If you’ve forgotten the first steps in dealing with writer’s block, please go back to my blog, “Writer’s Block.” Now that you’ve determined the strengths and weaknesses of your Villain, Hero, and Victim, you should web brainstorm interactions between these characters. Draw a large circle, about 1 inch in diameter in the center of your paper.  Place the main theme of your story in the center circle. Themes vary, such as: crime, poverty, murder, gangs, injustice, and tons more. Next, draw about 5 other 1″ centimeter circles around the central circle. Place the names of your villain, victim, and hero in 3 of them and leave the other 2 blank for the names of 2 main, but subordinate characters, as they arise during your brainstorming. Now you see, you have three main characters in your outer circles and your theme in the center. Connect these outer circles to your central circle with a simple line between each. Now draw three circles around each outer character circle and connect these new circles to their character circle with a simple line. In these new circles, place ideas of how each character interacts with your theme. Whenever one character is connected to another character, draw a line between those character’s circles, creating a visual graphic of how you will cause these

characters to interact while you weave your characters into your plot. More later…

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