Writing: Characters and Dialogue

Any last name that you like is a good one! Your characters are yours - you don't have to ask some anonymous person on the internet about them.

Here's a good LINK to a list of last names you might like.

You need to invent your own names if you're going to be a writer. Don't depend on some anonymous person on the internet to invent your characters for you!

I use online name generators for the names of my secondary characters - the main characters. I take my time and choose special names from baby name books!

Writers who copy ideas from other people can also end up in trouble for plagiarism! If you copy someone's names or ideas, then when you publish your story, they could claim you stole those from them and sue you for part of your money.

Click on the LINK for a character name generator!

First, what is a disery -- do you mean a miser perhaps. And instead of moneythrift, do you mean spendthrift? I'd recommend first using a dictionary to be sure you are using the correct terms.

Second, writing dialogue is not as hard as you're letting it seem. You have dialogue all the time -- it's called talking. If you honestly cannot think of what your characters are going to say to one another, you need to go take a break and go somewhere out in public. Sit somewhere in the middle of a crowd for one to two hours and just listen to people talking. Then, go home and write down some of the things you heard people saying. That's dialogue.

When you need to have your characters talk, just pretend it's you and a friend (or several friends), and have them say something you'd probably say in the same situation. Then imagine what your friends would say in reply, and go back and forth that way. As you become a better writer, your characters themselves will "tell" you what they want to say, because they become like real people to you.

You're the writer -- you need to write your own book, not let some anonymous person on the internet do it for you!

If the story is not interesting enough for you to think of a decision, then it's not the story you should be writing. If you're a writer, you don't have to ask other people what to write about. Here are some related questions to look at about being a writer.

Most minstrels had the following traits:

• good at music
• a performer
• adventurous
• good with people
• good survival skills

They had to travel all over the countryside singing and playing for different towns, so they had to survive on their own and be good at their job.

Main Characters

Alex Jackson - As the narrator of the novel, we follow seventeen-year-old Alex on his seemingly harmless trip to China, until complete mayhem breaks loose, when he finds his own life at stake. Alex, a history nut, came home from school one day to discover that he would soon visit China with his father. Once there, Alex enjoyed seeing Beijing as the Chinese see it, riding a bicycle through each neighbourhood and alley he could find. Alex especially enjoyed hearing about War in history, which was unexpectedly coincidental, since Alex found himself in the middle of the beginning of a civil war. Determined, Alex fights to find his father, and to get his illegal video tapes back to Canada, to be able to tell the story of the innocent people of Beijing.

Ted Jackson - A cameraman for a television news station invited his son to join him on a trip to Beijing, for the experience, but if he had only known what danger he put himself and his son in, he never would have gone through with the whole thing. The divorced, middle-aged, childish man, with Alex as his son, finds himself illegally shooting footage of the protest in Tian An Men Square after the nightmare breaks out. Scared and worried, Ted looses contact of his son during the massacre, and doesn't know whether Alex is dead or alive.

Eddie Nowlan - This goofy news reporter meets Alex and Ted in Beijing, before deciding to disobey the Chinese government and continue to write reports on the protest in Tian An Men Square. The passion he has for his job drives Eddie to continue to make notes and write up reports to send back to Canada, when he could easily be caught, and sent back to Canada. He refuses to miss out on such an exciting, and news-worthy opportunity.

Lao Xu - Although, this Chinese man has a job that requires him to report to the government on the group's activity, he is a nice guy, and becomes friends with Alex, Ted and Eddie. They spend weeks working together on the news reports and video footage, and along the way, Lao Xu shows Alex around Beijing, and becomes good friends with him. Xu even gave Alex the chinese name, Shan Da, meaning Tall Mountain. Mr. Xu eventually gets just as fed up with the Chinese government as the rest of the protesters do, that he risks his own life to give his country freedom.

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