Tag Archives: fiction writing

“Benefits” Working Biography of Glenda Bourne

Here’s another in the series of working biographies I’ve posted for characters in my novel “Benefits“. This working biography is for antagonist Glenda Bourne, who also appeared first in the novel “Benediction“.

As with so many of the working biographies for fictional characters, I used this sketch to draw from but did not use all of it. Additionally, I invented other aspects of character not in the working biography at all. So it’s best thought of as resource and starting point.

For some reason, when writing Glenda, I had the image of Princess Diana in my head. Though I clearly state Glenda had long hair, was from South Africa, etc. I think it’s because at the time of writing her initially, I worked with a Brit who had a Diana haircut. So I offer these photos of Diana with short hair channeling Glenda Bourne:

Princess Diana with short hair
Princess Diana with short hair

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Glenda Bourne Working Biography

Glenda Bourne is Ben’s film editor, that’s the starting point of their relationship.

She wants a Baby – but, she’s a single lesbian and she doesn’t want a relationship with a man, she just wants some good sperm!

Glenda is a lesbian, 37 years old, originally from Capetown, South Africa, has lived in SF for almost 10 years. Film editor. Highly regarded in the Indie production community. Lives in small apartment in the Tenderloin, off of Ellis street (note, she moved to Haight in the sequel, to a place on Steiner.)

She’s 5-7, long brown hair, which she often keeps in a ponytail or up on top of her head. She has brown eyes, always seems to have a tan, like she’s outdoorsy, which is odd in SF. She must spend a lot of time in Marin or some other sunny place. She is fit, not fat and not skinny.

She has a lot of anger, and is not the most pleasant person to be around. But she can be persistent and even sweet when she has to, to get something she wants. She originally came to SF rather than LA or NY (more traditional centers for film editing) because of the lesbian scene. But, sadly for her, she’s been unable to really connect with one woman for any long-term thing. She’s had lots of girlfriends, but nothing has seemed to stick.

Now she has angst, because of her age, the ticking clock, and she really wants a child. She’s estranged from her family in S. Africa, perhaps there was some abuse at home growing up.

Her respect for Ben is mostly put-upon, she pretty much thinks his film Hell for the Holidays is shit. It was her ex-girlfriend CJ at Film Artists Foundation who referred Ben.

Her opinion of him has changed recently since she now sees him not as a filmmaker to deal with, but as a sperm factory she can order from.

In the sequel, “Benefits”, Glenda has a car. It’s an SUV. Older, say 1998 black Ford SUV Explorer.

Cover of Jim Arnold's "Benefits" is a street scene in Cole Valley, San Francisco, used here in blog post Glenda Bourne Working Biography.

On Writing: Being Prolific

clunk clunk clunk

Hmmmmm. Having something to say, first of all? Of course, that’s the most important thing. And for me at least, not really a problem. I have lots of things to say, with my current fiction project, it’s all mapped out, pretty much know where that story’s going.

But I do find writing difficult, or the actual process of writing. You know, that sitting down part.

Most of the time, anyway. Not always–there are days I come to it with joy.

Other days I come to it with fear.

And many other days I come to it not at all! And I’d like to avoid/end those.

I’ve written before about procrastination. That’s not where I find myself today; it’s more the idea of fitting writing back into a schedule that didn’t include work hours for so long — now that they’re back, I must rearrange writing times and most importantly, stick to them — if anything is going to be created. I’ve done it before, I’ll certainly do it again — and I, like most people, work best when there is a little bit (but not a lot) of time pressure. A little bit of the old stress.

Here are some tips on being prolific.

Stumped? Nothing coming out? There’s a lot of forms of fiction out there – not only novels, but screenplays and teleplays, short stories, graphic novels or comic books, serials. Try writing your idea in another form for a day.

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Keeping it fresh, keeping it truthful – it’s always a search for what’s true, lying would be so boring. I always ask myself, what is the truth? And I try to write that down. It helps.

Test and stretch limits, all the time, look for the next rung. For me, I try and think up the most outrageous thing I can think of, and write that. You know, that thing that cannot be expressed, for whatever reason. Kill the censor.

Use the tools of our crazy tech digital world to assist you. Meaning, you can write anywhere now (I guess you always could, with pen and notebook, but it’s so much more fun with an app). I suppose this would make “it” happen more — I can’t tell you the number of times I got a passing nugget of something in my head that left just as quickly. But now I’m connected 24/7 to a smartphone. I can capture the nuggets.

Being efficient helps, having a big plan helps, even if it’s something as simple as “I’ll write one blog post a week so I’ll have 50 for 2014, and I’ll write a page a day for a year so in one year I’ll have 365 pages of something.”

My favorite: Write Every Day. Even if you can only fit in an hour or even 30 minutes. Your story remains fresh and your subconscious continues to work on it while you sleep — but if you go for days without writing it, you have to backtrack. At least that’s my experience.

Rewriting and not leaving the work too soon. This is so important. Things really do need to be put into drawers for a week or a month, taken out again and reworked. I’ve often been too antsy to do this, but the work suffers, it really does.

Lastly, everybody thinks they can write, because most people nowadays have to do some writing, even if it’s only a tweet here or there or a Facebook update. Don’t be fooled. Real writing is not easy — if it was, we’d all be Stephen King (or INSERT YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR HERE), right?

Some ideas from here and here.

Not Knowing What to Write Next – Some Strategies to Try

Wish I had a beauty like this again. Photo copyright shordzi (Flickr)

I’m not sure if it’s lack of motivation, just not knowing where the story goes, or some other malaise – but I’ve been suffering under it lately. As I was lying awake in my bed early this morning fretting, I remembered a tip from my excellent writing teacher Claire Carmichael.

It was on the order of how to “get from here to there” – when in actuality, you DO know where the THERE is, and you might know what comes before the “here,” but you’re not grounded in what’s happening right now and have basically zero idea of how to get to THERE.

Claire envisioned this process as beads in a necklace, some of which you probably do know. Say, for instance, you’re writing a subplot about a character with cancer, and this character ultimately survives. You know that much. You don’t want to reveal that outcome to the reader as that would negate any suspense about that part of the story. But there are things you do know, or can guess, that would be part of this.

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There’s going to be a diagnosis, there will be decisions to be made and treatments to be dealt with. For a good story, things should get worse before they ultimately get better. Perhaps there’s a family meltdown over this. Perhaps there’s a bankruptcy. Perhaps there’s a wrenching, startling and totally unexpected scene about the consequences of chemotherapy. Perhaps there’s a visit by a ghost, a deity, or a demon! Perhaps there’s an incompetent medical character who tells the patient, erroneously of course, that the situation is hopeless, and all is lost.

Get the picture? Then these known stops on the way to THERE become the colored beads in our necklace, and we just need to fill in the empty spots with the lesser gems. We can write our way to THERE, as if we were fingering beads on the necklace and stopping to touch the larger ones we knew were coming.

I like to think of this as stopping for a bit of gas on the way stations along the highway on a road trip, the ones you already have circled on the map. This often helps me — hope you find it useful too!