CHARACTERS Part 2

CHARACTERS Part 2

The Good, the Bad, the Fugly…

Oh, and the Quirky, the Snarky, and the Underdog.

 

The Comments: "Your story has a really weak/slow/boring start." Or "Your main character is really predictable." Or "I couldn't get past chapter two."

What they might mean: Your protagonist is too generic, too good to be true, or so pathetic or predictable they're unappealing.

Does that sting? 

Here's why: The deepest secret about main characters is they're shards of our souls we've somehow managed to chip off and flung into another world.

That's why critiques about them hurt more than critiques about plot, theme, etc. Because it feels like a critique against our selves. We've written our selves into the story and when someone says "Oh, the protagonist was completely idiotic," it stings like they've insulted us. 

The Good:

Perhaps we've made the protagonist everything we wish we could be? Super smart, strong, ripped like Beckham 

"I could totally carry your story."

or as stunning as Michelle Pfeiffer in Ladyhawke.

"I do the rescuing, right? Riiiight?"

Someone who knows exactly the right thing to do at the right moment, who always has a clever quip or a witty one-liner. With "just the right amount of vulnerability to make him endearing". An allegorical saint or Hollywood ideal. In other words, Too Good To Be True.

The Bad:

Or perhaps we've made the protagonist everything we hate about ourselves (or someone else – which is just a manifestation of something we do hate about ourselves but we can't/won't admit it.) Our protagonist is physically weak, intellectually weak, or morally weak. Perhaps they're too passive at work, in bed, in life. The classic underdog (and lordy, there's a lot of underdog protagonists right now – so many that it's become rather stereotypical and predictable.) 

The Fugly:

Or perhaps the greatest offense. We create a protagonist that embodies perceptions of what people want them to be. We stuff ourselves into a genre trope – the hard-boiled detective, the emotionally-damaged hero or heroine with a mysterious past, the super spesh stable boy who somehow overcomes his impoverished surroundings, finds a magical sword, and saves the kingdom from Ancient Evil. The Fugly hero or heroine who, at some point in the story, undergoes a metamorphosis via makeover to become a swan that everyone desires. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly main characters are good starting points but can they carry a story? No.

Why? Because they're such commonplace extremes that it can be difficult to know them as real people. It's just as easy to hate someone who is too good to be true as it is to hate someone with qualities you already dislike. And boy is it easy to ignore someone you've met a thousand times in a thousand different books.

The danger to your WIP is this: the canned Good, Bad, Fugly becomes a puppet. He only is what you want him to be (what you wish you could be or what you wish you could change about your life). He only does what you want him to do (what you wish you could do or what you wish you could stop doing). Or worse - he only is and does what dozens of his predecessors have done before in the genre. No surprises. 

Yes, yes, I know Ancient Evil or Stunning Rival does something to him in chapter two, but check his reaction. Does he react the way you would react, the way you want him to react to suit your plot, or the way he would react if he was real and alive? 

(By the way, this is where that 5x5 Character Manifest fromlast week's post would come in handy. Check his reaction with one or a combination of what you answered for the Who, What, Why, etc.: Protag does X because of the answer to Why.)

I'll offer an example from my personal life a few years back.

I was desperately single. Like, will-date-anyone-with-a-pulse single. So friends and coworkers tried to set me up. A lot.

A coworker, Davey, came up to me one day.

"Hey J, I have a nephew who's single," said Davey.

"Oh yeah? What's he like?"

Davey showed me a photo of a smooth-cheeked, blue-eyed Marine.

"He's hella cute. How old is he?" I said.

"Just turned twenty."

"F*ck, Davey, I'm not a cradle robber, for f*ck's sake!" (I cuss a LOT in real life.)

"How the hell am I supposed to know how old you are? Besides, he don't care. I don't care," said Davey.

"Well I –"

"He's real nice. And real smart."

"So?"

"And he's really … nice. And good-looking, right?" Davey started turning red.

"And?" I knew a lot of nice, handsome, smart men in uniform. Married, related to me, or gay.

"He's quirky," said Davey.

"What the f*ck does that mean to me?"

"It's the thing to say now, right? Quirky." Davey scratched his head. "How about snarky?"

"Do you even know what those words mean?" I said. "Quirky is just a social construct based on the zeitgeist. In the 1800's, a woman who wanted the right to vote was quirky. Quirky means nothing more than what you think is f*cking cutely odd. It's a value judgment. Like saying someone's beautiful. Means nothing cuz you're idea of beauty is completely different from my idea –"

"He's quirky, snarky, and … and…"

"And what?" I shoved him in exasperation. "Tell me something about him that makes him special. Why would I want to date him instead of any other guy on the street?"

"Oh!" Davey said, eyes wide. "He has perfect pitch. You name a note and he can sing it, play it on his saxophone, or tune a violin to it."

And that right there immediately made Davey's nephew more real. The fact that he could do something unique – not terribly rare, not earth-shatteringly abnormal. Neither "likeable" or "unlikeable". Just… different.

Davey not only told me about that talent, he showed it to me by giving me an example of what his nephew does with it.

A character moving immediately gets more attention than a character standing still and blending in with his background. 

More importantly, that detail separated Davey's nephew from an ideal, from your ideals, from stereotypes and predictability. Davey stopped feeding me lines he thought I wanted to hear and started describing his nephew as a real person doing real things. 

If the comments and critiques at the top sound familiar, take a step back from the WIP and pitch your protagonist to a friend (or, if you're like me, random stranger in line at Costco) and follow the line of questions until you get the Specific and Unique details that transform your protagonist from character to dateable human being.

Then, in your WIP: how quickly can you convince me to "date" - aka, spend time with - your protagonist. Can you do it in the first chapter? Can you do it in paragraph 16? Can you do it on page one? Can you do it from the opening line? 

Happy writing and revising!
J

Coming up:
More Character

Dialogue

Dialogue Tags

Passive

Verbing

Robert Bevan 

Nat Russo

Laura Oliva

Show Versus Tell Part 3

Show Versus Tell

Part 3: Frankensteining It

Warning: This post contains questionably explicit quoted material that may not be suitable for everyone.

We've gone over how to turn Tell into Show and the importance of Telling. Now let's look at how authors stitch them together in some contemporary New York Times Notable Books and Bestsellers.

'My suffering left me sad and gloomy.

Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life.' – Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Martel opens Chapter One of his novel-turned-movie with a Telling statement, followed by a narrative summary chronicling the protagonist's university experience.

Why use a Tell in this instance?

The Telling lines are necessary because they present information the audience must know, the protagonist's state of mind, in order to interpret the significance of the sloths, the swimming pool, the ocean, the ship, the orangutan, the tiger.

In essence, the novel is a map and the Telling opening is the legend. Without it, we could stumblingly navigate from point A to point B. With it, we see the riches and richness of the story as a whole.

'I shrugged. "I've thought about it. But I'm not sure it's such a great idea."

Laura looked puzzled. "But you and Ruth, you were so close."

"Yeah, I suppose so. But like with you, Laura. She and I weren't such great friends by the end."' – Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Here, the importance of Telling dovetails with Dialogue Beats maintaining Pace and Tension. In other words, consider how this segment would change if we turned this into a 

Show:

Laura looked puzzled.

How do you know?

Because her brows drew together, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed and she was silent for a moment before she said –

This Show drags the Pace by drawing the reader's focus to Laura's brows, eyes, lips, and the silence, when what the characters are saying (revealing through dialogue) is far more important. If Ishiguro had wanted to open that line to speculation and different interpretations, a Show would have been appropriate.

But the audience must know that how the protagonist perceived her own relationship with Ruth is different from how other people perceived it.

That Tell, Laura looked puzzled, emphasizes what Laura says next, and sets up that dialogue line to be interpreted in a specific way.

Lastly, let's take a look at The Namesake.

It’s written in Omni 3^rd, Present Tense, with years condensed into distant Telling summaries, and key minutes stretched out with Showing details.

One example that stands out is how Lahiri handles the protagonist's sex life.

'It is as Nikhil that he loses his virginity at a party at Ezra Stiles, with a girl wearing a plaid woolen skirt and combat boots and mustard tights.' – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake.

Why Tell this, when loss of virginity is usually a significant coming-of-age moment?

Consider what we've covered about Telling: it imparts necessary information that the author wishes to convey with few or little interpretation. Here, it's a simple fact: Nikhil loses his virginity. In context, it's a statement hidden in an entire paragraph of new college experiences, as if it's a chore to check off on a list. Did we interpret this the way the author wanted?

A few pages later, we find:

'He recalled nothing from that episode, only being thankful, afterward, that he was no longer a virgin.' - Lahiri, The Namesake.

And there's Lahiri emphasizing what we already got from her Telling statement, just to be sure, because the next scene, with a different girl, is:

'He kisses them, kisses the moles scattered on her stomach as she arcs gently toward him, feels her hands on his head and then on his shoulders, guiding him between her parted legs.' - Lahiri, The Namesake

By Telling first, we have something to compare this Show scene to, and can interpret this scene as far more important to the protagonist than the loss of his virginity. This is the scene he wants to experience and remember, therefore this is the scene Lahiri Shows and slows with Details.

In your WIP (especially if you're trying to get under a word count!) find and condense tertiary showing scenes into narrative summary or key Telling statements.

Then, find and expand (with specific and unique Details!) scenes which would benefit from multiple interpretations. Like scenes that are:

1. Important to your main character(s).

2. Important to your plot.

3. Important to your themes.

 

Happy revising,

J

Coming up: 

I will be on vacation for the next two weeks. Then:

Characterization

Dialogue

Dialogue Tags

Passive

Jay Groce

Verbing

Robert Bevan

Sources for this post:
Life of Pi by Yann Martel, 2001.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, 2003.
Photos from and linked to IMDB.

Show Versus Tell Part 2

Show Versus Tell

Part 2: Tell

The comments: "This was redundant and repetitive and you said the same things in chapters 2, 5, 8, and 10." Or "It lacked sophistication." Or "The pace was eye-gougingly boring." Or "For f*ck's sake, get on with it already!"

What they mean: You might need to Tell more, Show less! 

What?!?!?! Is that even possible? Yes. It's also necessary. Why? We'll get to that in a little bit. 

The good news is, you probably already did a lot of telling in version one (ie, Rough Draft) of your awesome epic. But if you've been diligently seeking and replacing all versions of Tell with Show in your WIP, you might have gone a little overboard suffusing your story with details (a common pitfall of revision).

The result is a WIP bogged down by too much Show. Check that phrase: bogged down. Brings to mind an image of someone slogging through a bog, each step a struggle to pull against gravity, against the suck of thick muck and gnarled weeds.

Give the reader a rest with some Tell bits.

How, though? To understand it best, let's take a look at Why we should use Tell in favor of Show, and where this is appropriate in the story.

Let's put on our serious pants and review Show:

The journey was long and difficult.

How do you know? 

Because we had to leave the horses in the last village and continue on foot. Sharp stones from shattered boulders littered the cliff-side path. For a month we marched, burdened by food packs that we cursed while the rain-gorged ground threatened to crumble from beneath our feet and send us sliding to the blade-edge peaks of frozen water below.

Cool. Now why should we convert such a description into Tell?

If the character uses this path more than once, the next time we visit it could be summarized by Tell. Same goes for if most of the terrain is like this. We don't need to know how long and difficult the journey was every single time. 

Let's look at another instance:

Jason was a serial cheater.

How do you know?

Because when he was dating my friend Carla, he was cheating on her with Claire. Then when he was with Claire, he cheated on her with Brenda. Then when he was with Brenda, he cheated on her with Bill. 

How important was that list of names? How important is Jason in the story? The more you show about a character, the more important he seems. In fact, we could parse out that description to last half the story. Is half the story about Jason? Or is he simply coming in to reveal something important? If he has a bit part, give him a "bit" description.

Boil it down to exactly what the reader needs in order to understand his revelation in the correct light. If Jason is a serial cheater, then he might be a practiced liar. Which means I should hold what he has to say in my head, but prepare myself for the moment it might be proven false. And what a delightful surprise it would be if he's actually telling the truth! (There's your sophistication right there.)

So, second instance of Telling instead of Showing: The reader needs to Know something, rather than Feel it. You are presenting information that, for the purpose of your story, must be understood exactly the way you present it, with no room for alternate interpretations.

Let's do one more.

Countess Vanessa's house was immense. 

How do you know? 

Because each time I visited, I had to go through the atrium, which was so large a cottage could fit inside. Then I went through the front hall, which was so long, an entire barn could fit within. And then I had to go through the ballroom, which was so big and tall we could fit a football game within, including a few thousand spectators. Then I had to go through …

For the love of all that's holy, if I had to read paragraph after paragraph of this, I would insist you paid me by the hour because it would be work. How much of this information do I need to retain? 

I ask because of the implication that each scene is important. Otherwise, why would you include it? 

When you get to a Showing scene, ask yourself: is this scene necessary. 

Of course it is.

But ask yourself: Does this scene do more than one thing?

Does it:

Advance Plot?

Develop Character?

Introduce another meaning to an established Theme?

In other words, Does this scene do something different than the other scenes before it? 

If the answer is still a resounding Yes, then keep it as is. 

If it's a meek yes, then trust your instinct. You put the scene in for a reason. It's probably because something happens in a location or situation we've been in before and you need to move us to that location. Just Tell it!

We returned to Countess Vanessa's immense house.

When you're segueing from one Show instance to another Show instance, Telling imparts valuable information necessary to understand the next scene in the right light. But it also gives the reader's mind a necessary break. A Tell instance allows for passive absorption of information.

Yes, I said Passive. It's the slight lull between interactive Show scenes in which a reader can digest what happened just before, and get ready for what's about to occur. 

A Telling instance can also be a chance for you to reveal your narrator's thought process: "I was angry, but I grinned and laughed my way through the party." If your character must appear jovial, how would you Show the anger? 

Without a Telling summary or a Telling narrative, a story's pace of Show after Show can feel overwhelming. 

Here's the checklist for when Tell might be the better option:

1. To impart (solid, necessary, unarguable) information.

2. Summarize repeated movement or habits.

3. Control story's pace. 

Caveat! The Tell is only as important as what surrounds it. There's no formula or ratio like for every three Shows you must include one Tell. It's more a part of Pacing, controlling the heartbeat of your book. More often than not, a Beta reader will tell you about Pacing issues. Check that chapter or scene and see where your narrator can tell more, and you could show less. 

Have a great week!

J

Coming up: 

Characterization

Dialogue

Dialogue Tags

Passive

Jay Groce

Verbing

Robert Bevan