Writing Workshop: How do I make dynamic characters?

You're wrapping up your new werewolf thriller romance novel, but you can't help but notice something is missing. You know all good stories live and die by their characters, so you want make sure you go that extra mile to make compelling, believable characters. Observe as I take two boring, uninspired selections that deal with character description and turn them into pure prose gold.

Original: Matt stared drunkenly at the moon through the dirtied window of his high-rise apartment. The ringing of the phone broke the solitary silence and despite snatching it up after only the second ring, Matt was met with the taunting sound of a dial-tone.

Rewrite: Matt stared drunkenly at the moon through the dirtied window of his high-rise apartment as he took a long drag off his cigarette. The ringing of the phone broke the solitary silence and despite snatching it up after only the second ring with his prehensile tail, Matt was met with the taunting sound of a dial-tone.

First and foremost you may notice that I changed the Matt character to a smoker. Why you ask? Smoking characters are infinitely more in depth than their non-smoking counterparts. Remember, smoking is not limited to tobacco products, feel free to write a cast of characters that smoke pot, hash, hookah and back issues of Guns and Ammo. Additionally, characters with deformities allow readers that have ever suffered in the face of adversity to connect more easily with the text. In this case, people with tails would probably find themselves on the verge of tears by these two sentences alone.

Original: Enemy fire pinned Lt. Johnson in the the abandoned church. Fatigued by the weight of the late Pvt. Ward's equipment and by the bullet wound in his shoulder, Johnson began to break down and cry.

Rewrite: Enemy Kalishkinov fire pinned Lt. Johnson in the the abandoned sausage factory. Fatigued by the weight of Pope John Paul II's enchanted scepter and by the termites in his wooden shoulder, Johnson began to break down and cry tears of oil.

Specific names for firearms make you, as the all powerful author, sound more like Tom Clancy, which is always a good thing. Granted, this doesn't pertain directly to your characters, but don't forget that the author is the most important character of all!

With the inclusion of the pope's scepter, a wooden shoulder, and tears of oil the reader is forced to identify Lt. Johnson as three things: religious, a tree, and a robot. A robot tree, you say? How dynamic!

What if my son joined the Conferderate army so he can fight my other son who is defending the Union?

Like how William Shakespeare's Rent was a play within a play, your family is suffering a civil war within a civil war. The important thing is to not panic in such a situation, for there is little to no way that your son's little game of sibling rivalry can pan out.

Take this into consideration: How many different divisions of troops are there in an army? If you had to pick your Union son out of all of the different Union troops, you'd have one hellish time. What's worst is that they are all wearing the same ratty navy blue uniforms. Using advanced zebra strategies, the Union would have left you beguiled as to the sheer amount of soldiers you would have to go through until you found your son. Now imagine it is a similar deal with the South, only with gray uniforms and slaves.

So we have several different troops from different fronts, and the possibility of them fighting bothers you? What are the chances that both your sons can be in the same place and fight each other? Not bloody likely, I imagine. Even if they are on the same battlefield, do you have any idea how hard it would be to spot each other from where they are, whilst avoid cannon and musket balls?

That is why it is my great pleasure to tell you that your fears are groundless. Look at the facts! There is little possibility that your sons will kill each other. They will merely die on different battle fields distant from the land they know and their mother's warm embrace. Chances are that they will be hastily thrown into a mass grave, most likely shot dead from friendly fire.

If death is unkind to them and let's them linger, they will be brought back to base, where the arms and legs they were shot in must be amputated in order to stop the spread of gangrene. If your sons are resilient enough, they might not die due to the massive blood lost during the traumatizing operation, but will most likely waste away at your very home, depressed that they gave an arm/leg defending their country.

Life won't be the same after that day, even though you'll try your best to cheer them up. They simply aren't the same people they once were. Their trademark humor is gone now. Gone like the autumn leaves as the Winter months are approaching. "Christmas," you say to yourself. "Christmas will cheer us all up and we'll be a happy happy family again!" It's mid-December and you have the perfect gift for your sons and everything seems to be righting itself out. You can't wait to see the look on their faces when they open up their presents and see that you got them JUST the thing! On Christmas Eve, you walk into the shed to hide the recently wrapped gifts. That's where you see your sons, hanging from the rafters with a tear-stained letter limply hanging out of their pockets. You are called a hero, a savior, a saint, but nothing you could have would have saved them, for even though they were alive, their soul was taken on the battlefield.

If your family is black, your son is a stupid, stupid man.

How do I become a good stand up comedian?

So, you've spent the better part of your Friday night at a comedy club and you're having a pretty good time, but you can't help but notice that a lot of the comedians are recycling the same cliched bits over and over again. You, however, set aside this observation and give the next comedian the benefit of the doubt. After all, this next comedian is a prop comic so the situation is thick with potential. Not to mention you are lucky enough to catch a quick glimpse of him unpacking a silly hat, further sweetening the deal.

He steps up behind the mic and immediately you are disappointed. Ten seconds into his gig he's using the very same “Five guys jerking off on a Shetland pony” joke you have heard from your grandfather countless times before. He then immediately follows it up by talking about how he wants to shit in the Pope's hat, the very same thing your mother would yell to a room full of people, wine glass in hand, at any and all family gatherings.

So you start to think maybe you can do stand up. I mean come on, you're more original than these guys! But how can you ensure you stay off the dusty, well-traveled road of comedy cliches?

Look no further aspiring comedian, for I have compiled some basic comedy walk-throughs for a budding comedian such as yourself.

• Before you start your gig, make sure you yell the name of the city you are in. People love clapping and wooping for a city name, it's a simple behavior that was coded into our DNA as cavemen during the Renaissance. Make sure you say the right city you're currently in, because failure to get the city name correct will make people think you're mentally challenged. With that being said however, coming across as mentally challenged might help increase draw to your act, the same way people go out of their way to watch the Special Olympics.

• Swear a lot. People love laughing at swear words. Making up new swears is guaranteed to be met with boisterous laughter. Try combining two swears to make one awesome swear, like “shitbitch.”

• Get the audience involved. Being able to work the room is an invaluable skill. For example, if some guy is wearing a hat, say “Nice hat, fucker.”

• Inside jokes are a must! There is a reason you and your good drinking buddy Tim break out into hysterics every time you say “Get down!” in thick Scottish accents. It's funny! Do not hesitate to go into excruciating detail to key the audience in on why it's so funny. If this, for whatever reason, does not get laughs, just say “You had to be there.” and call the guy wearing a hat a fucker again.

• Have fresh, new content. If you only do one thing right, make sure it's this. In case you're having trouble thinking of new bits, I have taken the liberty of listing some ideas of jokes that should get you on your feet. Word of warning however: these jokes are very much ahead of their time, and extensive use of them may cause you to single-handedly usher in a new age of comedy.

1. The differences between women and men

2. The differences between white and black people

3. The differences between America and everywhere else

4. The differences between Republicans and Democrats

5. The differences between rich people and poor people

6. The differences between gay people and straight people

7. The differences between being single and being married

8. The differences between current president and past presidents

9. The differences between you and your crazy family.

10. The way the old man feeding the ducks at the park always stabs you when you ask him what time it is.

Consider the past information a Comedian starter-kit, there's a lot more you have yet to learn. May I remind you, we haven't even touched on drug references!

What if I suspect that the can of soda I am about to open will spray everywhere?

So you just got a Crystal Pepsi out of the fridge, and due to the slippery condensation, you lose your grasp of it. As it hurtles towards the ground, you panic and hope that it does not spray open on impact, dousing your socks with individual toes in rich sugary tastiness. Prayers are answered when it doesn't crack open, but now you have a myriad of questions ahead of you. When is the right time to open this can? How can I expedite the decarbonization of this drink?! Do they even make socks like these anymore?

Since its creation by Soda Popinski in the late 1930s, drinks like Fresca or Green River are opened with an underlying fear that the carbonation built up inside will erupt like a volcano, sending precious soda high into the air. Though having a soda shower seems like it'd be amazing fun, be forewarned: pop showers are the leading cause of shame, wet T-shirt contests, and sleep apnea. So how do you avoid such a problem? By following some tried and true methods of reducing carbonation in a can/bottle of pop/soda/soda-pop.

• Tap the lid - Science mandates that the more you tap on the top of a can or on the cap of a bottle, the more you lessen the bubbles forming inside the container. The reason behind this is that the bubbles inside hate any sort of drum rhythm, the very foundation of most music. With this logic, find a record with a great deal of bass and rest your pop on the speaker. Make sure the music is very loud and leave the room for awhile. A half an hour later, come back into the room and enjoy your smooth beverage!

• Rising Temperature - Carbonation and bubbles, much like lonely or ugly women, learn to give up when they are in heat. What you do is enter a nearby kitchen and put the can of pop in the microwave (if you have a bottle, replace microwave with oven or furnace). Set the timer and leave the room for awhile. A half an hour later, come back into the room and enjoy your smooth beverage!

• Alone time - When a pop fizzles up, it's important to give it time by itself for some much needed introspection. Give the soda some time to think in its favorite place, an empty clothes dryer set on tumble press. A half an hour later, come back into the room and enjoy your smooth beverage!

Carbonation is a cruel mistress, but hopefully with these tips and tricks, your can won't crack "under pressure!"

What if I become aware of my own surprise party ahead of time, effectively ruining “the surprise?

Authors note: I, Mr. Jones, have recently been mailed an informational flyer about a very interesting political party called the CFL (Cannibals For Liberty). Having had my interest effectively piqued by the presentation of the brochure, (such an effective use of color!) I chose to sit in on one of their meetings and it’s clear that this is the political party for me. I know stand a more enlightened, passionate person. However, I will not let my newly found political views affect my sage-like advice. With that being said, let’s move on.

If you find yourself accidentally becoming aware of your own surprise party, chances are your parents are throwing the party. This is understandable, because the average parent offers a limitless supply of disappointment.

In a perfect world, once we reach breeding age we would turn and devour our parents, feasting on the massive amounts of nutrients their bodies, ripe with age and experience, have to offer. Not only could you live off a single parent for an extremely long time, but this practice could effectively counteract the longer average life span that comes as a result of countless medicinal breakthroughs over the years that ultimately contribute to the overpopulation of our planet. Sadly, eating parents is not standard procedure (yet) so you’ll have to hang tough through crappy surprise parties.

On the off chance that the people throwing the party are not your parents, the following tips are still applicable. Just realize you have some pretty lame friends that can’t even throw a decent surprise party. I also feel we should eat our friends’ nutrient-rich bodies when we reach breeding age, more or less for the same reasons for eating parents, but I digress.

Nonetheless, you should avoid catastrophe if you remember these three basic things:

• Make sure they have no idea you are aware of the surprise. This should be priority number one. Avoid using words like party, birthday, or surprise in everyday speech. Not only will this cover your tracks, but it also encourages the use of synonyms!

• Make sure your moment of “surprise” is believable. Remember, act natural. Do not, I repeat, do not milk the moment. If you normally wouldn't swear loudly, hardcore dance or pole vault over grandma when legitimately surprised, don't do it here.

• Devour party-goers. This is the moment you were waiting for. Social gatherings are key for getting people to further our cannibal agenda. Be polite, make plenty of eye contact and smile a lot, but most importantly make sure all exits are effectively blocked, locked or sealed. People are more likely to listen to idealisms of a happy, enthusiastic cannibal especially if they're trapped and are without choice. Also, do not hesitate to eat someone as an example. It's amazing what people will comply to if it means not getting eaten.

Remember: by following these tips you are protecting yourself from disaster and laying the blueprints to allow our fellow cannibal brethren to eat our way to a better future.