Golden Syrup Is Not Character Building

One of the reasons the film of War Horse didn't grab me was the lack of character development.  Everybody stayed exactly the same and their characters went nowhere (it must have been depressing for the actors - if you were cast as 'mean landlord' you were stuck as 'mean landlord' and even an actor of the calibre of David Thewlis couldn't do much with that).

The original book is narrated by the horse, who changes in the original story from an innocent colt to a survivor.  But the film chose (for understandable reasons) not to be narrated from the horse's point of view.  This transformed it from being a linear character journey into a circular story, a series of episodes before finally coming full circle and reuniting the horse and his first owner.  

This meant the human characters had little opportunity for development.  The chosen solution was to bring on the violins and dollop out the sweetness.  Most of the characters Joey the horse encountered were 'good' - incredibly good.  There was no shade to their radiant goodness.  The other non-good characters were, surprise surprise, utterly bad.  There was no light to their brutish badness.  

We all know this to be untrue.  People are never wholly good, or wholly bad.  They are multi-faceted, and fictional characters need to reflect this.  And if ever there was a time when characters are tested it's war. Essentially good people are put in positions when they are compelled to behave badly or selfishly.  People who have got into the habit of behaving brutally find a chink of humanity.  

Ambiguity in characters is eternally interesting because a) we don't know which way they'll go next and b) it's the truth.  Smothering characters in golden syrup is no substitute for character development.  

Depth Not Breadth

Recently I was looking at someone's short story and was struck by how many problems the main character had. Girlfriend problems, work problems, boss problems, family problems...he had the lot and they were cluttering up the main story which was nothing to do with girlfriend, work, boss and family. I asked why they'd chosen to give the character so much to deal with, and they answered that they'd wanted to make the character 3D by giving him lots of conflict in his life.

Well, yes. And no.

What was happening was problem overload, none of which was dealt with in any detail - it was a short story, there wasn't time - so it was coming across as a series of cliched situations. There was none of the specific detail that makes a character seem real. The writer had gone for breadth - lots of problems - but not depth, so the character appeared shallow.

I learned that lesson when I was writing Adultery for Beginners. I wanted people to feel sympathetic for my main character, Isabel, right from the start because she was going to have an affair (there was a clue in the title). So I needed her to have an excuse to stray from her husband, one that people would forgive her later actions. I knew they were going to be ex-pats; I'd been told that in Syria, there was abortion on demand, but you were also sterilised at the same time. That sounded like an interesting situation, so I gave her a backstory that involved her being pressurised by her husband to have an abortion because they'd already got two children.

But I couldn't really make it work. So I gave her a backstory that involved her having a baby out in Africa and it dying because the husband didn't take her concerns seriously. He was a civil engineer, so I tried to add into the scenario some issue around water shortages. That didn't work either. I tried a few other things, but all the time I was pushing ahead with the actual story.

By the time I got to the end of the first draft I ditched the backstories because I didn't need them. I knew the characters so much better - deeper - I didn't need to bolt on some invented scenarios. They were ordinary, flawed people in a long term marriage who were tempted to stray. That was all I needed.

Giving characters extraordinary problems doesn't make them interesting, nor does giving them interesting hair, strange deformities or quirky habits that seem inconsistent with what the characters do.

Get to know them well through their actions, and their deeper character will reveal themselves. Go for depth, not breadth.

What The Reader Needs To Know

Think of your three closest friends. Now answer these questions: What did their parents do for a living?  Did they have a pet when growing up and if so, what was it called?  What is their favourite film? 

The chances are you're struggling (unless you're 15, in which case you probably got a full house).  Why?  You don't need to know this information to be friends.  It's just the same when we write characters.  

I've just finished reading One Day by David Nicholls and it's startling the lack of hard information we know about the characters throughout. In the opening pages - we only discover their names on the 3rd page by the way - we very quickly get an impression of who the characters really are, through knowing their thoughts and attitudes.  For example, " 'I think reality is over-rated,' he said in the hope that this might come across as dark and charismatic."  We know immediately he is young and not as confident as he might appear to be.  

This is much more interesting than knowing, for example, where he was born or what his father did for a living.  And it also reflects real life.  You are far more likely to know your friend's attitudes to life than you are to know facts about their past history.  So, the reader needs to know about characters' attitudes to life, but not necessarily facts about their past history.

Secondly, how did you learn about your friend's attitudes to life?  You probably knew little bits straight away from how they spoke and dressed, a few more from what they said on that first meeting.  Then, each time you met up you learned a little bit more about what made them tick. You might have had a long heart to heart conversation at some point, but it's unlikely that happened on your first meeting, and even more unlikely that it happens every time you meet up with your friend.  This is exactly the same as when you're writing.  You want to drip feed information to the reader so they gradually build up a picture of your characters.  

Finally, have you ever been to a party where you've met someone who seems on a mission to fill you in on the most interesting topic in the world: them? I've been trapped by someone like this several times in my life. They tell you about themselves in exhaustive detail while you stand there glazing over and hoping you'll be able escape soon.  People like this are bores.  Well, guess what - so are characters who you know everything about when they first turn up.  

One Day is a good example of information being carefully rationed, and the gradual release of information about the characters is one of the factors that have made it such a success.  You really don't need that much backstory information to hook a reader into your characters.   Concentrate on making them interesting, not the facts about them.

 

Applying The Lift Test To Characters

Imagine you're going up to the 8th floor when the lift shudders, then stops. You wait but nothing happens. It looks like you're going to be there for some time. You turn to the sole other occupant of the lift and - well, who would you like to be stuck with? Do you want to be stuck with the person who drones on about how hopeless the situation is, or the one who thinks of an escape plan? Would you prefer the person who tells you at length about their very dull, static life, or the one who has plenty of interesting stories? And at a more basic level, would you like the one who is distinctly lacking in attractive qualities, compared to the one who is full of life and energy?

Reading a novel is a bit like being stuck in a lift with a set of characters, if you think about the length of time it takes to read one. It usually takes me about eight hours to read a novel, and that may be spread out over several days or even weeks. So I need the characters to be engaging or I'll put the book down. 

When I'm writing, at the back of my mind I'm imagining what it would be like to be stuck in the lift for eight hours with my main character. Life may not be going well for them, but they don't, won't, can't whine about it. Instead, they're busy trying to work out an escape plan. Perhaps because we worry whether readers will like our main character there's a tendency to make them bland, and I suppose it's better to be bland than out and out offensive. But only just better. Instead, apply the lift test. The characters to write about - good, bad or plain ugly - are always going to be the ones who make those eight hours seem like eight minutes.

(I posted this about 2 years ago, but writing about The Hare with the Amber Eyes made me think of it.  So you've got it again!)

Save the Cat!

I'm currently reading Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder.  It's written by an unashamed mainstream screenwriter and his shining examples are films like Miss Congeniality and Legally Blonde.  He looks for the Save the Cat! moment in every film.  This is somewhere near the start where our hero does something that immediately puts us, the audience, on his side.  

I think novels need a Save the Cat moment too before we can relate to characters.  Of course, it doesn't have to be as dramatic as saving some old moggy; in fact, it's better when it's small scale, a hardly noticeable act of consideration for others, a tiny kindness, a gesture of love.  

I rooted for the main character in Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson from the first couple of pages when he was polite and considerate to a near-stranger despite having just had some terrible news. I couldn't be bothered to finish The Shakespeare Secret by J L Carrell because I never liked the main character.  She never had a Save the Cat! moment - although she had plenty of 'I'm vastly superior to everyone around me' moments.

Several readers/reviewers have commented on Kissing Mr Wrong's Save the Cat! moment, when the main character is shown as being concerned for her gran.  It was entirely unconscious, but I'm now busily working out how the main character of my current WIP can have her Save the Cat moment. 

Has anyone any other suggestions for Save the Cat! moments in either their own work or other novels?

Characters Haven't Always Read the Script

A friend told me a story about a woman she knew, who'd sold up everything here and emigrated with her husband and family to the other side of the world.  On the plane over her husband slipped off his wedding ring and said the marriage was over.  He was following his mistress, who'd emigrated earlier too, and had decided he had to get over there too - but wanted to keep access to his children, so had persuaded everyone that the emigration was a good idea.  He was flabbergasted when his children refused to speak to him and they all promptly turned round and went back leaving him alone.  That wasn't in his script!

We all carry scripts in our heads.  I'll say this, then they'll say that, and then I'll say this and ha! that'll show them.  Trouble is, people have their own ideas and follow their own script.  They haven't read yours so do things you'd never do, say things you never thought they'd say.

When I'm teaching a class exercise, rather than putting up words or phrases that I've thought of, I ask for contributions and put them up on the board.  This isn't because I'm lazy (well, not only) but because I've learned that there will be a far greater range of ideas than I could have thought of, some going in directions that hadn't occurred to me before.  

Our characters have to follow their own scripts, rather than obediently going along with ours.  They have to speak with their own voice, not ours.  They have to do their own actions, not ours.  They need to have their own tastes, not ours.  When you've got a character who is following their own script, not yours, you're in that situation where the characters seem to write themselves.  

How to get there?  I think there are probably as many ways as there are writers.  I usually write my first draft not really knowing and during the writing I start to 'see' my characters.  Actors sometimes say if they get the shoes right, the rest of the character falls into place. I normally know what their hair is like before I know anything else - in the book I'm writing at the moment, I know my main character has black hair in a Louise Brooks type bob and is fond of black skirts with bright, bold applique.  Once visualised I understand their quirks a bit better, their tastes in food, music, cars etc.  Then I start hearing their voices more distinctly.  Gradually they become real people, just as tangible (to me) as my friends and family.  And like real people everywhere, they don't follow my script all the time.

Perverse, isn't it?  As a writer you control your characters, but the writing is best when they control the script. How do other writers get there?  

4 Character Fails

1. Characters display unattractive or dull characteristics

Spiteful. Petty. Mean-spirited. There are some characteristics that have no redeeming features. Patronising. Superior. Condescending. Give your main characters these qualities and you can guarantee you're going to turn readers off. Subsidiary characters can of course have these qualities, then we like the main characters for giving them their comeuppance.

Now, I can hear you all saying, but what about the character we love to hate? The character we love to hate usually has attractive characteristics in spades - qualities like energy, flair, wit, sex appeal. They may do bad things, but that doesn't seem to matter as much.

2. Characters who are nice

Bland characters are boring. Inoffensive = unmemorable. Nice people are good to know in real life but they make heavy reading. Quick - name a woman in a Dickens novel. Bet you came up with Estella, Miss Havisham, Betsy Trotwood, Bella, Sarah Gamp, Nancy, Lady Deadlock - all characters who aren't particularly 'nice' but are memorable. Anyone remember Dora? Nope, didn't think so.

3. Characters who react rather than act

Main characters need to do stuff, not hang around waiting for things to happen. We can all jog along nicely in our own little ruts in real life, but who wants to read about it? Your character might be in a rut at the start of the book, but once they've been thrown out of it (as they surely will, and hopefully pretty early on) they get going and start doing.

4. Bad first impressions

I am sure there are lots of gorgeous men out there called Geoff or Brian. Or Nigel. But it's hard to think of them as leading male characters. For the women, it's hard to get excited reading about Mildred, Doris or Blodwen. Names are important as they have all sorts of associations - Scarlett O'Hara was originally called Pansy, which doesn't have quite the same ring about it.

It's also hard for characters to shake off negative impressions if they're shown displaying unattractive characteristics (see no 1) the first time we see them. You know the saying that we make up our minds about someone within 30 seconds of meeting them? Same is true for reading about them, and it's very hard to shift those first impressions.

There are still some places on the How to Sell a Novel day course in Bath on 3rd July - clickhere or contact sionhillcourses@hotmail.com if you want more info.