I found this photo on Flickr. Entitled “The Problem with Character-Driven Stories,” the photo had an amusing story to go along with it.

As the story goes, there was a writer who was auditioning characters for her next novel. Characters lined up all the way out the writer’s waiting room and around the corner. And most of them, unfortunately, were about the same as all the others. Here’s an example that exemplifies what I’m talking about:

A character named Jean entered, sat down.

“Okay, then, Jean,” said the writer. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I’m 24. I have medium-long mousey-blonde hair. I drink vodka and Coke. I’m pretty boring.”

“And you’d like to be in a story?”

“Yes, please.”

Finishing out these posts on character needs, extracted from Character Fiction 101: How to Write Fictional Characters and Character Stories. Today, a basic need that provides motivation for many powerful stories, the need for autonomy.

Each of us needs to feel in control over his own life and his own choices, a measure of independence and freedom, a corner of the world that is “mine, all mine, to do with as I wish.”

One thing I try to figure out before starting a new book is my main character’s felt need.

What do I mean by felt need? Some people might call it the character’s motivation, but I think it goes deeper than that. For instance, a character may be motivated to do his father’s bidding because if he doesn’t he’ll get a beating. He obeys to prevent something harsh from happening. He’s motivated to please his father to preserve himself. His felt need goes beyond motivation: his felt need in this situation may be to be accepted by his father. What he really wants is unconditional love. This felt need drives the character not only in how he acts and reacts but in how he feels.

Another post on character needs, extracted from Character Fiction 101: How to Write Fictional Characters and Character Stories. Today, a need that has been on my heart of late, the need for community.

Feeling part of a wider community, beyond one’s immediate family, involves shared perceptions and identity with others and connections to them, a feeling of belonging, that we matter to one another, that we’re all watching each others’ backs, a belief that our needs will be met through the community that we share. We are not just a collection of individuals all competing to win; we are also all parts of larger communities.

The next post on character needs, extracted from Character Fiction 101: How to Write Fictional Characters and Character Stories. Today, the need for intimacy.

We all need emotional and physical closeness to at least one other person. This is the person who sees us as we really are, naked and undignified, and whom we see the same way, and love anyway. The need for intimacy, both physical intimacy and emotional intimacy, generates some of the oldest and most powerful story conflicts, and most romance novels.

The next post in my series of character needs from Character Fiction 101, the most basic of all: physical needs.

Physical needs include air, water, food, and sleep, and the other things our biologies need to survive. (The other 10 categories deal with emotional needs.)

A character meets her physical needs by breathing, eating and drinking, exercising, sleeping, and even evacuating (although I’d be careful about working that into a story).

Another post on character needs, extracted from Character Fiction 101: How to Write Fictional Characters and Character Stories.

Today, the need for security, which played a significant role in the life of the character “Eddie” in From the Ashes of Courage.

Security includes our need for shelter, cleanliness, protection, and safety, and the like.

From the time we were newborns, we instinctively knew how to establish rapport with our mothers, whom nature had already primed to fulfill our need for security. From the moment they’re born, babies how to recognize human faces and to imitate them. And they instinctively know how to cry. No one needs to teach them how. They immediately use these innate communication skills to establish a relationship with their primary caregivers, which will provide them everything they need to survive, until they are able to provide for themselves.

I’m posting a series on character needs, extracted from Character Fiction 101: How to Write Fictional Characters and Character Stories.

I’m starting with the need for attention, which inspired my story, “The Friendship Dress,” posted at Danielle La Paglia’s blog.

We all need both to give and to receive attention. We all want to feel special at least some of the time, want to be the center of attention, even those of us who are quiet and introverted. Our need for attention is the root of the adage that you get what you focus on, and is surely part of the magic behind positive thinking and the law of attraction.

Okay, you knew that I was eventually going to write this post, didn’t you?

The first rule about writing sex scenes is that you have to know your audience, and that there are no hard-and-fast rules. At least that’s what I’ve come to conclude, because different people’s tastes vary widely. Some readers enjoy erotica–or at least a steamy romance in which sex serves as a suitable proxy for emotional connection. Others detest any story that has any sex in it whatsoever. Most are somewhere in between.

The reason for these wide differences in reaction is because of the nature of sex. Sex itself is just a biological function, a physical act, like eating or peeing. That’s why many people, including me, find raw sex scenes even more boring than The Alchemist.[*] And that’s the primary reason I’ve never really gotten into erotica. But sex is also one of the most powerful and profound human activities, because we link it with a wide variety of deep emotional needs, including our need for attention, emotional and physical intimacy, family stability and security, status, and even spiritual growth.

So how you treat sex scenes will depend on how you think about sex. And in the following tips for writing “interesting” sex scenes, most likely, they’re about how to make them interesting to me. Know your readers; use your own judgement.

PJ Kaiser suggested—probably because I’ve been doing weekly "#FridayFlash Favorites" posts—that I write about what catches my attention in a flash story, and what turns me off.

I thought that was a pretty kewl idea, and I further decided to link to last week’s #FridayFlash stories (because they’re still fresh in my mind) in order to demonstrate each point. As it turns out, this post has grown long enough to span over two days. So I’ll go through the first 3 turn-ons (and 5 turn-offs) today, and finish up tomorrow.

(Maybe I’ll post another follow up next week, the short version, just a checklist without the explanation. That’ll be far fewer words, but you’ll probably need to read the long version to understand what I’m talking about.)

Having sifted through about 100 stories a week since I started these posts, I’m probably qualified at least to venture an opinion. On top of that, I (usually) know what I like, and (usually) know how to write what I like—which also comes with experience—so I know why I like it.

Even so, my opinions are just that: opinions. The more experience I gain as a writer and author, the more I realize that there’s no right or wrong when it comes to creative expression. (Us indie authors, that’s our rightful motto, you know.) There’s only what you like (or dislike) and what you like (or dislike) about it. So as you go down the following list of positives and negatives—especially if I linked to your story to exemplify one of the negatives—if you think I’m full of BS… well, you’re probably right.

In general, I look for pretty much the same in flash as I look for in any story. The only difference between flash and longer stories is that flash fiction is, uh, shorter. Therefore, the best flash stories respect the length and use it to effect. Other than that, I admire the same qualities in flash that excite me about short stories, novellas, novels, movies, TV episodes, graphic novels, …