes pride in not being that. Okay, so you do need to know that she doesn’t like frails. And this goes like my daughter just watched Little Women and Amy really likes frills. And Little Women is very much like they are very specific characters, these little women, these sisters. But if you look at books and you look at movies, even the characters will be very specific. The things that are shared with the reader are very specific. And those things you can list out a lot of things in order to flesh it out, flesh it out to get to know your character, to sit with them, ask them questions. Fine. Write out 30 pages if you want. But then you’re going to need to go back and highlight and circle.

Kat (27:48)

How does it pertain to this story? And what is the story? The story is about her change of worldview perception. My family is pretty normal, middle class. We’ll get there, we’ll get through life. I’m so ordinary, too. Oh my gosh. No one’s who I thought they were 5 seconds ago. Okay, that is the story. Now I can be as literary as I want or as ya as I want. The style of the writing is not really what matters. What matters is what you know about this person. And so sitting down with Alice, let’s say she’s eleven, she’s studious because she admires her dad. He is a top executive who travels a lot for business. But you know what? Sometimes he brings her along and the last time he brought her along, they even got to go to Disneyland. Yes, she’s sure she had to sit in this conference room for 5 hours coloring, but it was totally worth it because they were right next to this. And then he took her and he’s amazing. And if I’m going to write that out, I might bring that into the story. But that’s definitely going to make me understand her more and understand this momentous occasion more.

Kat (29:11)

I would also recommend you doing the same for the father. Even if he’s not really in here. I am talking to myself in the story as much. He sort of tells her and then leaves. But maybe not. Maybe once I flush him out. Okay, who is he? Who is this guy who will marry a woman with a daughter and then not tell her that he’s her dad until she’s eleven. And why now? Right. Why now? Because your readers are going to have these questions, who is this dude? And Alice likes him, but I don’t like him that much because he kept us from Alice. So your reader is going to be pro Alice, right? We take sides as humans. So they’re going to be pro Alice, so they’re going to be asking, who is this dude? I don’t like him. Why does she like him? She shouldn’t like him. She should be very wary of him. And if that’s not the reaction you want from your reader, you’re getting it because you don’t know who this guy is, you don’t know his worldview, and therefore you can’t write him in a sympathetic way or how you want the reader to see him.

Kat (30:20)

And so you go back and who is he? And why would he marry this woman? And why would he not tell the daughter what circumstances would bring them to that point? And what is his relationship with this? Why does he like her so much? Maybe I was thinking they have siblings, but, you know, okay, then why is she the one that gets to go to Disneyland? Or maybe she’s the only kid. Maybe he can’t have kids. So you have all these possibilities. And what usually happens because I’m a bit of a Panther is I have this idea. I sit down and start writing. Oh, my goodness. And a lot of times like we do, we get to the middle and we don’t really know what’s going to happen because we don’t know who our characters are. And so that’s really what it means to flush out your characters. Who is your character? And because this is a short story, I really only have two characters. But now, as I’m talking to you, I’ll probably do the same with the mum who’s the mom and Where’s the dad and where she married before, how she met this guy.

Kat (31:24)

It doesn’t mean this is not part of the story either. I need to highlight this is not part of the story. Maybe it might become, but this is the work before the story. Okay? This is getting to know your characters. Is everything all right? And I used to believe that as I wrote, I would get to know my characters. And yeah, that’s true. But pretty much if you’re going to get to know your characters as you write, you’re going to have to write the entire story. And so to be fair, I’ve written this story about three times. And now that I’ve sat back and thought, okay, ask the question, who are these characters? And I still don’t really know, I realize that even getting out the entire story, I don’t know them all the way. And what I need to do is take the time to get to know them. And that is what is going to make the story exactly what I want it to be, because I want the characters to be specific. Because we make friends with specific people. And we don’t make friends with specific people. We date specific people and we don’t date specific people.

Kat (32:43)

We are a very specific species. We like things in specificity. We don’t like things in generalities. Okay, so there is a reason you picked your house. There is a reason you had the number of kids you have or you didn’t have kids. There is a reason you are dating this person, but not that person. There is a reason for these things. You are a specific person, not a general person, and so is your character. All right? So as you’re writing and as you’re coming up with these scenarios and these stories, take the time and I promise you, I used to be the person who was like, I don’t have the time to do that. I have a story to write. I promise you it’s worth it. Because as I have taken another story out and said, oh, I’m actually excited. Okay. Actually, the problem with this story is that I don’t know this ghostly figure. I have like this ghost memory ghost. Anyway, maybe I’ll talk to you guys about that. But this is the story I’m going to try to sell and I’m very excited about. Okay? So I know this character well, but what I don’t know is the so I know the Alpha character well, but I don’t know the side character.

Kat (34:06)

Once again, I need to know everything. Not everything. I need to know the pinpoint of their world view of how they see it, what their expectations are in this moment, and how they are going to how the dashing of those expectations is going to affect them, because that’s going to affect the main character. See, it all comes back to the main character, how this is going to affect the main character. So I’d say, like, if the stepdad who she thought was a dad, who Alice thought was a dad, is going to expect Alice to continue on as normal, that needs to be conveyed to the reader, because then the reader is going to understand that when Alice doesn’t allow life to go on as usual, they understand where things are going. And they say, oh, yeah, that’s going to cause some problems, isn’t it, in this relationship? And they can see because the reader wants to see how everything is affecting and everything, all the information that they’re going to get for the story is going to be for the Alpha main character, the person that the reader is reading for. All right, so if you like doing this giant character study, that’s great.

Kat (35:22)

But go back and only circle or highlight exactly what is happening about this story of the character, because you could write a million stories about the character. Right? So understand what the story is and then fleshing out the character is sitting with them in the moment that they are in the moment before, what do they see about themselves and about the world? And then what is about to be bashed a bit and how the little things, what are the things about them that are going to affect them in that moment? What are the world of thoughts that are going to affect them? What are they going to think about and figure out what those memories and those things are the trip to Disneyland, how that affects her, the fact that she doesn’t know who he is, and maybe she read a novel about that one day and everything went to hell or whatever, but make sure that only those things that you are developing that you are bringing into her being at that moment affect the story. Her liking Turkey sausages and not pork sausages really has nothing to do with the story. Okay. Whether she kissed a boy in second grade and was the most popular girl and now she’s not probably doesn’t affect the story.

Kat (36:45)

That’s a whole different story. Okay, so where is your character right now and what are the things that are affecting them now? The weather is not affecting them right now, her grades being affected, like whether or not she even cares anymore about achieving what he has achieved. How is that going to affect her? And you’re going to find how that then influences your story. So I’ll let you guys know on where I take this story, but I know for a fact I went back to my novel that I’m working on and really I’m diving deep into the characters of what does he believe now? What does he believe then? Who is he now and then finding those moments, not just him but his twin, his father, his mother, because those are all the people that are going to affect them and a little bit less his sister. And then as I write into who these characters are and what they believe, it really brings me more insight into trends and then finding out I don’t care what political party he’s on because it doesn’t affect the story. I don’t really care what he likes to eat for breakfast, but I do care that he cares about music and his father doesn’t think that is a viable career.

Kat (38:13)

And he does care about pleasing his father, which causes him and influences his exercise routine and how he eats as he goes through. Now, that’s not the main how he eats or how he exercise isn’t the main part of the story, but that is a part of his relationship with his father and this weird tug that he has with his brother and his father and how it has influenced other parts of his thought process and his worldview, just as, of course, everything is going to fall apart because that’s what the story is about. So I encourage you to sit down with your character, ask them why they’re there. Ask them why they are reacting. Why would they react like this? And their answer is going to be influenced by who they are. I hope that made sense to you guys. So what I will be doing is talking a lot with the authors that are upcoming in the podcast about their characters and about how they flesh out how their process is because I want you guys to really understand this and I hope that this makes sense. But to be honest, it has taken me quite a few months of just sitting and pondering and reading and figuring things out and everyone has a different process and it is a very difficult thing to sort of explain.

Kat (39:45)

There’s not a one, two, three. You can do that for plotline. You can’t really do that for characters or characters. You have to understand who they are in the moment and really pin it down most specifically in the moment of the story. So that’s as much as I can tell. If you guys have any feedback for me, please feel free to give it to me. You know where you can find me? At @katcaldwell.author on Instagram and at @katcallwellauthor on Facebook. And we’ll be talking about this a lot more because characters or the story. That is why we come this story to read about the humans or sometimes the dogs and how the circumstances around them affect them. Right. So stay tuned. Next week we will be having guests again and I’m sure that you will be glad to hear other voices on the podcast. But again, you can find the transcripts and all the things that you need at pencilsandlipstick. episode-124. I’ll see you next time.

Kat (41:01)

Hey, you’re still listening? Since you are, could you do me a favor and head over to the app that you’re listening to this episode on and hit the subscribe button and then rate and review the show. It would really help the pencil lipstick podcast get out into the world. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, well, then there might be more people out there who would enjoy it as well. If you want to find out more about me, you can head over to catcalledwell.com. I have my story over there, my books, my interactive journals, my one on one coaching information and information on my creative writing community membership group. If you’re looking to write a book or you are a writer and you just want to find out more about how to write, how to publish, how to format, how to market and all the things that go into being an author these days, check out the membership group. There is a 14 three day trial sale that you can try it out, get into the masterminds, find out all the goodies that we are talking about in the group. I would love to see you there.

Kat (42:06)

Bye.