Tag Archives: Tools

We’re talking a lot about character this month, as well we should. Great characters are critical components for great stories. We need to understand our characters, their relationships, and then we need to reveal the truth about our characters with a deft hand, weaving in back story and inner demons.

It can prove a daunting process, and sometimes it’s hard to know how to approach working with our characters to maximize their effectiveness. At times, it’s like looking at a hidden 3d image, like the one at the top of this article. Can you see the hidden image? It takes effort and practice to train your eye to see what’s right there.

Same with building great characters.

There are lots of opinions and articles and books on the subject, including this month’s Fictorians posts. One resource I highly recommend is Orson Scott Card’s book Characters & Viewpoint.

Another, which I found extremely helpful, is Larry Brooks’ Three Dimensions of Character. This is available as a standalone ebook, but is also incorporated in Larry’s best-selling book Story Engineering.

The brilliance of this approach is that it explains complex character building in a direct, understandable way that makes it accessible to every writer. Larry provides a toolbox to assist authors in crafting great characters, and knowing what is required to do so. He teaches, in essence, how to see the hidden image by removing some of the vague, mysterious elements from the process, which I found refreshing and extremely helpful.

I won’t explain the entire system. This short article won’t do it justice, but I will review the core concepts to illustrate the power of it.

Characters have three distinct dimensions that authors need to understand and define, and which they can then apply for greatest effect.

Dimension 1: Personality. What a character looks like, their quirks, how they present themselves to the world. This is all surface material, without any assigned meaning. For minor characters, this may be all we ever see, and it’s left to the reader to assign any deeper meaning, if they choose. For important characters, we cannot stop here without getting the dreaded “your characters are flat” reviews.

Dimension 2: Back story and inner demons. This is where things get interesting. This is the why of a character’s choices. This is where meaning is assigned, where they face their inner struggles, hide their deepest fears. It’s the world view that motivates their actions, and it may or may not coincide with the face they choose to show the world.

Dimension 2 is where characters gain depth, it’s where the reader gains a glimpse into the why, and gives us a chance to build empathy with the character, which is absolutely crucial for our story success.

However, we’re not finished with Dimension 2. Dimensions 1 and 2 are still what the character wants us to see, to understand.

Dimension 3 is where we get to the true heart of a character, their moral substance, or lack thereof.

Dimension 3 is what a character does in critical moments, moments of extreme stakes, moments that count. This is where everything is stripped away and their true, inner core is revealed.

It may surprise us. It may surprise them. This is where a character really becomes a hero, or a villain. It’s where they shine, or where they run away screaming. This is where inner demons are excised, when a character arc is complete. Only then is the hero ready to overcome the external antagonistic forces.

This is powerful stuff! Too often advice about character lacks this level of clarity. Larry goes on to expand upon this in his books, and I highly recommend you study his system, because it empowers authors to elevate character development to a much higher level.

To illustrate briefly: Assume we have a character, a middle-aged school teacher who works with first graders. Never married, but beloved by her children. All first dimension stuff. Then, let’s give the readers a glimpse into her past. Maybe she went into teaching because a younger sibling died and she always felt guilty for not protecting that child, and has dedicated her life to teaching to help excise that guilt. Second dimension back-story and inner demon. She’s an easy character to empathize with.

Then let’s set the school on fire. Children are in danger. What will she do?

Well, that’s the question, and the moment that will make the story. Will she rush into a burning room to save children, perhaps by making the ultimate sacrifice, and therefore justify her life’s work? Or will she break down and ignore everyone around her, perhaps letting children suffer because she’s unable to break out of the prison of her memories? Or does she do something totally different? It’s not until that moment of crisis that her true character is revealed.

In my next post, I’ll explore examples of great complex characters, and lessons we can learn from them.

Building Character ““ Tools for Genuine Interaction and Staying on Track

February 8, 2013

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Character Conflict Craft & Skills The Writing Process Writing Tools 3 Comments

So, you’ve done the deep psychological analysis, built the world, have a broad outline, now what? How do you place your character into the story and make it believable? How do you keep the protagonist’s story on track? How do you keep character interactions interesting, genuine and moving the story along?

In complex novels, I use charts to help me along, to keep information organized and to consider the deeper questions of values and motivation for each significant character. In every instance, I refer to the major points from the story arc because that’s when those critical moments of change, realization, action and reaction happen. This system keeps me from straying from core values during interactions. What happens in those moments when characters surprise me and go in a totally different direction for reasons of their own? As long as the character is true to their core (usually is), I embrace the change and make adjustments accordingly.

Relationship Arc Chart- Protagonist and a Key Character

	Disasters (faced by the protagonist)	Protagonist (reaction to the disaster)	Pam (reaction to the protagonist)
Act 1	Attackers at warehouse	Is dumbfounded by the attack and then decides he must figure out who did it. Is afraid because goods were damaged, he didn’t finish his work and is late to see his father	Likes him a lot but doesn’t always trust her feelings for him – is hot and cold toward him- her father warns her away. Not sure if he’s a victim or incompetent.
	Overhears conspirators re father and power & sees someone run away	Suspicious of everyone except his friend and Pam. Urgency to do something before it’s too late.	Wonders if he’s making things up – see this in her body language and cautious language
	Discovers father is dead	Is devastated, angry and feels he failed his father. Resolves to solve murder.	Has deep compassion for him but is afraid of his anger and feels helpless to help him.

It’s also important to be aware of the impact of a significant event on all major characters. For example, the death of a central figure has a huge impact on the protagonist and other characters. We really see this, and expect it, in mystery writing yet reactions need to be thought out just as clearly in any genre. How does each person feel about the death? What opportunities or misfortunes do they see as a result? How every character reacts to the death and to those around them must be consistent with personal motives and values.

Relationship Arc Chart- Reaction to a Major Event

Person	Rxn to Felix’s death	Rxn to Joey (protagonist)
Sally (wife)	There is the customary wailing etc but with an unusual sparkle in her eye. After, she appears to be even more crazy and delusional as she insists he isn’t really dead	She wants him to remain loyal to his father – to obey his father as if he’s still alive rather than becoming his own person
Shosha(high priestess)	Relieved. Now Felix won’t be a threat to the people or to her plans. Knows she must appear to be saddened by the death.	Sees Felix’s death as an opportunity to bend Joey to her will. Believes he is the key to restoring balance and making the island safe but he must follow her.
Talar(head of a guild)	Relieved and upset. Felix was a master at his craft and did before his son learned all the skills. He was crucial to island trade. Never liked or trusted him. Has a lifelong grudge about something.	Unsure if Joey can do his father’s job yet he is the last master of his trade. Believes the son is/will be like his father (unstable, and self-serving) and wants to protect his daughter from him.

There are two seldom spoken about things writers need to be aware of to keep interactions genuine. I don’t chart these but I do short write ups on each to make sure I understand them from my characters’ points of view.

Male and Female Perspectives

Yes, males and females see and express things slightly differently. And no, it’s not all stereotypical black and white behaviour either so please don’t take my comments as such. However, it’s folly not to consider the language, approach to situations and socialization of the sexes when writing characters or in understanding target market appeal. That’s why there are so many books on relationships (the Mars and Venus stuff) because it is important. It’s not about equality issues or discrimination. It’s simply that as women and men we are biologically different and we see the world a little differently. Those differences need to be understood and embraced. We can do the same jobs but our approach and communication may be different.

Women may be more prone to focus on emotions and relationships while men are more concerned about process such as fixing something or winning the race. Use this to create confusion and tension as characters speak at cross purposes on an issue. Mix it up to make interactions more interesting. Change the socialization norms. That’s what happened when television, books and movies first created female detectives and lawyers – interactions between the sexes was awkward and rife with tension. It still is and it makes for compelling viewing and reading. Being aware of the differences gives writers more ammunition to mix it up and make interactions more dynamic, less boring and less stereotypical.

Life stages

So how do people react to Joey – as a late teen, and with his father’s death, his mother Sally doesn’t want him to leave the household to become his own man. He’s now expected to fill his father’s shoes, stay in the family business and look after her. Although he knows he must do this, Joey’s interactions with his mother will be charged as he struggles for his own identity and sense of self. If Joey had been married and with a maturing family of his own, his position in society and his skill wouldn’t be questioned and therefore his interactions with his mother would be quite different like charged but now able to assert himself and demand what he wants, respectful or entirely dismissive.

Writing for teens (YA) is different than writing for adults or middle grade. It’s deeper than point of view – it’s about issues, maturity, ability to express, comfort with expression and experience. An adult who has been burned in a relationship as a teenager will have a very different approach to a date than a teen on a first date. That seems obvious, but as an adult writing for teens, I must be very careful not to insinuate my adult knowledge, observations and experience on my characters otherwise their interactions won’t ring true for my readers. The same holds true whenever we write about something apart from our own soci-economic strata.

These are just a few of the tools I use to keep character interactions interesting. What works for you?

Building Character ““ The Art of Genuine Interactions

February 6, 2013

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Character Craft & Skills Ideas & Plotting The Writing Process 4 Comments

We can build worlds, create interesting characters, have background information and personality/motivational analysis that fills a book. After studying how to create characters, how to make them interesting, unique and multidimensional, we must somehow bring them to life and make them as real to the reader as a living, breathing human being. Yet how can this be done?

It’s all about relationships. Characters come alive when we see them in relationship. Their interactions (actions and reactions) reveal their innermost secrets, their fears, their world view, their values. Just like us, they act and react to those around them – life is not lived in a vacuum. That’s why the background work and world building are so important. What is the society’s prevailing code of ethics or conduct? Where does the character live – the social and survival norms are different from a crowded city in first world or third world economies, rural or urban settings, earth, Mars or a fantasy world. This determines what is important to the character – what she values or abhors.

We interact with and react to our families, our pets, our loves, those we loathe, those we casually know and those we don’t even know but have a strong reaction to. A strong reaction to strangers? Think about it. Do you slam the phone on the telemarketer or do you make friends with that person? Do you disregard or mock political propaganda from the party you don’t support or do you take the time to befriend a supporter and understand their views? In both examples, the interaction with strangers is at different ends of the spectrum – from blatant disregard to embracing their humanity. Most of us are somewhere in between. The way we choose to interact with people in these situations is determined by what we value, what motivates us and what issues are pressing in on us. Knowing where your character lies on the value spectrum will make it easier to write believable character interactions. Is your character determined or unsure? Have faith in life or believe it can’t be trusted? Accept or reject change?

For example, in a self-help book on relationships (those are gold mines for writers!) titled Love is a Many Splintered Thing by Patricia H. Rushford, we follow Samantha and David as they journey from the honey moon stage to near divorce. The fight scenes, simply done for illustrative purposes, are quite compelling. In one scene, we learn that David has manipulated Samantha’s computer dating data sheet so that their scores will jive. Samantha is so furious that she wants nothing to do with David. David is hurt and upset. He had fallen in love with her the moment he saw her and didn’t want to trust a machine with the rest of his life.

So, why did Samantha have such a strong reaction to David’s action and why did he manipulate the data? The answers lie in their backgrounds, in those deep dark corners that are so easy to ignore yet which compel us to act as we do. As Rushford explains: David is a man’s man, always in control and is uncomfortable with the feelings Sam has awakened in him. He has tried to be the kind of man he thought his father (now dead) would have wanted him to be but David feels he has never quite succeeded. Now once again, in his relationship with Sam, he hasn’t quite succeeded. Samantha, on the other hand, comes from a childhood of abuse and neglect and so resists love for fear of abandonment. At times her emotional needs exceed her ability to reason.

Understanding fears and aspirations this deeply means a writer can stay true to the core of who their characters are. That then makes their actions and reactions more consistent and true to their nature as they interact with other characters. What about dialogue and body language? Both are important and once again, are part of knowing your character well. Is her language terse? Can he say what he means? She talks of feelings while he refers to car manuals. Is her manner aloof, open or frustratingly neutral? Is there a combination of warmth and cold, efficiency and aloof caring, that is both appealing and frustrating? How does each character react to how the other speaks let alone to what he or she says? Thinking through those dynamics creates most interesting interactions.

There is one major stumbling block to writing genuine character interactions. That is unconsciously slipping into your own value system and not remaining true to your character. That’s when characters and scenes become one dimensional. Personally, I hate conflict. I prefer to be the peacemaker. Knowing that about myself gives me the awareness I need to let my characters be themselves in all their gore and glory. The best writing advice I ever received was permission to be cruel, to ramp up the stakes, to let my characters sweat, squirm and yes, fight.

By knowing our characters intimately, from their deepest darkest fears to their speech patterns, we can totally abandon ourselves to the muse and write compelling, memorable scenes that will whisk our readers into our characters’ worlds. Ah, yes, the elusive muse – that’s the moment when we know our characters so well that on paper, we become them and we give genuine voice to them and to those they interact with.

What things have you learned to bring your characters to life and to make their interactions genuine?

Relationship Rumba

February 1, 2013

Nancy

Character Craft & Skills Nancy Greene The Writing Life Writing Tools 3 Comments

Okay, before you can go to the conventions and use your elevator pitch like we talked about last month, you have to write the story. This month we’re going to focus on the craft aspect of writing. Because it’s February, and for some reason this month bring about images of mostly naked babies holding bows. we’re going to focus on relationships. Don’t groan – we aren’t going to spend the entire month talking romance, although it will be a topic this month.

Think about the stories you love. What made you love it? Not the plot. Not even the special effects. It’s the characters and their journey that takes a story from like to love. Some of the all time most loved stories include Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Charlotte’s Web, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Action adventure movies can be loved, but it seems to me that only happens when there’s something extraordinary about the character dynamics. Well loved stories, regardless of genre, all have one thing in common – characters that stay with us long after we close the book.

I’m going to use one of my favorite books – The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle – as an example of what I mean. Each of the characters, even the unicorn, is flawed. Schmendrick the Magician (and I didn’t have to look up how to spell his name even though my spelling is atrocious) can’t actually work magic. He’s the incompetent fool, the disappointment and the failure. He can’t touch the unicorn. He joins her quest to benefit himself, not because it’s the right thing to do. Yet, he still finds the strength to get up each morning and try to be a true magician. Molly Grue lives with bandits. She’s brash and a bit crude. Yet, her heart is pure enough to see a unicorn. King Haggard has everything, but can’t feel joy or love. The unicorn is immortal, but she doesn’t know love or regret. A misfired (or not) spell robs her of her immortality. Over the course of the story all four of these character (and Prince Lir) confront who they are. All are searching for something more than themselves. All but one changes.

Why is this one of my favorite books? Because of the depth and beauty of the characters and their interactions. Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine and Private Place is also on my most favored books list for the same reason. I wanted the good guys to win. I wanted the bad guy to get his comeuppance.

How did Peter Beagle and all those other writers create such memorable characters?

Well, that’s what we’re talking about this month.

This month we’ll look at creating a complete characters, the “good” bad guy, and believable character interactions. We’ll spend some time on Romance in deference to St. Valentine’s holiday. But also platonic relationships between the characters and conflict in general. Please check out posts over the month, and remember it’s not too late to get that box of chocolates.