You want me to do WHAT?

One of the more interesting parts of plotting is getting the characters somewhere they don't want to go. In extreme cases, somewhere no-one with any sense is going to want to go. It's got to be done with care, because otherwise you end up killing suspension of disbelief (as the infamous rejection letter goes, "Suspension of disbelief does not mean hanging it by the neck until dead.")

Sometimes it's easy: your average hero will ignore the ten foot warning signs and the assorted Omens of Doom if his girlfriend is in there. On the other hand, he's not going near the Fortress of Ill Repute unless there's a bloody good reason. Said fortress being well supplied with Damsels of Negotiable Affection is usually good enough.

Absent a kidnapped sweetheart or a supply of Damsels of Negotiable Affection, you - the author - are going to have to convince your recalcitrant hero to get himself to the Fortress of Ill Repute so he can defeat the villain and the appropriate happily ever afters can happen. (Okay, if you're writing science fiction it's probably a Spaceship or Planet of Ill Repute, but you get the idea, all right? I think in weird metaphor and appalling allegory). This often turns into something of a battle of wits - and boy is it ever embarrassing when said hero outwits you.

I write in a kind of fugue state, okay? The number of times I've written something and come back later and thought "I wrote THAT?" - good, bad, and mind-boggling - isn't something I care to count because I ran out of appendages a long time ago.

Anyway. Here I am, carefully arranging all my obstacles so my hero's only viable choice is to go to the Fortress of Ill Repute, so the sneaky sod doubles back and heads home, figuring that the villain isn't as bad as all that, and besides, his home isn't in any danger. Now what? It's not exactly feasible for the villain to kidnap his girlfriend, especially since the hero so far hasn't shown interest in intimate relationships with anything, although I'm not that sure about the horse... And he's right. His home isn't in any danger. It's miles away, bad terrain, and bloody difficult to get to.

Random raiding parties doesn't cut it either. Who's going to raid in Back Of Nowheresville when they can have the riches of Fantasy Utopiana for a lot less trouble?

Well, let's see. He is a hero, therefore posessed of a certain amount of honor. He won't turn down an old friend who travels all that difficult bloody terrain, trailing raiding parties, natually, because the old friend has a Secret the villain would kill to possess... Or possibly the old friend is a Secret (See Diana Wynne Jones: Tough Guide to Fantasyland for more detail about this sort of thing). Or maybe old friend is actually old mentor's daughter and went looking for hero because her daddy said to find him if she ever needed help.

Suddenly, not only is the hero in danger, so is his home, and his family. Plus, he's got this person he's honor bound to help, and some kind of questy thing. Yay. I've got the stubborn SOB out of his comfort zone. Now I can harass and push him to where I need him to go, frustrate him into making mistakes, and generally make his life miserable unless he does things my way. Even then, it's not going to be nice, but it does get him out of the whole deal more or less intact, with a girlfriend as well.

I admit this is something of a gross oversimplification, but tactics like these work for me. A hero's greatest strength is also their biggest weakness because you, the author, can use it against them in ways they can't defend against. Although you can expect them to complain bitterly in your dreams, and demonstrate a remarkable command of language unbecoming to a hero.

How do you deal with unruly characters and get them to do what they need to do?

GAAAH!

Okay, I feel better now. I do apologize for groaning in your ear first thing on a Sunday morning. But I'm getting too old to be digging pits in the back yard -- especially when there are no metaphoric bodies to go into them. Add in a round of paining walls, after the requisite taping, redoing a website -- almost done -- and trying to find time to write and, well, you now know why I'm groaning.

I am also groaning because that wonderful idea I had for a blog post just flew out of my head, replaced instead by one of my characters demanding to know why I haven't been writing HER story. Hasn't she been patient? She's let me write short stories and another novel and almost finish a second and get started on plotting a third. All the while, she's languished in the back of my mind, waiting oh so patiently for her turn. Can't she come out and play?

Whine, whine, whine...and I'm not sure if it's the character or me or both of us whining.

The problem with this character is that, while she's loud enough, she doesn't exactly resonate with me. I've doodled with a story involving her but, well, it just doesn't work. So she's been pushed to the back burner while other stories, stories that do interest me and are fun -- when they aren't driving me crazy -- are written.

Now, I know there are folks out there who will say I ought to go on and write the story...and, fortunately, it is only a short story. At least that's the feel of it. These are the same folks who say you don't need to like a story or enjoy it to be able to write it. Maybe that's true for them, but not for me. If I don't like the story, I find all sorts of things to do to avoid writing. And not just painting and digging pits in my back yard. As much as I grouse about them, I enjoy that sort of physical labor. No, I'm talking about doing such things as washing baseboards, or rearranging the pantry by alphabetizing the contents.

So, what's the point of all this except to let me whine? It's simple. Every writer, editor, agent, or anyone who thinks of themselves as a reader has a set of rules a writer should follow. Some of these rules are essential. You need characters a reader can care about -- whether they connect with the character or are so appalled by him. But they have to care and want to know what happens next. Hannibal Lecter is a perfect example. Here is a character that is so totally evil that it is hard to like him. But, as a reader, you're fascinated by him and what to know more. What made him the way he is? What is he going to do next? Will he get the justice he so richly deserves?

You need a story that has a beginning, middle and end -- even if the end is simply the launching point for another story. Okay, okay, I know there are pieces of "literature" out there that don't fit this but, well, I'm not talking literature. Sorry. More than that, your story has to be written in such a way that your reader keeps turning the page. The first step is to get them to turn the very first page. So hook them immediately. Give them a reason to keep reading. Remember, if you are submitting a short story for publication, you get only a very few paragraphs to hook the editor. A book might get you a couple of pages. But they don't want to read a quarter to a third of the way through a submission before getting to the hook. Honestly, no matter how good the writing, without the hook, they won't read that far.

Most of all, you need a compelling voice for the story. You have to be able to bring your reader into the story, whether you are writing in first person or third. This is the old show-don't-tell adage. And it is harder than it sounds. After all, it's easy to write, "I walked into the room and saw him. Furious, I moved to him and, without warning, slapped him as hard as I could." Those few sentences tell you what happened. They even tell you that the narrator was mad. But there is so much more that could be done with them.

So, dear readers, here's your assignment. Take the above example and expand it. Show us what is happening there. Limit yourselves to three paragraphs. I'll come back later today and add my own take on the scene.

Also, what do you see as the rules that have to be followed in writing a good story?

Okay, I'm off for more coffee and another round of painting. Later!

Combining the Elements

Happy Easter! Although by rights the Saturday is not really celebrated, I’m excited because this is the beginning of a three week holiday. Next Friday I’ll be on Flinders Island visiting a certain Monkey person.

Pondering over things as I did my last post, I realized that you cannot really have one element that makes a story work.

I have always liked the rule of three with story construction – Setting, Character, Conflict. I know there are so many more elements, but if I had to pick three, these are always a great guide. If you are trying to give a few guidelines to someone new to writing, it is also a very easy framework to hang onto, something that is really quite powerful.

The idea, as this concept was taught to me, was that these three elements should interrelate. The setting should be so integral to the story that if you took it away, you would have a different story – or would not be able to tell the story. The character also has to be unique to that story, formed by that setting, primed for that conflict.

What is it about that character that will drive that story? How is that character unique to that setting? The conflict also has to be something unique to that world or setting and something that intimately involves that character.

Try telling Lord of the Rings without the backdrop of Middle Earth. In some ways I respond the world as a character in LoR, or series of characters. You can really see JRRs love of nature in the way he paints the backdrops in the early part of Frodo’s journey.

Can you think of any stories that combine and weave these multiple elements? Can you think of any good examples of book that have used settling as a particularly integral part of the storytelling – or to the extent that it becomes a character in its own right?

Why stop now, just when I was hating it?

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/03/voice-of-the-fans-what-books-have-you-stopped-reading/

Books I have stopped reading... This is one of those fascinating ideas that every author, agent, publisher and even retailer should be investigating and at the very least thinking about 'why?' Now the above blog article obviously doesn't come under the heading of serious research, (it's nearly as systematic and statistically relevants as say... raw bookscan numbers. The sort of thing that might act as a vague pointer, but needs to be taken with thought and care, because it's pretty obvious that this is a small self-selected group, not necessarily representative of readers in general) but it's the best I have right now, and there are a few interesting things to be gleaned there. Keep in mind that one man's meat is another man's poison (and SUCH small portions).

Let's take some the things that kept cropping up: Didn't like the characters. What the commentators by in large didn't say was why they didn't like the characters (well, okay some did say 'cardboard' and 'stereotyped' - which, um, hasn't stopped various authors being very popular even the ones no admits reading or liking but everyone has (often repeatedly). David Eddings for example.) But having read a good few of the books mentioned what I felt was that the characters failed to be ones readers could identify with.

Heavy 'literary prose' - well now there IS a shocker! Who would have thought it? It's plain however that if you're an agent or an acquiring editor - if you actually NOTICE the prose - it's a bad buy. And if you're an author wordy-prosy might get you a literary prize but it won't attract many readers. On the other hand it does seem to get bought, despite this. So... maybe if you can fool both sides? Editors, agents and readers? Hmm. Maybe.

Difficult styles/voice - as above. But it isn't always wordy/prosy/literary. I must admit for eg I struggled to read (although enjoyed the story) the early Cherryh books. It took a while of sitting analysing line-by-line to get the style - and - despite admiring the author's ideas and work, deciding I wasn't going to go there.

Boring story - this came up time and again. I think the message here for us writers is that a structural editor can be a lifesaver. For the record I work on no more than one non-action at all chapter (of no more than 7 pages) in a row. I sat and analysed a lot of books to reach this figure. Therefore it's probably wrong - or at least there are authors who can get away with breaking it. But I think that failing on this one - dead simple though it may be, has crashed a lot of authors into the 'boring' wall. YMMV.

Books with series inflation - aaaaaaaaargh. Rule I made up for myself (and this is HARD for me too) each book may not be longer than the last. I don't know if it works, but I'm trying it.

And the most important question: why did they try to read them in first place?
I'm not going to try and answer that one. It's over to you to think about. But I think it has a lot to do with why our industry is in trouble, not - as it should, by all historical precedent - be making an absolute fortune out of the economic downturn. (Cheap entertainment is historically counter-cyclical, going up when other economic indicators go down - and the reasons why also should be something all authors, agents and publishers are thinking about.)

So: books you couldn't finish? TBARs? And what it was that got you to try them and drove you to abandon them?

Here You Shall Not Go

Since Dave and Kate and Chris have all been talking about characters and creating good characters, I thought I’d talk about one characteristic of characters that – perhaps because of the way I write – baffles even me.

Good characters, like good real people, have doors in their head that say “here you shall not go.” Kind of like real people – or at least sane real people.

Heinlein had some fun with those doors in Stranger, because of course, his character raised by Martians doesn’t have the same closed doors in his head that humans have. So, “You shall not eat your friends” is not a “naturally” closed door to him. Meanwhile he has other closed doors that humans normally don’t have. Like “don’t waste water.”

Call it the superego, if you wish to go all Freudian but real people and real characters have definite barriers. And despite a certain school of thought in the sixties and seventies, those arent’ doors that need to be broken down. Rather they’re the doors that make us admire the person or the character.

By this I don’t mean the “doors” that are tested. Characters might have personal issues that keep them from doing this or that, issues that are detrimental to the character’s development or which stop him/her obtaining the character’s heart’s desire. This is what we call “character development” in the story. But this is not the same as the closed door that shall never be opened, or not unless you want to risk “breaking” the character.

Take Anita Blake, in the first few Laurell Hamilton’s. Part of what made her interesting to me was that she didn’t sleep with... well, anyone. She felt the attraction, she was a sensual person, but she had closed that door. Once she opened it, though the series in a way exploded in popularity, the character was broken to me. It’s not that I’m prudish, and I could have found a character interesting who was promiscuous from the beginning. It’s that the character to me, as I read her, necessitated a measure of self discipline. And that vanished.

It would be sort of like my writing a sequel to Darkship Thieves in which Athena is whiney, needy and is terrified of lifting her hand to defend herself. Because one of Thena’s closed doors is the “You shall not be a burden to others” and that includes in self defense. It’s not that she doesn’t feel weak or vulnerable or tired. It’s that the idea of not defending herself, or waiting to be rescued can only occur to her to be dismissed.

It’s a fine balance because to an extent, of course, fiction is supposed to test the character’s limit. On the other hand, you can test it to destruction.

So, how can one do it? How to balance it? And note that I’m asking in earnest, because I have no idea. I can point to other people’s writing and say “Here, she lost it” or “here the character broke.” I think in movie terms we’d say that’s when the character jumped the shark. However, in my own writing, and while I’m working, it’s all clear as coal, and I’m not sure how to test and evaluate whether I broke the character or not. Does any one of you have an idea of how to “see” this?

To the PAIN

Blame this one on Doc Rob. He asked me what errors irritated me the most when I read a book. What did I wish the author had done differently.

Of course, what I wish writers would do differently depends on the writer. The one that fails to let me into the story at all is bad word usage. There are people whose sense of word drives me insane. Sometimes I know why – for instance, a sing-song cadence or words that are too convoluted – sometimes I have no idea.

However, past that, most of the problems I have are with the handling of character. Yes, even the plot problems. Because characters are always at the center of my plot.

This ties in somewhat with Dave’s post on Monday. People might not want my catharsis or my pain, but they do, in a way, provided I disguise it, change it and make it relevant. And for that I need a character.

Other writers do this differently and write different types of characters. They write strong characters, accomplished characters. It doesn’t bother me when they write their characters. No, what makes me throw the book against the wall is when they write MY type of character. And do it wrong.

So, what is a Sarah type character, you ask? What do Thena and Tom and Kyrie and Rafiel and Peter from Soul of Fire have in common?

When I’m casting about for a character to carry a story I look for one thing: pain. Pain and an impossible dilemma. Tom, kicked out of the house too early, and having learned all the wrong things AND incapable of controlling the dragon. Thena, not even raised to be human and faced not only with saving her life, but adapting to a whole other world, all the while falling in love with someone who is not... easy to love.

I go where the pain is greatest, the drive pitted most unavailingly against the obstacle, and I write there. And when the character achieves catharsis, hopefully so does the reader – if not something they can translate to their own lives, at least something they can “feel” vicariously.

Some psychologists believe humans grow when they come to a dead end. They can’t progress along the path they’ve been going and they must change. (Which is why people who get everything handed to them never grow up.) I know – having experienced it – this process can happen vicariously when you get so wrapped up in the character’s growth that you live it too, a little.

Now, I’m not saying it needs to be all angst. My books tend to be a little angsty. Maybe it’s who I am. But for instance, Georgette Heyer manages this wonderfully without much angst at all. Take Sylvester, where the shy girl has learned to cope with life by retreating into her imagination. When her imagination gets into trouble and hurts the man she’s come to love (because she wrote a book in which she tuckerized him, if you haven’t read it) she has to accept her responsibility and deal with the real life consequences of her escapism. There is pain and growth in that, even though it’s all done with a light and humorous touch.

On the other hand, there’s a book I threw against the wall so hard, it stuck there. Not going to name the writer. Let’s just say she’s a bestseller. It starts out with one of the MOST fascinating characters I’ve ever read. Someone I couldn’t come up with – or haven’t, though I’m thinking of stealing him! – in a million years. This character is... let’s say... the ghost of a bad, bad man who was responsible for the death of hundreds of people. The thing is, by the time you find this out, you’ve already become attached to the character who is, in this persona, a young man, before he killed anyone, and doesn’t know what he grew up to do.

He is tormented and suffering and doesn’t know why. And as the other main character, who is falling in love with him, finds out, she is repulsed by who he really is.

There is great tension here, a great potential for catharsis and growth. So, what does the writer do? She has the ghost take over the body of a recently dead young man, about the same age. The memories and personality merge and NOTHING is resolved. On top of that, the dead young man wasn’t introduced before, died by accident, and has nothing to resolve. And his memories are foremost. So basically, she bait-and switched the character with the problem for one without.

This is the sort of thing that makes me throw the book against the wall. I bet you the author thought she was doing something “unexpected”. Yes, she was. It’s normally unexpected to cheat the reader out of the promised catharsis and redemption. It’s also bad. It lets all the air out of tires of tension and need for resolution that you’ve been building up.

It takes a “third, easy” and never before glimpsed path between the crushing cliffs of drive and obstacle.

It makes me want to say, with Juliet, “Dost thou leave me thus, unsatisfied?”

So, what things make you leave a book unsatisfied? How do books miss the mark for you? Now you think about it do they do it by taking the easy way out, via either character-interruptus or deux-ex-author? By inference, in which way do books find the mark for you? And which ones fulfill promises you didn’t even know they were making?

PS - Oh, yeah, I forgot to announce this. John and I are changing days for reasons of convenience, so from now on you get me on Saturdays and John on Wednesdays. Only, this week you get two of me. Aren't you lucky?

Attractors and super-attractors

Just another manic Monday, and here I am juggling writing, proposals, real life, bills, doctors, family etc. So as usual my head is all over the place. But what I wanted to talk about was fishing (in our case for readers) and how to make your trailed lure look more attractive than the rest. It's useful for picking up girls (or males or probably furry green aliens if your tastes run that way)too.

You see it's all about attractors... and super-attractors. We've talked about fitting your writing into the 'attractor' mould often enough here. Vegetarian fish don't bite often on bits of steak - anymore than vegetarian editors from New York are likely to bite on the "Texas Ranch-style Barbeque book" or something that stinks of unappetising - like bad grammar or spelling, or yet another prologue or murdered village with one survivor. But, very much like fishing, you are tossing your attractive (right kind of) lure into a varied environment swimming with the rare editor-fish of different diets and tastes and then... hoping they take YOUR lure, not Ed's or Mary's or Joe's or Frankie's or any one of the 10% of well presented, reasonably attractive lures/books on offer (the other 90% suck and would never be touched anyway. You don't belong among 'em or you wouldn't be reading this).

Now, this is a problem well-known and researched among the angling fraternity, who have a lot more money collectively than wannabe writers. Ergo, they had some very good biologists trying to work out just how to make your lure stand out... and the answer is actually a very simple one. It's a lure that looks and behaves just like all the natural prey items... ONLY JUST A _LITTLE_ MORESO. There are features of the prey items which fish fixate on (editors of course never do this. Perish the thought. Neither do potential partners in a singles bar) and they'll bite even if the rest of the package is unattractive. So for instance, if the fish is eating mayflies, and picking them out by the 3 little wiggly bits on tail... 1)if you don't have 3 wiggly bits on the tail of your fly you can go home, 2) those little wiggly bits need to be just a little larger than they are in life - believably so - say 10% up - to get the fish to choose your fake mayfly and not ther 5000 real ones on offer. Too big and they won't be believed, and too like the rest and you're back to pure chance. Now, without going into the wiggly bits in the singles bar (I leave this to Kate's mind, mine might explode) when you think about it (not the wiggly bits!) that's what we have to do. And while there are editors that fixate on prose, or setting or description, or even plot... it's usually character that catches their interest. Which is why the character need to be well... real, but endowed with that extra 10% and... to throw a sabertooth among the ground-quail, these often are actually stereotypes in the plane of expectations... with extra in that dimension and often quite a lot that the poor editor didn't see coming along because he/she fixated on the super-attractor - this makes the book interesting and different AND gets the reader. From Miles to Honor - to give examples.

So: how do you 'build' a super-attractor? Give them features that readers feel at ease with, can identify with... and bit more? Dumpster diving furniture restorers for example.
Or am I missing this entirely?
What do you think?

One Hand Washes The Other

So you have this character and you’re half in love with him. In fact, if you’re like me, the characters come to you first and you see them as whole people and you love them as friends.

You want to share your character with the world! You love him or her so everyone will also, right?

Right... except... except the world can’t see your character the way you do. That intimate feel you have for what makes them laugh and those cute dimples and all? Not there for anyone else.

The character is in your head, not theirs. To readers he’s a stranger. Many things that are cute, or sweet or funny from a friend are either incomprehensible or creepy from a stranger.

So, how do you introduce Mr. Or Ms. Fantastic?

You could, of course, just start the book with “this is my character, look how wonderful he is.” You could go on that way about what he eats for breakfast; the smell of his shampoo, how flowers and small children turn their faces to follow his progress; how entire cities come out and lie down in his path lest he hurt his foot on a stone.

Of course you could. You could also take up recreational fly fishing or perhaps basket weaving and leave the writing alone. Because trust me, that approach above? Every slush pile has hundreds and hundreds of those.

The sad thing is when you do that you sound exactly like a middle school kid with his or her first crush. And let’s face it, no one but your bestest friend, who had a crush on the same person, wanted to hear another word about it.

So... how do you bring your wonderful character to the reader in all his splendor? Plot, my dear, plot. Plot is what reveals your character. It’s more like bringing your middle school crush home and let him show your parents how smart he is and what good manners he has. If you can’t do that, then it doesn’t matter how wonderful you tell them he is. And PLEASE make sure you don’t do that – make sure your character isn’t acting like a complete idiot while you tell us (cunningly using the other characters, maybe) how wonderful he is. Show us he’s wonderful. Make him be wonderful.

Say your character is very generous. Start with him giving half of his cloak to a beggar. But please, for the love of heaven, don’t show us how gentle he is next and have him pet a puppy. Instead, make the whole character work to move the plot. Is your character generous? What is the typical defect of generous people? Well... they don’t keep enough to survive? They get taken in by confidence men? Use that. Have your character rolled. Have it move the plot.

To me plot without character and character without plot is the sound of one hand clapping. Maybe very zen but not very entertaining.

So... give me examples of where this works or doesn’t. Or give me examples of a book that’s only one or another and yet works.

The winner of last week’s contest for a fabulous t-shirt with the cover of Darkship Thieves is Lady Dawn! Please email me with your address

Opposites Attract?

With all the talk about character, I have been wondering why some of the characters I have loved have appealed to me so much. I’m a sucker for the underdog, it hooks me in every time and often drives my own fiction, but lets put that aside for the moment.

It's no secret I’m a die-hard David Gemmell fan. I think the man was a genius. OK, so he wrote pretty much the same thing every time, but he did it extremely well. His action was great, and good action is always driven by character. He was a writer who knew how to draw a character and how to get out of the reader’s way. His prose is deceptively simple and immediate.

The classic David Gemmell hero is tough and uncompromising. He would think nothing of stepping into the fray and knocking heads if it was the right thing to do and would not give a moment’s thought to the consequences or the bruises and blood – or deaths – that might result. An almost total lack of introspection, except of course for being tortured by guilt over something in their past, which drives them to merciless self-sacrifice.

Reflecting about that sort of character, I would have to admit he (or she – Sigorni in the Hawk Queen books – Gemmell didn’t discriminate) are pretty much poles apart from me. Perhaps we might share a similar sense of right and wrong, but where I would sit wondering whether I should say something (perhaps fearing the offender would say something that hurt my feelings, me being such a tender soul) the Gemmell hero has already batted someone around the head and moved on. Would I love to be able to act like that and not be tortured by hours of introspective replay? I sure would.

One other character that fascinates me is Dexter from the TV series. Again, here is someone who has a total lack of worry about the consequences; except perhaps only as they might impact on his eventual freedom and lifestyle, but otherwise he feels no remorse or hesitation over how his actions will affect others. If not for his code, he would be an indiscriminate killer. There seems to be no barriers to action in Dexter’s world. I think that is another thing I feel so attracted to. At various times I might feel passionately driven to certain things – at others I will struggle against internal demons or even conflicting passions to get into forward motion. None of this for Dexter. No amount of action or work seems a barrier to him – there are no emotional blocks in the way. There must have been a thousand times I wished I could have waved a magic wand and turned myself into some sort of robot that just got the job done – or at least pop some sort of pill that switched off my emotion. I think this underlies my attraction to characters like Spock.

So do opposites attract? Is it wish fulfillment that drives our connection to characters? Wanting to live their lives? Or is this connection different for everyone?

The Elusive Guidebook

There is a rulebook, its just covered in elbow-grease and slips out of my fingers as soon as I get a grip on it. Every now an then I manage to flip it open at a random page and get a glimpse of something, then its flopping onto the floor again. There are a few writers who have read pages and pages of that thing – even whole sections – but they aren’t telling (You Know Who You Are!!!!).

Perhaps it was the first time I glimpsed that self-same rulebook on the bookshelf – and managed to tease it down like an Indian Snake Charmer – that I got my first character ‘eureka!’ moment.

‘That’s it!’ I thought. Character sympathy! That’s the key to hooking a reader.

I did get excited, because you only get that one chance to draw someone into your story, be it a casual reader — or potential editor. Once you get a reader interested in your character, they might forgive you for bumps in the other story elements e.g. plots, world building, PoV, multiple characters, action scenes etc.

So I thought I had it. Build the sympathy!

The trick is – and what I learned the hard way – was that what one reader responds to in a character is often vastly different to another – in fact often diametrically opposed. One reader’s cool detached hero is another’s arrogant, insufferable narcissist.

I used to come home from critique groups often puzzled by contradictory comments that made little sense until the penny finally dropped. If people don’t like your characters, they just will NOT gel with your story. Once you reach that stage the critter will start (often unconsciously) working overtime to find all the things ‘wrong’ with your piece, when the real problem is that it simply has no resonance for them. They will talk vehemently about the punctuation on p3, or how they got mixed up in the dialogue, the logic error in par 5, or yada yada, yada…

Even successful writers don’t seem to have real control over reader’s reactions.

One of David Gemmell readers all time favorite characters is Waylander. David Gemmell himself set out to make this guy a real piece of work – a nasty customer that no one should like; a ruthless assassin that kills without a thought. The surprise was that people loved Waylander, and he went on to be one of Gemmell’s most successful characters, extending over three books and carrying the story well in each one. So why did people respond to Waylander? Was there something unconsciously carried through from Gemmell about that character’s destiny that altered his portrayal? Or do people just love the bad guy – the old Sympathy for the Devil chestnut?

Are the ways of building sympathy for a character as wildly different as the characters people enjoy?

What really draws you into a character? They way they love someone else or show they care? Being the underdog? Strength? Courage? Determination? Their vulnerability? Their sheer undead coolness?

Please let me know – while I keep trying to get a grip on that darn slippery rulebook.