Making Characters Sympathetic

Recently in class a student read out a piece introducing a character. They were enjoying sitting in a high backed, winged armchair which protected them in part from the hustle of a crowded staff room. The writing triggered a memory of hiding under the rocking horse when I was little and believing no one could see me.  Immediately I liked the character and, judging from the class reaction, everyone else had had a similar trigger moment too.  

But maybe not, because the writing worked in other ways too. The character was shown as being a little bit vulnerable, and we warm to vulnerability.  We might admire people such as Madonna, but you couldn't really say you warm to her. 

And notice I said a little bit vulnerable.  Too vulnerable, and you've made your character spineless as a jelly fish and about as fun to read. Normal, human levels of vulnerability are what you're going for.  

Additionally, the character had a private, quirky name for the chair.  Quirky is fun, and most people like characters who are fun and have a sense of humour.  I think it was significant that the quirky name was a private one.  We're not that keen on people who self consciously think they are funny and tell you about it eg whacky names for the cat or the car. 

All in all, the author had written a character who, in a few lines, we were intrigued by, and sympathetic to.  Something we should all aspire to.

Problem Scenes

I've been struggling with a scene recently.  Writing it was awful; I sighed and huffed and puffed and thought about other careers I could do and was it too late to train as a brain surgeon or something.  In the end I followed my own advice and jumped to the next scene.

Oh, what a difference.  Suddenly the little birds sang in the trees and the sun shone through the window and my fingers flew across the keyboard.  Writing was easy!  Writing was the best job in the world!  Yippee!

Afterwards I thought about it.  Why had there been such a difference?  

My problem was, there wasn't a problem.  By which I mean, the viewpoint character didn't have a problem to solve.  Scenes normally flow between action and reaction scenes, and this was a reaction scene, but there was nothing else.  All the viewpoint character was doing was thinking about what had happened in the past.  There was nothing that moved the scene on.  

So, what should I have added?  The magic word here is change.  Something had to change.  It doesn't have to be big.  The character could have been given a piece of information and had to change as a result - whether it was her global world view or what she was doing on Saturday night was irrelevant.  Without change we don't move forwards, and writing is about moving forwards.  

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Rewards For Writers

Every now and then I'm asked to describe my writing day and it goes something like this:

Get up.  Do some writing.  Watch Bargain Hunt (there are a few raised eyebrows at this point).  Do some more writing.  Watch Countdown (add in a bit of sniggering) do a bit more writing. Watch The Chase (more sniggering, possibly outright laughter).

Okay, so obviously in their opinion no one worth anything watches day time television. But this is my reward system.  1000 words done?  Okay, you can switch off your brain with a dollop of TV before going back to the laptop.  

My viewing habits are carefully selected - I never watch anything with a narrative in it such as soap operas or dramas when I'm writing.  It's always quiz shows or game shows where there's no connection between one episode and the next.  

I think it's important to cultivate a reward system when you're writing.  Heavens, it's a hard enough business and the chances are no one else is going to appreciate your efforts on a daily basis.  For some it might be tea and biscuits, or chocolate.  Others might like a bit of box ticking and have elaborate spread charts that can be filled in.  Deadlines can be good, so long as they don't stress you when they're missed - the secret here is to have easily achievable ones.  

Other rewards could be nice notebooks and writing materials. The word 'pampering' makes me edgy, so spas and beauty treatments are useless rewards for me, but I do like taking time off to go to an art gallery or museum or just take a long walk.  I buy myself flowers when I hit milestones like the first draft done.  It doesn't really matter what you go for, so long as you build some system of rewards into your writing.  

As writers we get quite a lot of sticks thrown our way, what with rejection and negative feedback; we really ought to give ourselves some carrots...

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Does Gender Matter When Giving Feedback?

I was giving some feedback to a student last week when he said, 'You're always trying to make it more emotional,' which took me be surprise, because that wasn't what I meant at all.  I've had other male students say I was recommending that I should make their work more reflective.  Again, not guilty - in my opinion.  But obviously what I thought I was suggesting wasn't coming across as I intended.   

I thought for a little bit, and then said, 'Don't think emotional, think attitude.  What's the character's attitude to what has just been said? What does it make them think?  What are they going to plan to do next?'

I'm currently reading  Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation which looks at, surprise surprise, how differently women and men use language to communicate.  I haven't yet finished reading but already it's making me think both about how I give feedback, and how I write male characters.  (I expect I'll blog about this when I've digested it a bit more.)

What I have noticed when teaching is that there are more male students who tend to write action and dialogue, while women are more in tune with the character's internal monologue.  Of course, this is a generalisation and there are many students who buck the trend, althoughI think it would be fair to say that thrillers - which tend to be read by men - concentrate on action and dialogue, while romance - which tends to be read by women - concentrate on exploring the main character's feelings.

When I'm giving feedback, it's a question of degree.  I don't think the main character in a thriller should suddenly start emoting all over the place, nor that the main character in a romance should suddenly initiate some ass-kicking action. I think the extremes should be avoided - ie the novel that reads as a film script with a few he saids, she saids chucked in, or the one that rambles on and on with the main character hypersensitive to the nuances of what's been said but without anything actually happening.  

But I will be watching my language from now on.  I'm going to be judging which words are more appropriate - words like attitude, plan, thought, emotional, response, interior.  And I'm going to make sure that my thriller writers don't think I'm encouraging them to write what my other half refers to as 'the soppy stuff.'

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Guilt, the Writer's Companion

Okay, so there are some of you out there who write a couple of thousand words before getting the kids up and going to work. Proper writers start at 9, don't check their emails until they've hit their target, deal with admin in the afternoons and have time to go to the gym in the evening. Stephen King does 2000 words a day, every day, including birthdays and Christmas. Alexander McCall Smith does 3,000 between 5am and 8am.

I could go on, but the thought depresses me. I'm a guilty writer, you see. I procrastinate. I faff. I have a vague routine but constantly break it. I can't write regardless; if I'm unhappy or tired or upset, then forget it. I can be enormously productive (and on good days, gosh you should hear me crowing on Twitter) and staggeringly unproductive. I can waste hours fretting about all the hours I'm wasting.

And what I've learnt is....so what?

You write your way, I write mine. Perhaps I'm not as productive as Author X, but then I'm not writing Author X's books, I'm writing mine. Actually, I know I'm not as productive as almost every other author on the planet - well, that's how it feels - but then, I can only do what I do. I trot along in my own way, trying very hard not to compare myself with others, and at some point a book gets written. My book gets written. It may not have followed a strict regime, but it will get done. And at the end of the day, that's all that people care about - the end result, not the process.

So don't upset yourself by comparing yourself with others. Even if they have a terrific output, regular as clockwork, they're still not able to write the book you're writing. Carry on in your own way, putting in the time when and where you can. Your book, your schedule. And no guilt, please.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

3 Ways to Tell Lies for a Living

I like watching magicians, particularly close up magic. I know it's trickery, but I want to believe in the tricks - that's part of the fun for me. I don't want the magician to falter or make mistakes, I want them to smoothly cheat and con me, preferably with a flourish.

Fiction is all about telling lies. Our readership is primed to believe our lies, just as I want to believe the magician. But our lies have to be believable lies. How to do this?

1. Be specific

There's a game you can play with a group. Write down two true things about yourself, and one lie, then read them out. The others have to guess the lie. We did this in class the other week, and the lies that were most successful were the ones that were filled with specific detail. Not, 'I go to Rome every year for my holidays', but 'I've stayed in the Albergo al Sole off the Campo dei Fiori in central Rome every year for the past six years.' The detail convinces.

2. Be consistent

I'm a qualified bricklayer. True. People are amazed, because it's unexpected - I don't look like a brickie (and of course, I'm not, I don't do it professionally and I got my City & Guilds certificate ages ago). If you were writing about a fictional character like me, you couldn't suddenly plonk the bricklaying fact into conversation unless it came with an explanation which matched the character.

3. Don't let the reader blink

Every time the reader has to check something they've read you've potentially lost them. The reading experience should be so smooth they hardly notice it happening. That means, no clunky sentences or incorrect words. No non-sequiturs. No confusion about who is thinking or saying something, or what anybody is doing at a particular time. Every time a reader is reminded that they're reading you might lose them. Edit, edit, edit. Get feedback, and edit some more. It's the only way to eliminate the glitches.

Writing fiction is like performing a magic trick. The reader wants to believe in the magic, it's up to you to practice until it appears easy.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Exeter 21st May

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

What's Criticism For Anyway?

When you put your work out, it's like presenting your vulnerable new-born baby to the world, and inviting them to give it a good kicking. Even if they stroke its fluffy head gently, you're on constant alert to the slightest nuance that they don't think your darling infant is less than perfect. The first time I put my work out for comment the blood was pounding in my ears so hard that I couldn't hear a word of what anybody said.

And because you're so protective of your beloved, even if people say 9 nice things, you only hear the negative 10th one. Your baby can't defend itself from attack so you rush in. This is good if you're a mother literally defending her child from wolves, but not if you're an author faced with a bit of criticism.

Last week a blogger called Big Al reviewed a book he'd read. It wasn't a bad review, saying he'd liked the story telling, but that it had been spoilt by grammatical mistakes and typos. It wasn't one of the main book review sites so it possibly wouldn't have received much attention except that the author chose to respond in - ahem - a rather negative manner. A couple of comments followed. The author responded again. Big Al posted some examples of the sentences that didn't make much sense. Commenters laughed. The author responded again, reducing her comments to the admirably succinct, though inadvisable, F*** Off. And so it merrily went on, the whole thing going viral around Twitter and lots of people pitching in, and a good time has been had by all who haven't been involved.

What I have learned about criticism, from both receiving and giving it, is that people generally want to be helpful. They want your work to succeed. They will offer what comments they can to help improve the writing. They may be wrong or ignorant, but their motives are rarely bad. They don't want to hurt your baby, they want it to look the very best it can.

In fact, you should welcome criticism, not reject it. Your friends may think they're doing you a favour by saying your writing is lovely, perfect, wonderful, but the chances are they're not telling you that your baby has a great splodge of dirt across its face. You could wipe that dirt off easily, if you knew it was there.

And that's what criticism is for: to help you present your baby to the wider world in the best way possible. That's all. You don't have to agree with it but you should know that opinion is out there, even if it comes with a raft of personal preferences and prejudices - I've never liked seeing wispy baby hair tied up in little bows, for example, just as I'm not a fan of present tense narratives.

Once people get over their worries, giving and receiving criticism is a positive experience all round, and a very quick way to learn how to improve. I've seen this time and time again, both with my own writing and in class situations. I love getting feedback on my work - sure, it might make me wince at times, but I'd rather that than send my work out with a dirty face.

The bottom line is the more honest feedback you can get, the better your work will be.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website