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

Trapped in a Modern Mind

We're all writers, trying to create interesting worlds and problems for our characters to strive against.

Recently I watched season one and season two of Rome. I must admit that I had a rather limited idea of Rome, based on interminable Hollywood movies. (As a child I LOVED the Harryhausen's Jason and the Golden Fleece. Greek rather than Roman, but same area and similar style of clothes. For years I had a thing about men in short togas!).

What I found really interesting about The Rome series was the way it portrayed people's attitudes. The role of slaves was fascinating. They could be unlucky and die early in the salt mines, or they could end up serving a aristocratic family, with education, good food and the chance to buy their own freedom. They could identify with the family so strongly they felt part of it.

Watching Rome made me realise how trapped I was in a modern mindset. Christian attitudes are deeply engrained in our society. These ancient Roman people lived short lives. They bargained with different gods depending on what they needed. There was no 'turning the other cheek'. After watching this series I felt like my mind had had a grease and oil change. It was very invigorating.

I love it when I come across a really inventive, well realised world in a fantasy series. When I discovered Tolkien's LOTR at 17 I was blown away by the back story and sense of history. Now, when I read it to my children I skip the travellogue and read the exciting bits.

What series have you read, that impressed you with its world building?

The Chief of Leafy Island

The trickster. The son of of Laufey. The clever character who uses his head and the materials in plain view to solve the insoluble and to do the unthinkable - which is obvious when he does it. My favorite characters to write... maybe because it's just a little close to my own nature. The trickster is not intrinsically a bad character. Usually the inverse, but a great trouble to the serious characters. Often at least amoral, poking fun at the po-faced and the rule-book. Paying the price for it too. The sort of friend you really need when things are impossible, and maybe the sort of friend you'd want to avoid when things aren't dire, because he'll make them that way. Just for fun.
A piece of every damn near mythology in the world. Glooskap. Loki. Hanuman (my personal patron :-)) Often slipping into disrepute as boss-gods grow sententious. Often the friend of the small and the weak. Surprise!
A mainstay of fiction too.
The Saint. Silk. and a few of mine... Benito. Bes. (ok, i'm up for more - books and authors with Loki.)
How do we make him work?
And why Leafy island?

A Proper Recipe for a Story?

One of the best things about the internet is how you can find anything, absolutely anything, on it if you look hard enough. Sometimes, you find it even if you aren't looking for it. That's what happened today as I was trolling the blogs in search of a link or two that might connect back to our discussion about characterization and plot.

There's not a student who makes it through the American educational system without reading Mark Twain or James Fenimore Cooper or both. My thanks to The Happiness Project (and to Nathan Bransford for the initial link) for reminding me of what Twain had to say about "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses". I'll leave it to you to read the essay and will borrow from Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project her synopsis of what Twain had to say about the 19 rules of fiction:

Mark Twain divides his rules into large rules and little rules—all violated by James Fenimore Cooper:

Large rules:
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

Little rules:
7. An author should say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

8. Use the right word, not its second cousin.

9. Eschew surplusage.

10. Not omit necessary details.

My favorites, when it comes to characterization and plot, are #2 and #4. Very little irks me more about a book than to have a scene, or set of scenes, that has nothing to do with the actual plot. They've been put there to simply pad the word count and impress the reader with the author's grasp of the English language. Sorry, but it if it isn't necessary to the story, leave it out. The same goes with characters. If they don't have a purpose in the story, if they don't advance the plot, get rid of them. Sure, you'll have some window dressing characters. Those who simply act as part of the set to help establish atmosphere, etc. But even that makes them important to the story. When an author throws in that character they really love, the drunk that reminds them of Uncle Billy or the little girl who reminds them of Susie next door when they were kids, but doesn't tie them to the story, I feel cheated, especially if I begin to care about that character only to learn later they were nothing but a throw-away.

I also have a fondness for those rules Twain classifies as the "little rules". They are rules that, as a reader, I want the author to follow and rules that, as a writer, I do my best to follow. Say what you mean. Use the right word. Don't pad your word count with things not necessary to the plot. And my all-time-favorite: Don't omit necessary details.

These rules might be over 100 years old, but they apply now, just as they did then. So, of these rules -- or any of the others listed in the original essay -- what is your favorite? Which one do you think Twain is wrong about? The floor is now yours.

I leave you with one last thought, courtesy of Paperback Writer, and Anthony Bourdain: "Given a choice between being trapped on a desert island with a group of writers or a family of howler monkeys, I think I'd pick the monkeys. At least I could eat them." -- Anthony Bourdain, The Nasty Bits

The Wisdom of Terry Wogan

"Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a bananna."

Discuss:

Hidden Knowledge

Kylie Q and I have been having an offsite discussion that I think raises some interesting issues. So I intend to turn this column over to Kylie:

"When does the bad guy’s identity need to be revealed? And does this depend on who else knows his identity?

My current manuscript has a bad guy supporting character. He’s a nasty, evil piece of work. Or at least, he seems to be. If you were to know him properly – to understand his motivations – you’d realise that although he’s doing some nasty, evil stuff, he’s doing it for reasons that are, to him at least, very important and worthy. Which brings me to my question – when should I reveal his identity? At the moment, I’ve introduced him as two characters. We get to know him in his public aspect, where we know him by name and learn about what is important to him. He has also come in anonymously in other chapters. This is where he’s doing his bad guy stuff. I didn’t intend it to be like this – with him appearing to be two characters – but it seems that this is what he wanted. I’ve tried to lead the reader to a gradual understanding of the two characters being the one man and hope that by knowing him in both aspects, they will be a little more sympathetic to him. That doesn’t mean he’s not still a bad guy – I just want the reader to understand why he is what he is.

I’ve recently had a partial manuscript appraisal done and it was suggested to me that if my POV character knows the bad guy’s identity, then the reader must also. So what do you think? Can I have an anonymous supporting character, even if other characters obviously know who he is?"

Kylie Q

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If I may start the ball rolling. As a matter of principle, in my opinion, the answer to your question is 'yes'. The reader does not need to know everything that is in the POV character's mind. Many classic English mystery stories and American detective tales depend on hidden knowledge. It is a difficult problem for the author to navigate. The concealed information should be hinted at and foreshadowed so that the reader does not feel cheated by the revelations in the climax, as if the author had employed a deus ex machina.

Actually, I have just submitted a story to Black Library where the single POV character is not what he appears to the rest of the characters - a sort of reverse of Kylie's problem but presenting similar issues. The editor hates it, incidentally!

John

PS, the photo is Edward Bear with my wife. He is the third person sharing our marriage bed.

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?