The Help

I am in a book club, and the pick for last month was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I liked it well enough, but what I found annoying was the fact that she needed a better editor. The character descriptions were inconsistent and some of the story left me feeling short changed. Instead of investing a little more on the outcome of a certain character, that character was just killed off. It's not that I particularly loved the character or anything, but it was a pretty decent part of what motivated the main character. I think that character deserved a little more than "oh, she died." The story was good, though. What I found I could take away from this book, though, was the need for me to work hard to maintain consistency in my own writing. I saw a few tricks other people did when I was reading the review for a book I was thinking about purchasing. The author was talking about author rituals and how she used to have one and had heard of other rituals other authors do. One I found interesting was making a collage for each of the characters to incorporate what they look like, their likes, etc. I think I may try this. I don't really have much room to display them while I'm working on my novel, but I think it would be better to keep it small enough to put in a file that I can carry around with me. Maybe I should put Photoshop on this laptop and create digital versions or I could scan the physical ones I create. So many options...oh, dear, could this turn into a procrastination method?