I’m one of those people that read for the character. Give me someone I can cheer for or fall in love with and I’ll follow their journey to the end. However there is one trait that will make me throw the book across the room and use it for skeet. Passive POV characters. By that I mean characters that aren’t proactive. They don’t act, they react.

The literati call them anti-heroes, some people call them anti-protagonists, I’ve even heard them called Bella Swan. But a passive character by any other name would become as skeet, or something like that. There are personal reasons for my dislike that I won’t go into but the simple explanation is that I prefer characters that actively pursue their goal(s).

I realize that there are quite a few classics and bestsellers that contain anti-heroes and were well recieved. Some even became national bestsellers. That’s okay. I have no intention of being like the film critics that panned Star Wars. Like I said, it’s a personal dislike. As much as I hate to admit it, there are ways to include passive POVs and make it work to your advantage or at the very least keep readers like me engaged in the story.

1) This is more of an advantage than a tip but I feel that it’s important enough to list first. Since most novels center around an active character, simply writing from a passive POV will make your work stand out from the pack. No one will be able to accuse you of picking low hanging fruit. Though, be forewarned that standing out doesn’t always give you an advantage. If the plot is weak or the setting lackluster or the pacing too slow, the reader may still find the story skeet worthy.

2) Make the setting and/or plot so interesting that the reader doesn’t notice or care that the viewpoint character is passive. I know it’s a bit of a cheat but it really does work. If you haven’t read Pierce Brown’s Red Rising, go read it. It’s really well written and perhaps the best modern example of a well written passive main character. It’s definitely a work worth studying. I couldn’t finish the book because of passivity but the fascinating setting and gripping conflict saved it from being thrown across the room. I know, it sounds weird recommending a book that I never finished. Passive POVs annoy me that much. The setting and conflict kept me reading much longer than I would have otherwise so it does work.

3) A turning point. If you bring your passive character to a point where they have no choice but to become proactive, that can give readers a reason to reconsider pitching. However, the timing on this is very tricky because every reader is going to have a different throwing point. I would advise placing it earlier rather than later, but again, that’s subjective.

4) Kill them! Yes, I’m a little blood thirsty but this really can work. For example, if their passive nature is the cause of their death it can be the inciting incident that a more proactive POV character needs to step up and change the world. It also gives readers like me a wonderful feeling of satisfaction.

5) Make their passive nature an act or ploy in order to manipulate the other characters. The Scarlet Pimpernel books by Baroness Orczy are great examples of this. In public, Percy was a useless fop that didn’t give one whit about politics, social injustice, or anything else that didn’t come from a good tailor. In private, he was the mastermind behind the rescue of hundreds of innocent aristocrats during the French Revolution. The ploy of passivity kept him from falling under suspicion and allowed him to gain valuable intelligence. Plus, because the reader knows it’s an act, it makes the passive behavior more tolerable.

6) Pass the torch. In some ways this is a variation of rule 4. But if you loathe to kill your darlings you can have them retreat to the shadows in cowardice and charge a more active character to take up the cause.

If you know of other ways to make this work or have a reading suggestion where any or all of these techniques were used well, feel free to post them in the comments.

Working the Humor Scale

January 16, 2015

Frank Morin

Character Craft & Skills Frank Morin Writing Tools 2 Comments

One aspect of character that can be hard to pin down is: How funny should they be?

Most of us aren’t comedy writers. We write fantasy or science fiction or horror or (input genre), but that doesn’t mean humor doesn’t have a place in our stories.

People draw upon their sense of humor in real life, even in dire circumstances. It helps relieve tension and to cope. We don’t need to become the next Terry Pratchett, but sometimes a little humor is the best way to deal with the difficult situations we’re bound to drop our characters into.

Everyone loves a sense of humor. Does our character have one?

Humor has a scale, just like all the other attributes we’re defining for our characters, just as important as their fighting skills, how much they love their mother, and whether they respond to small animals by wanting to pet them or to eat them. We just don’t think about it that way as often.

So I’ve designed a Humor Scale to demonstrate the types of humor we can assign to our characters.

Slapstick (10) – Pure comedy. Take some ibuprofen because your stomach’s going to hurt from laughing so hard.
Comic Relief (8) – Usually not your main protagonist. These are the side-kicks that we love to laugh at.
Deadpan/dry (7) – They say funny things, but in a serious way.
Comedy Villains (7) – They’re bad guys, but they make us laugh instead of scaring us.
Wisecrack (6) – Always have a comeback, a great one-liner, no matter how dire the situation.
Sassy (5) – Cheeky, and full of spirit. Often get into trouble as a result.
Snark (4) – Sarcastic, snide.
Gallows humor (3) – The more dangerous one’s job, the more refined their gallows humor. Think of the group of crucified criminals in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian singing, “Always look on the bright side of life.”
No humor (0) – These are often your serious villains who burned all humor out of their system.
Comedic villain (0) – They’re the bad guy, but they think evil is funny. Their sick humor either demonstrates a lack of understanding of the gravity of what they’re doing, or proves they’re insane.

Here’s the Humor Scale in graph form, with examples to illustrate each category.

We can apply the various categories in all kinds of situations. Some examples include:

Jokes. These can be woven in just about anywhere.
Situational humor. The entire scene is inherently funny (your super-buff warrior hero is stuck in a cupcake bake-off against the evil overlord)
Dialogue. Great place for wisecracks, snark, sass, and gallows humor.
A funny outlook on life. Either irreverent, bizarre, or just a little bit off. Any of these can produce humorous situations and dialogue. Something funny, and yet totally in character.
And of course, slapstick lies in a realm all its own. This is pure comedy. Some characters just have to fall down and break things wherever they go.

In all of these instances, there are commonalities. Surprise is the secret to humor, and usually there’s some kind of set-up, then the punch-line that adds the surprise, the twist, generating the laugh.

Humor often pushes things to the extreme. Think the intro to Captain Jack Sparrow. Standing atop the mast of his ship is a great epic image. Then comes the comedic twist when we learn it’s really a small boat and he’s standing atop the mast because the ship is sinking out from under him.

So let’s talk specific application.

When I first started writing, I included only a little humor in my stories. Even the first drafts of my YA fantasy story, Set in Stone, remained too serious. With some self reflection and encouragement from family, I decided the story needed humor to work. So I rewrote 80% of the novel, making dramatic changes to the plot structure and how I approached it. I ratcheted up the humor while still maintaining an epic feel to the story. It was my first foray into humor-laden fantasy, and response from beta readers is overwhelmingly positive. The novel will be released this spring.

With my urban fantasy novels, I toned down the humor, but I’ve been experimenting with sliding characters along the humor scale, depending on which effect I’m looking for.

It’s not as hard as I first feared. Humor isn’t the story. It’s just another layer, and you can shift characters along the humor scale pretty easily once you determine what effect you’re looking for.

In a recent editing pass over an epic fantasy novel, I decided to shift the protagonist a couple of notches up the scale. So I mixed in a little snark and dry humor, which helped him come across as more experienced, more resilient, and less emotional. The story as a whole is unchanged, but his outlook on life, and his responses to some of the crazy events he’s experiencing works so much better.

In essence, I shifted him away from the Luke Skywalker end of the scale and more toward Han Solo. Luke is young, idealistic, and inexperienced while Han is tough, world-wise, and irreverent. They’re both heroes, but they approach life and trials differently. I applied a little of Han’s unflappable attitude and great one-liners.

In The Empire Strikes Back, after losing his hand and learning the evil overlord of the universe was his father, Luke’s response always seemed more whiny than heroic:

“Nooooooo! I’ll never rule the universe with you.”

My character had reacted more like that. Now he could now respond more like Han Solo who, after being tortured, just said, “I feel terrible.”

Or who snapped, “Never tell me the odds,” when flying into an asteroid belt.

Or, when Leia confessed she loved him just prior to his getting frozen in carbonite, he glibly replied, “I know.”

Another example of the effect of the Humor Scale decision is comparing Battlestar Galactica to Firefly. Both have spaceships, fighting, life-and-death situations but, where Firefly is enhanced by the humor woven into it – making it a cowboys in space adventure – Battlestar Galactica was left very straight-laced – a little too much so in my opinion.

So play with this layer. After writing your story and making sure all the other elements are in place, check where each character falls on the Humor Scale, and where that takes your story as a whole. Then decide if that’s where you want it. Perhaps poll some early readers and discuss if the story would benefit from either more or less humor.

Tweak accordingly, and have fun with it.

* * * *

Here are a few humor-related links you might be interested in:

Scott Adam’s Dilbert blog, where he talks about writing humor.

The Writer’s Dig by Brian Klems – Another good blog post, with links to other articles.

Tabloid Reporter to the Stars – This is a short story recommended to me as an example of one that successfully added humor. I haven’t read it yet, but plan to.

The Mr. Potato Head Analogy

January 15, 2015

fictorians

Character Craft & Skills Guest Posts Writing Tools 1 Comment

A guest post by Lisa Mangum.

Strong characters are memorable characters, and memorable characters can make or break a story.

So how do we build strong, memorable characters? By taking our lead from Mr. Potato Head, of course! After all, the key to three-dimensional characters is to have three-dimensional characteristics.

When I start building a new character, I like to think about every facet from head to toe. And Mr. Potato Head makes it easy to remember the key elements of a strong character, and which questions to ask (and answer) during character development.

I begin with the eyes. This goes beyond choosing the color or shape of your character’s eyes. When you think of your character’s eyes think about what it is they see. How does he perceive the world around him? Does he look at his environment as something to conquer, or something to survive? When he looks around, does he see an urban setting—or something more rural?

Thinking about these kinds of questions helps you know where your character is coming from before you move him into a different environment. Contrasting the past with the present can create interesting insights for future change.

But don’t just look outside your character. Look inward too. How much introspection does your character require? Are they confident in who they are? Why? Why not? It’s important for you, as the author, to know where and how they fit into the world around them because it allows you to come up with personalized conflicts for your characters.

When I think about Mr. Potato Head’s large, pink ears I try to imagine what it is he hears, and the same goes for my character. If my character hears compliments more than complaints, he’s going to believe certain things about himself and behave in a certain way. Likewise, if all he hears is negative comments from those around him—or from himself—then he will believe negative things about himself.

Is my character the kind of person who listens to gossips? What kind of music does he like? Does he need things repeated, or does he understand ideas the first time he hears them?

And after listening, what does he say? Mr. Potato Head has so many mouths to choose from: smiling, frowning, with teeth, or sticking out his tongue. Mouths can be quite expressive, and not just for the literal method of expression.

Obviously, your character’s mouth is used to deliver the story’s dialogue—a key element to revealing plot and character—but when examining your character’s dialogue remember to go deeper than just what he says. Figure out why he says what he does. Does your character use slang or pet phrases? Is he a liar? Does he prefer silence to speaking?

Remember: Words can be used to hurt as well as heal. For some characters, they can be weapons.

Then comes one of the most important questions to ask a new character: What is his goal? His heart’s desire? To help me remember this question, I think of Mr. Potato Head’s bendable arms, wide open and reaching for his dreams.

We all have something we want, and your character should be equally as passionate about his dreams. If you spend some time evaluating and identifying your character’s “nice to haves” and “have to haves,” you will know how to withhold the fulfillment of those dreams and desires, and therefore you can force your character into action, into growth.

A character in action is a character with strong motivation. To hone in on your character’s motivation, ask four questions:

What does he want?
How is he going to get it?
What is going to stand in his way?
How will he overcome that obstacle?

Mr. Potato Head doesn’t really have legs, but he does have large, solid feet. When considering your character, consider his feet. Where does he stand? What does he believe? What will he fight for? What will he die for?

It’s important for characters to have strongly held values and beliefs. Characters with well-defined values—even if you as the author don’t agree with them—make for compelling, interesting, and memorable characters.

Characters with conviction are characters who can carry a plot—and who can change things.

Eyes, ears, mouth, arms, feet: five easy characteristics to remember that can help you build a better character.

Guest Writer Bio:

Lisa Mangum attended the University of Utah, graduating with honors with a degree in English. A lifetime lover of books, she has worked in the publishing industry since 1997, editing works by several New York Times bestselling authors as well as debut novelists. She was recently named Managing Editor of Shadow Mountain Publishing.

Besides books, Lisa loves movies, sunsets, spending time with her family, and trips to Disneyland. She lives in Utah with her husband, Tracy. She is the author of four award-winning YA novels (The Hourglass Door trilogy and After Hello), a short story (“Sold Out”), and novella (“&”). She also edited One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology.

You can find her @LisaMangum or Facebook.com/lisamangum.

Setting as Character: How to Give it Voice

January 14, 2015

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Character Craft & Skills Setting and Milieu World-building Writing Tools No Comments

It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch out for like when the kids are suddenly quiet and that tells you there’s trouble’s afoot. It’s the same in a story. When setting is too quiet, your story is in trouble. The problem with setting as character is that setting has no real voice, at least it doesn’t participate in dialogue directly – or does it?

Setting, we are told, must do more than be a background for characters to engage in. It should determine HOW they engage, WHY they engage and REVEAL how characters see their world, themselves and others. Setting is the voiceless character who niggles, needles, exaggerates, creates, destroys, challenges, extracts and dampens. How do you write a voiceless character?

For great ideas and the basics on creating setting and world building, you can peruse our archives. But to understand how to make setting as real and alive as your other characters, here are some things to be aware of:

6) Setting is personal. To understand what is important to POV character ask him how he’d react and feel if his world was suddenly changed or destroyed. What would he miss? What would he fight for? When a person loses their home whether it’s because of weather, war, politics or even choice, there is loss and grieving. That makes setting personal. Does setting herald change or present a conflict? Is there a storm? A volcano about to erupt, a nuclear device about to explode? An impending war? Political change? A lost love? A demand to convert?

2) Setting is the voiceless, albeit dynamic, character with whom the POV interacts and relates to varying degrees. This interaction reveals both the world and the character just as any good dialogue reveals something about its participants. How will the man in a suit react if he finds himself: in the midst of a medieval battle against dragons? Hitchhiking with a suitcase in hand? With an extremely belligerent client threatening a much needed sale? Performing on stage?

Let’s take the suit analogy one step further: Setting is more than just the background fabric of your character’s experience, it is the tailored cloth, designed, sewn and fitted just for him. In the pockets of that tailoring, he carries with him the tools he needs to be his larger than life self or not – sometimes it’s the pockets which are stitched shut or the empty ones that are the most revealing.

3) The POV can only see what’s import to him so we must be able to see and understand his world through his eyes. His experiences and his reactions form his dialogue with setting. Is a hot sunny day a reason to hide indoors, play on the beach, curse the office job, time for a cold beer in the pub, a perfect day to move the troops? Is a fog depressing or an opportunity for mischief? Thus the reader learns the most about the character and his setting when the descriptions are filtered through his point of view.

4) Setting reveals what is unique an important for the POV thus allowing his voice to come through. Not every character experiences (physically or emotionally), understands or reacts to the same environment in the same way.

5) It’s more than just geography – it’s the sociology, economy, level of technology, religion, politics, societal and personal values of the POV and those he interacts with. These are areas of potential conflict. Just as importantly, setting tells us what we need to know about the POV. What does the world/setting expect from him? Saint or serf? Hero or villain? It can also include sensory inputs: sight, smell, sound, touch, taste, heat, cold, or the passage of time. Remember the suit? In some societies, clothing symbolizes status and what the POV and others wear is important.

6) Setting is active, has impact and can change throughout the story. Is it friend or foe? Is it a place to hide (friend), a fight on a cliff (foe), dystopia (foe), utopia (friend), does it impede (foe) or help (friend) the POV’s plans? How does it help or hinder a POV from achieving his story goal? If it’s too dull, blow it out of proportion to make it larger than life just like you do to achieve maximum impact with plot or character. A POV can always change the setting, or strive to. Change may be societal, political, within a community, family or locales.

Like other characters, setting can based on an archetype. Archetypes typically offer challenges, gifts and opportunities for POVs. Does the the setting in your story have archetypal traits and if so, what can you do to make it a stronger character?

The Sorcerer: a place of magic which has interesting consequences
The Magician: where we can be made to believe anything but is it real? Is the situation sustainable? What happens when the luck wears off? Is this a place of transformation with the gift of power?
The Green Man: a life force that impels growth, vitality but growth has a dark side of death and decay.
The Mentor: possesses wisdom, is a teacher and sometimes a healer. Can serve as a motivator, conscience and gives the hero a gift once he’s earned it.
The Herald: a challenge for change the herald can be a force, a thing, an event (tornado). The herald disturbs, unbalances.
The Threshold Guardian: tests the hero by providing obstacles; not always defeated but the hero learns from the experience.
The Shape Shifter: friend or foe, will the shape shifter help or hinder/betray? Crafty and charismatic, the shape shifter confuses and tests the hero.

So maybe setting isn’t such a quiet character after all. Voiceless in some ways, but it speaks its own extremely complex language. Archetype, friend or foe, setting is a dynamic environment that is as alive as any other character because it illuminates, challenges, and demands calls the POV to action.