How to write Rebellious Sarcastic characters

Some of my favorite characters to write are my sarcastic, witty, annoying characters that just make everyone say, "I love him/her but I hate him/her at the same time!"

These are my kind of characters. 

  

Now, every person has a character personality that they're good at writing that some aren't good at writing. Some may be good at flirtatious characters, or scared quiet characters, while others are just the opposite! In the couple years that I've been writing, I've found that it gets annoying trying to write these characters when you don't know how to express those emotions or have anyone express them to you. So, I can't write the flirty characters, but I can write rebels, and so I'm going to help you start in the right direction of writing these.

Step one: face-claim. 

If you have a good face-claim that looks and feels like a rebel, then you'll feel obligated to toss in a rebellious spirit into that character. 

You can't have a character that looks like this: 

Act like a character that should look like this:

Face claim (In my opinion) is one way to help your rebel take flight. The best part is, you can name your character literally anything and will be cool. because if you have a super sweet name, and a not-so-sweet personality, it's gonna be fantastic.

Step two: Aesthetics/quotes

If you just scroll through city aesthetics or snarky quotes it'll help you get a basis for what your character's personality will be like. 

Just a few to start out with:

(your character may not ride a motorcycle or do graffiti, but I just said it was a start)

Step three: Actually developing the character

Why read a blog post about writing a sarcastic rebellious character if you're never gonna actually write him/her?? If you have a good backstory for the character, write it out as a test run! It'll help you start out with the development phase, and if you still need help with stuff, grab a friend and have them ask the characters random questions to put the characters brain to the test. You can go on for as long as you want until you feel like your character is ready to be plugged into his/her appropriate story.

Step four: character dialogue/ facial expressions

Character dialogue and expression is VERY important with these characters because thats how you show how bratty they are when you can't see or hear them in person.

Each character has their own way of answering a question, and most of the time it depends on the character themselves, but with your now rebellious character, they should be able to answer with different attitude than most characters. 

If I were to ask my character Alex and Georgia (both from The Power Within) The question: "What is your opinion on school?" They would both give me very different answers.

Georgia would be more like, "It's... Fine? I guess???"

But ALEX on the other hand would be much more blunt with her answer which would probably something like: "Psh, it's stupid." (Her answer would be soooo much longer than that because she has a very strong opinion about it, but I gave you the short answer because I wouldn't want to bore y'all.)

If I were to ask them both that same question and tell them to only give me facial expressions to answer me, Georgia would most likely just give me a helpless look and a shrug while Alex would roll her eyes ever so dramatically and wish she could talk.

In the end, it's all up to you, but these are just some helpful pointers to get you send in the right direction. (At least I hope it was helpful :P)

Language in books and my thoughts about it

          Hey guys!! Sorry, I've been sick the last couple of weeks and I'm finally feeling up to writing again! Sorry about such a long break. 

          So I wanted to talk about language in books. I am not allowed to read books with language in them, and that gets really annoying at times because I see all these people talking about books that look super amazing and that I am legitimately interested in, and when I ask if they have language in them, I feel like 9 out of 10 times the answer is always yes.  

           This gets really old because I would love to read those books, but now I can't. 

         So, now I'm here to tell you why I don't believe language needs to be in books.

 It doesn't get your point across any better 
Have you ever heard a person swear or curse and just thought, "Why did that word even need to be in that sentence? Was it really necessary?"

you might be like, "Kate! What about this character that swears like a sailor!? It's vital to his character, he isn't the same without his swearing!!" Well, what's wrong with just saying, He swore? or replacing it with an even milder word than your using already? In my book A Case of Revenge, it has characters that swear on occasion but I don't write out swear words because I don't believe that it's relevant to the story. Some of the best selling novels like Hunger Games, Mysterious Benedict Society, and many others don't have language in them and they are some of the best books in History! (And if you haven't read those books they are excellent and I highly recommend them)

Now, I'm sure people will probably hate and probably spam me with a lot of questions on this topic because this is a tricky topic to talk about. Some people don't have a problem with writing or reading language in their books, and you know what? That's great! People are entitled to their own opinions, but are your opinions going against what God's word says? I'm glad that you can read those kinds books without having to worry about anything, but there are some people out there in the world (aka, me) who can't read books with profanity because we believe that it isn't pleasing to God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." If you write language in your books do you think you are pleasing the Lord with your writing? Another good verse that is good on this topic is Ephesians 4:29 says, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." 

If you do write language in your novels is it edifying your readers? Most importantly is it edifying God?

I hope y'all will think about these questions. I am going on vaction this next week so I won't be able to write for a couple weeks, but as soon as I come back I'll be sure to write something up as soon as possible!!

-Kate

Plot Bunnies. What to do When you get Them, and how to Avoid Them at all Costs.

          Now some of you may not know what I'm talking about, but plot bunnies are those cool new story ideas you get in your head while your working on the previous story idea that you had just an hour ago.

           It's an endless cycle of pain and misery and all you can think about is, "WHY CAN'T I JUST HAVE ONE STORY IDEA AND STICK WITH IT!?"
          The problem is, there is always going to be more than one story idea, you just need some self-discipline to put that idea on hold until the project you are currently working in is finished, or close to being finished. (says the person who is trying to juggle three stories at a time :') ) And if you love the idea so much that you just don't wanna forget it, have a writing journal of some kind and write down the idea's you get.
          Unfortunately, another downside to having a plot bunny is that you lose interest in your current project and think that this new idea is so much cooler! Now, it may not be that way for some people, but for the people, it does happen, and it stinks! You just gotta push yourself to finish what you have first before you go on something new. It helps to listen to music that makes you think about your WIP because music is awesome and it somehow cures everything. just kidding, but listening to music really does help!
          Another thing is Pinterest boards. If you have quotes and aesthetics for a character you'll feel like that character is the coolest thing ever, and you'll feel like you know that character more. I have a Pinterest board for every one of my characters because I feel like I know them more. Each of my characters has different aesthetics and quotes because they're all different in some way or another, and if you love a character, you'll love the story they're in. (I know from personal experience)
           Collages! I love doing collages because they're just so pleasing to see, and you get to know the character more when you make them! If you don't know what colleges are here are some ones that I have made just so you can get a feel for what they are.

          Ooooh, fun right?? Now, I use Pixlr.com to make collages on my computer, and I use an app called Pic collage on my mobile device. They both have their own pros and cons, but I personally like Pic collage more because you can add up to twenty pictures in it.
          Now, we should probably get to the "How to avoid them" part, and you basically do everything I just said. Listen to music that is related to your WIP, Pinterest, collages, and you can even draw your characters if you're good at that kind of thing.
           *hands you a sword* good luck my friend, I wish you well on your writing journey and hope that you're not totally bombarded by plot bunnies.
         

Introduction

             Now, I've never witting a blog before. I don't if I'm doing it right and I don't know if I'll be consistent with posts either, but I've wanted to give this a shot for a long time now, and now I have done it!
                 

          This post is pretty much so you can just get to know me so you're not like, "Who in the world is this crazy person and why am I here in the first place?"  My name is Kate Sinclair, I am sixteen years old and I am a missionary kid to Cameroon Africa. I have three other siblings and some wonderful parents that God has blessed me with. (My mom is the one who encouraged me to start this up after I had been debating to in the first place (thanks mom!!)) I am a Christian. I love Disney, and Dreamworks and just movies in general. I love music, especially music soundtracks and soft piano music.
            I am an aspiring author, I currently have three WIP's, maybe I'll finish them, maybe I won't. I depend on if I'm in that writing mood. and I love finding quotes and making collages for my beloved characters for those WIP's. 
            I'm going to talk about a lot of things on this blog. Mostly writing tips and advice, but I will talk about things going on in life... and other things I'll think on in the future :D
           So that is all for now!  My other posts should be longer than this, but I just wanted to say a couple of things about myself before I got into full swing!