Please welcome literary agent Mary Kole who is joining us to discuss avoiding character stereotypes. Mary joined Andrea Brown Literary Agency in August 2009.
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Write On Con will take place Tuesday – Wednesday, August 14 – 15, 2012.
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The Reading Room
The emphasis is on community.
Mary, building characters is always fun. You’ve given me more ideas to develop to give them more depth. Thanks.
Wow. Just wow. Not only was that an amazing vlog, but I am in awe of your most excellent Rubik’s skills.
Mind=blown. This was PERFECT, Mary, thank you!! Such good advice!! Now, when I’m thinking character, I will always picture the rubiks cube!
Great vlog! I love the list of unique characteristics! And your mad skillz on the cube ain’t so bad either.
Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to help make WriteOnCon an incredible experience for everyone.
Great advice!! I am in awe of your Rubix Cube skills.
Love the way you used the Rubix Cube to demonstrate the facets of a character. (can you put it back together now?) Lots of good things to think about! Thanks.
Thanks Mary. I feel re-inspired!
specific! concrete! dextrous!
thanks for the great vlog. i’m putting your advice to work immediately.
That was great! and I’m getting a rubix cube. What a great way to see where you really are with the stereo type. Thanks!
Thanks Mary. Very informative and fun! I’m off to do some more thinking and soul searching to make sure my characters are real.
The Rubik’s cube was a *fantastic* analogy!
That was amazing, so much great information! Thanks Mary!
Fabulous! Love the ending… Such great information. Thank you
Thanks for all the great advice.
Most excellent! I love your Rubik’s Cube analogy, it definitely burned a colorful hole in mee brain. But whaaat happened at the end there? LOL!
Amazing. That was an incredible demonstration.
I want a quilt square avatar, too.
Thanks Mary!
What an awesome way to bring this point home… I have moved my Rubik’s Cube to my desk and will be thinking about your analogy.
Using the cube to make your point: idelible
Solving the Rubik’s cube while barely looking at said cube: *absolutely fabulous*
Thank you Mary!
Corinne
The lists were very helpful. I’m off to think a bit about my answer to these questions for my characters. Thank you.
I have a bully character that I’m trying to develop against stereotype. So when you talked about “villians” that was very helpful.
And as for your Rubik skills. Yeah, you did blow my mind.
Thanks so much for that, Mary. I’m diving into revisions and rewrites as soon as I’ve re-read/re-watched everything from this conference. These are great advices that I can use to sharpen my characters.
Wow!
Your rubik cube skills are amazing!
i hope I can construct my characters as skillfully.
Thank you so much for your insight.
As somebody who has NEVER been able to do Rubik’s Cube with any degree of success, my mind is officially blown. Not to mention all the great info on character…
[...] and surprises Posted on August 16, 2010 by Lesley Simpson My agent Mary Kole created a cool vlog where she explores stereotypes in characters, like the nerdy brain who is [...]
[...] Posted on August 16, 2010 by Lesley Simpson My agent Mary Kole created a cool vlog where she explores stereotypes in characters, like the nerdy brain who is [...]
[...] Avoiding Character Stereotypes by literary agent Mary Kole [vlog] Mary says the worst thing that can happen in your writing is cliché. Characters should be multi-faceted with secrets, wants, needs, relationships, pasts, hopes for the future, things they do in private, and things they do in public. She says the best weapon in your arsenal is surprise. Seemingly good characters should be flawed, and readers should be able to empathize with seemingly bad characters. Characters can reveal a new “wrinkle,” but it has to be believable. [...]
[...] video for WriteOnCon, Avoiding Character Stereotypes, was one of my favorites. I watched it multiple times just to soak up some of her brilliance. (Also [...]
[...] resource I consider a must-read is literary agent Mary Kole’s video for WriteOnCon, Avoiding Character Stereotypes. This video is amazing. I’ve used it to help develop my characters for my NaNoWriMo project, [...]