Behler Blog

Nathan Bransford has a good post about runaway characters and their authors who let them do it. Nathan makes a lot of sense – like, duhh, doesn’t he always?

I hear this comment all the time: “Well, I had my story all figured out until my character decided it should go in another direction.”

Ok, I’m willing to play along with this notion – to a point. This is where character tug-o-war comes into play. First thing you should ask yourself is, “who’s in charge of this insane asylum?” Ostensibly, it’s you.

Nathan suggests that it’s a danger to allow the character too much of a voice in the decision-making. As a writer, I think this is murky territory. I have a very strong vision of my story’s structure, the conflicts, and eventual resolution. But when I get into the nitty gritty of actually writing the chapter/story, it does seem as though my characters gently take me by the hand and offer up other solutions. Or twists. Lawdy, I love it when they come up with plot twists.

Yah, I know how schizoid this makes me sound. But you’re all writers, so you’re just as crazy as I am. Right? Um…right, guys?

Where I tend to part ways with the whole character tug-o-war thing is when the story veers off the literary railroad tracks. I remember critting a piece last year and then seeing it again at another writer’s conference. “What gives?” I asked, “Didn’t Sophie kill her aunt for stealing her boyfriend? So why is the auntie now a major part of the story and is Sophie’s best friend?”

“Oh, heh heh, Sophie suggested that the story wasn’t as strong that way.”

Um. Ok, this is when I double-check to make sure we’re not alone ‘cos I find this a wee bit creepy. As Nathan said, our characters are as “alive” in our heads, and most of us react to the logic of those characters. To go completely off the reservation because a “character told me to” is a serious case of character tug-o-war.

You’re the captain of your literary ship, and you have first, middle, and final say over how the story unfolds. You thought up the plot, the foundation, the characters, the conflict, and the resolution. If your story is being held hostage by your characters, then I recommend a good literary exorcist.

Otherwise, it’s like allowing the beagle a voice during contract negotiations. Utterly illogical and downright crazy. but what can I expect when my executive assistant is paid in expensive tequila and designer chewie bones…

I’m not a fan of vanilla. To me, it’s the “safe” flavor, the flavor that gets picked because all the other choices seem too “out there.” Me? I’m a Bavarian chocolate mocha peppermint rocky road and pralines kinda gal. I like lots of flavor because it’s more interesting to me. Either that or I have unusual taste buds.

Like my food, I like equally flavorful characters. I just finished reading a novel [pubbed by Simon & Schuster] whose main character was about as vanilla as they get. While she is going through some heady issues of feeling abandoned by her mother and realizing how this has shaped her life, her personality was as dry as my meatloaf.

The author surrounded her Ms. Vanilla with rich, colorful characters, whom I found far more interesting. I kept wondering why on earth Mr. Hunky Doood – and all the other Hunky Dooods – would fall for her since she displayed as much personality as our Homecoming Queen in high school – an empty vessel of beauty and zero brains. I got to the point where I just wished for the book to end.

Why her/him?

Your main character is your main character for a reason, right? Presumably you love this character because they display some kind of trait that’s worthy of exploration. For instance, this MC went to another country for one reason and ended up reconciling her past. Cool, heady stuff. But the author forgot to make her endearing. I kept wondering what it was about this character that the author felt worth focusing on.

It was like the author gave her all the right conflicts and a great setup, but she forgot to give her a personality. Because her supporting cast is so vibrant, the MC blends into the wall. Had she not occupied Lead Dog status, she would have stayed there.

Main character status does not mean he/she gets a free pass to likeability any more than a cheeseball of a boss can demand respect. It must be earned. Why do we like your main character? Her/his internal dilemmas aren’t enough to engage us.

Give ‘em a personality

I had a friend back in college who, for years, I tried to like. She was a Steady Eddie type – dependable, caring, kind , and…just…there. She was so bland, so vanilla that, as nice as she was, I began to avoid her and bugger off to the library when I saw her coming. I felt like going to the Science Dept. and ordering up a freeze-dried personality that I could slip into her coffee. She had an interesting backstory, but geez, have a little spice. Please.

What kind of personality do they have? Are they outgoing? Funny? Shy? Do they have a great quip to ease tense situations, or do they curl up into the fetal position? Are they angry? Aggressive? Think of the people who populate your dance card. Write down their personality traits and think about how you can paint your character’s blank canvas.

But please, for the love of all that’s holy, do not make them flat, dull pieces of talking cardboard where all they do is react off their much richer counterparts. They MUST stand out.

Think logically - cause and effect

There is absolutely no excuse for your MC being devoid of a personality. You are the creator – you are your own Literary Cosmic Muffin. Oh, the power! Think logically – heh, my dad would laugh himself into a coma seeing me say that, since logic used to elude me much as the beagle eludes work. But I digress.

If your main character is popular, or sought after, then there must be a logical reason why. Making them flat and lifeless isn’t logical because readers are hideously smart. First thing they’ll ask is why this MC is so…fill in the blank.

It’s a case of cause and effect. If a character is respected, then she can’t be a dimwit who says, “yanno” a lot. Likewise, if a character is seen by his peers as dim bulb, then he can’t be Ivy League magna cum laude.

In the book I just finished, the main character had all these lovely characters who love her and consider her a member of their family. I couldn’t help but wonder why. She had done nothing to deserve this honor. Her vanilla personality wasn’t endearing, exciting, or anyone I’d want to meet. So what did they see in her? There was no cause and effect going on, so it was an illogical disconnect.

Readers will not go from Point A to Point B unless you lead them there.

Avoid cliche

Oboy. Is there anything we hate reading more than a cliche character? Why is it that every detective story is populated with a burnt out ex-cop, divorced, struggling with smoking or booze, down on his luck – or some flavor of this? Are there no happily married, well-adjusted detectives out there? I realize that we need to give the character some sort of inner conflict that usually coincides with whatever case he’s trying to solve, but geez, folks. We’re writers, so can’t we puhleeeze break the mold?

And why is it that women’s fiction or romance invariably have a main character who’s a clutz? Oh yes, we use that affectation in order to meet Dreamy McHunky, and it’s supposed to make us laugh and love her all the more. “Oh look, isn’t she cute?” we all mutter. Bleh. Enough already. I’m tired of clumsy characters. Does no one know how to walk in romance or women’s fiction, or is this anomaly only appropriate in other genres?

Ok, I’ll admit that I did manage to have my MC dump her dinner on my other MC’s leg, but that was the only clutzy thing she ever did, and it was only because she’d had too much champagne. This, I forgive. But to make her a Clumsy Clara throughout? It’s overdone. Move on, please.

Good supporting cast - Literary Newtonian Law of Motion

A good character needs an equally good supporting cast. Your characters are the vehicle which moves the plot. The more colorful your cast, the more engaged readers will become because they have dimension.

I always harken back to John Lescroart – because I adore his books – and how he surrounds Dismas Hardy with a rich supporting cast. They allow Diz  “bounce-ability.” The supporting cast is his Literary Newtonian Law of Motion where every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It’s through his supporting cast that Diz’s personality shines through.

That action/reaction comes through good interaction. The supporting cast is helpful in propping up the MC, while also helping to propel the plot. So much information and pertinent backstory can be divulged seamlessly and effortlessly through the supporting cast, so use them liberally and wisely. But don’t let them overpower your MC.

I have no idea whether the author’s editor was asleep at the wheel or what, but remember: if we don’t like ‘em, we don’t care. You can have a rich inner conflict or the most amazing plot in the world, but if the characters are vanilla, we’ll throw the book across the room and order up a Bavarian chocolate mocha peppermint rocky road and pralines ice cream.

I’m on a character kick these days. Yesterday I wrote how I like to be properly introduced to characters in a story, no matter how small, because I need a frame of reference in which to appreciate their existence in your story. After all, you felt it important enough to write ‘em, so let me know ‘em.

But the rejections don’t happen due to lack of proper introduction. There’s more, so let the beagle fire up the blender. Margaritas for all, beagle! Yes, yes, you may use my stash of tequila. Piker.

Lately I’ve been issuing a lot of rejections because the characters just aren’t developed enough, so it’s laborious to read the story. As I bleat like a goat on crack, characters are the vehicle in which the sequence events move along in a logical manner. They are the jam in your jelly doughnut, the the cream in your Twinkie, the steak to your baked potato.

Things I see going wrong have to do with flatness of the characters. No dimension, no color, no flavor. Their reactions to situations don’t make sense. This bores me and irritates the beagle.

This tells me that they aren’t “wearing” their character. If you’re going to write a character, you have to know who they are, how they feel about certain issues, what they like, what they drink. You have to know them as well as you do your spouse [no silly jokes here, thankyouverymuch] or your best friend. And it’s not just one character, but all of the main characters.

Very often in workshops I have authors who ask for help in writing a scene. “I need to get feedback on others’ memories of what it was like to be a teenager, fighting with their parents because I don’t know to write this emotional scene between son and mother.” My question is, “Why? This is your story.”

I can understand hearing stories from men about their teenaged angst with their parents and how they felt. If you’re a woman writing the scene, it’s important to have male reactions. It’s research. However, there comes a time when you need to wear your characters like a coat and dig deep to assume their personalities. Only in that place can you find the magic of dimension to make your characters come to life.

A lot of writers I’ve met are afraid to go to the closet and put on that character’s coat – or don’t know to go there. I can’t stress it enough – if you don’t “go there,” you will never know what your characters are capable of doing, saying, feeling, and thinking. I’ve been amazed at some of the things my main characters have said and done – things that I never would have thought possible had I not worn their coats.

Wearing your characters keeps you connected. So go to your literary closet and try on your characters’ clothes and shoes. Heck, the beagle does this on a regular basis. All last week she was Lassie. Geez.

Have you ever gone to lunch with someone and they regale you with all the humorous antics of someone you don’t know? Your friend  pats your arm in between guffaws and says, “Oh, you just have to know how typical this is of him! blah, blah, blah…” You want to laugh, but it’s hard. In order to really get it, you’d have to know him. That’s when I usually have my friend give me more background. Ohhhh, so he’s an airline attendant with a lisp and oversized buck teeth….now I get it.

If you don’t know this character, it’s hard to fully understand or appreciate the impact of the story. Well I see a lot of submissions that do the same thing. If chapter 2 is a party scene with a ton of characters who are all saying witty things, I won’t be fully engaged with any of it – regardless of the clever banter – because it has no meaning for me.

They’re little more than clever talking heads with no dimension and no frame of reference. I’ll  scratch my melon wondering who are all these people and why did the author not think it a good idea to make the introductions? If I don’t know them, I won’t care. If I don’t care, I quit reading – and we all know what that means. Hello Ms. Rejection letter. Now that’s an introduction no one likes, right?

Before you include a bunch of characters in your scene, you must ask yourself whether the reader has been properly introduced. If not, your book may be tossed across the room. This is a bad thing.

Characters are the vehicles that drive the plot. They drive the plot because we care about them. We care about them because you, the writer, gave us a proper howdy-do. We have a good feel for who they are, their personalities, and how they are likely to react. Without these markers, the plot is as dry as the beagle’s designer dog food. We don’t gotta love them, but we sure do gotta know them. Otherwise it’s a whole lot of one dimensional blah, blah, blah.

Even if you’re including a minor character, some sort of introduction is important. It’s putting a face to the name so whatever they say leaves an impact. After all it’s one thing to have someone named Joe utter, “Fahbulous to meet you, dahling, love the dress,” and quite another to mention that Joe is a transgender entertainer who is never seen without his pink ostrich feather boa and green Farrah Fawcett wig. A simple sentence suddently takes on reference.

As you face each new chapter, weigh how important the introductions are. Will their dialog – no matter how minor – have more meaning if we know a smidge about them, or they not worth knowing? Think about the time your mom got all in your business for not introducing her to your boyfriend. And let’s face it, you didn’t introduce him because you were getting ready to break up with him, so why bother investing the breath so Mom can smile and be all nice-like?

Or was that just me?

Mary Sue and her male counterpart Marty Stu are the terms assigned to characters who are so perfect and act so predictably that they lack dimension. Readers can’t get fully engaged with these characters because they don’t exhibit real characteristics. They’re above it all to the point of being a cliche. It’s fine for comic books, fanfic, and even some romance, but these characters aren’t a welcome addition to mainstream writing. We want to see characters who are real, three-dimensional, and plausible. They have to be like us.

Mary Sue and Marty Stu remind me of a couple who lived up the street from us years ago. Everyone in the neighborhood called them Ken and Barbie because they were so perfect. Every hair was in place, their teeth were perfect and brilliantly white, their designer clothes fit them beautifully over their perfect bodies. They had the perfect jobs and the latest groovy cars. Their kids were equally perfect. Hell, even their dog never pooped on anyone else’s lawn, never barked, and sat on command – ideals the beagle finds ridiculously entertaining. They were always nice and friendly; but never too much. In short no one really knew them.

And that made them boring, Stepford-like.

The same goes for our characters. If Mary and Marty aren’t human, then how can we make an emotional investment in them? We pretty much already know how the story will end because the characters are predictable. I mean, no one kills Mr. and Mrs. Perfect unless that perfectness is all part of the plot. With unintentional predictability comes indifference and apathy – no matter how intriguing your plot.

It’s one thing to have that political thriller where the reader wonders if reformed drinker and CIA agent Zack Dambo will fall off the wagon and go on a weekend bender just as terrorists take over the White House, or Mr. Perfect CIA Agent who calls his mother every other day, flosses, never drinks, never farts, and helps old ladies across the street. One has character, and the other is a cardboard cliche.

The characters propel the plot and create the tension because they are the ones facing the conflict.

Remember our buddy, Mr. Plot?

• Who’s your main character?
• What’s their conflict?
• What choices do they face?

If you have Mary or Marty starring in your book, you’ve removed the main elements to your plot because Mr. or Ms. Perfect don’t have any conflict they can’t overcome. Yawn. Instant form rejection.

Face it; no one is:
That clever
That cute
That smart
That witty
That chiseled
That sexy
That compassionate
That understanding
That even tempered…

…all the time. Everyone farts once in a while. It’s a tough writing world out there. Keep ‘em real.

I not talking about the cliche things like eating too much chocolate during times of stress or screaming at the sight of a spider. Those are character traits, surface stuff, and very different from Mary and Marty.

I’m talking ab out making them human. As writers, we are [or should be] very good at observation. If you’re stuck on how to humanize your too-perfect character, look at your friends, family, resident beagle [or is that just me?] and write down the elements of who they are, what defines them.

Do they fear success?
Have they always regretted not get that college degree?
Does fear motivate their need to over-achieve?
Is their significant other so overbearing that they’ve become a shadow of their former self?
Do they drink too much and make out with all the men/ladies at the party/bar?

These are characteristics that go to defining who they are and they actually become part of the plot. Because of their particular foible, it is responsible for creating the tension in the plot. Sure, they could eat that Hershey bar when things get hinkey, but readers will be far more concerned that the recovering alcoholic will drink themselves into a coma when things get hinkey.

There are many times I reject a manuscript because I simply don’t like the characters, and sadly there is no Sally Fields moment. The reasons for my not liking them vary. Could be they have no redeeming qualities to them. Bad guy main characters require a delicate balance. Characters like Dexter strike what I think is a marvelous balance of bad but likable. He kills people, but they’re all bad, and he lives by an honorable code.

Other reasons that I might not like a character is because I don’t know enough about them. They’re flat little pancakes on dry toast. I don’t know what they drink, or what they like to do after work. Do they take long walks at midnight and look for loose change on the sidewalk? Do they check the expiration date on every bit of food they buy at the grocery store? Does their significant other yell at them for drinking out of the orange juice carton? Do they only buy Italian leather shoes and silk ties? Do they speak goo-goo talk to their cats?

This requires observing your character and getting to know them on a deeper level so you learn their quirks. It’s not enough to dump your characters into your story; you need to infuse them. See, characters and the plot can be a lot  like oil and vinegar – they don’t necessarily combine together in an artful, interesting manner. You need a good whisk to combine the ingredients so I am aligned with your characters and willing to take the literary journey with you. In short, you need to create empathy for them. The dictionary defines empathy as:

the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

This means that we empathize with characters because we identify with them. We see something of that character in ourselves, so we have compassion for them.

As many will attest, empathy is subjective because, of course, you adore your characters. You know who they are, how they behave, how they think, what they like and don’t like. The idea is to make us like them and know them, too. That’s what keeps us turning the pages. That means you gotta show us.

In seminars I give, I often instruct writers to make a list of their characters’ characteristics; likes, dislikes, foibles, habits, obsessions, fears. Example:

The beagle:

• growls like a banshee when she finds out the tequila is gone
• loves to drink margaritas and chocolate martinis after a hard day of not working, or early in the morning. She’s a teetotaler during the day.
• hired on as a secretary to answer phones and file – does neither because she’s too busy hanging out with a pack of troublesome German Shepherds who smoke and talk dirty
• Closet softie for wayward socks; she rescues and hides every one she finds into the couch cushions
• known to shred rejected manuscripts when she’s in her Angry Time Out corner – a punishment she carries out at least twice a week because she’s cheeky to her boss
• climbs on boss’ desk and offers kisses when her boss is upset
• tells lies like a cheap rug, but will eat the face off of anyone abusing her boss

Now that you have some dimensional characteristics that people can “see,” you can build on that and add these tidbits into your story. Hopefully readers can see something of themselves in these characteristics – or at least have them explained so clearly – that they stay fully engaged and entertained.

Like everything else in writing, there is no magic bullet that guarantees empathy or likability other than the quality of the writing and whether you know your characters well enough to make them real.

I’ve been having a discussion about sustaining sympathy for characters, and I feel a lot of the problems arise because the characters aren’t real enough to the writer. Since the author doesn’t really know the ins and outs of their characters, they run out of gas. When the author runs out of gas, the reader quits reading because they’re bored.

Characters are the vehicles that propel the plot, so readers have to be engaged from beginning to end. A classic problem I see is the lack of character growth. We don’t go through life unchanged, so it’s unreasonable to think our characters do. Plots always have some intrinsic affect on the MC, and they can’t help but be impacted by what’s going on – just like real life. These are the qualities readers can sympathize with, that “Oh, yeah, I’ve felt that way, too.” Think of something you experienced in your own life – your own mini-plot – and reflect upon whether you’re still the same person you were before you experienced that personal plot.Think about the process you went through during that mini-plot.

I’ll use a really simplistic example. Perfect Hubby and I were in a horrible car accident a couple months ago. I was driving when we were shoved off the freeway at 70 mph by an SOB who never stopped. That experience affected me in ways I never expected. I’m not the same person anymore. As we careened into the concrete divider, I felt my soul grab hold of my body with a steely grip, “Nope, we’re not ready yet.” Because of that, I look at life through a different prism. I put up with far less crap because I understand life’s too short to waste my time. I value true friendships and the love of my family a lot more. I have a higher sense of not wasting time, yet understanding I need to stop and smell the roses. I appreciate the ability to openly share my fears and angst with Perfect Hubby because I understand and trust that he’ll listen. I also have a real problem with cars passing me on the driver’s side; I get really jumpy.

This is an evolutionary process that happened because of my mini-plot. It would be impossible for me to be the same person I was before. And this is how writers should view their characters because readers need to see how the plot affects the character, their relationships and their thinking. That’s how readers sustain their sympathy for your characters

Empathy
In order to keep readers engaged in your characters, you need to put yourself in your character’s shoes and understand how your character thinks and reacts. In another post on character development, I talked about making a detailed list that outlines your character’s traits. Now you need to slip into their skin and decide who they are on a deeper level, where they’re headed (keeping in mind the plot will give them several choices in which to go), and where they ultimately end up. For example, given the type of person I am, it would be out of character for me to never drive again and depend on others to get me around town. It would be illogical to withdraw from everything and everyone. This would force the beagle to collect on all the bets she placed with those mangy Dalmations, who thought I’d turn into a mole person.

Your character’s evolutionary process has gotta make sense, and that comes from knowing your character inside and out. Your empathy allows you to grow your character to change in a believable manner. I’ve read books where I felt I knew the character better than the author and they changed in ways that didn’t make sense. I ended up hating the book because I believed (rightly or wrongly) the author didn’t have empathy for his MC and miswrote him.

I’ve read lots of books that had huge plots and lousy characters, and those were as boring s the beagle’s attempts at cooking meatloaf. Conversely, I’ve read thin plots with fabulous characters and loved them because my sympathies ran at peak power. Whichever way you go, make sure your characters don’t drag your story down into oblivion. Those usually equal a rejection letter or an angry reader. Both suck stale Twinkie cream.