Let's Ban the Hero's Journey

Having had a go at Character Data Sheets, I'm now taking a pop at the Hero's Journey. 

Quick recap:  The Hero's Journey was originally written about by Joseph Campbell in a book called The Hero with 1000 Faces. It is a study of thousands of fairy tales, legends, myths, stories etc from around the world that feature a similar pattern - a young man of unknown/uncertain parentage discovers his true self and saves the world, often with the help of an older mentor, often with the help of a magic sword.  Most cultures have such a tale eg King Arthur.  Christopher Vogler wrote another book called The Hero's Journey for Writers, which showed how you could reduce it down to a 3 Act, 17 step structure which provided a blueprint for writing a novel or film script. Chuck in a whole load of Jungian-based analysis of characters such as the Mentor, the Shapeshifter, the Mirror etc and that's the Hero's Journey.  It came to prominence when George Lucas used it as a basis for writing Star Wars, and many scriptwriters have used it as a format subsequently. 

That's obviously a very short version - here's the link to Wikipedia  if you want to know more or you can Google the Hero's Journey and you'll get lots of information and analysis. You can apply the Hero's Journey to many stories, from Cinderella to The Wizard of Oz and beyond and jolly good fun it is too.  Many a happy hour can be spent developing your story according to the Hero's Journey.  

And that's why I don't like it, or rather, I don't think it's a useful tool for writers.  It's another great way of procrastinating instead of getting on and actually writing your book.  Secondly, it implies that there's a format for writing, and while I would agree that working to a basic 3 Act structure is a good idea, I don't think that there is a universal format that any old writer can use.  Thirdly, it's restrictive - not every story follows the Jungian archetypes, not every story is a quest.  

I have a sneaky suspicion that the reason it gets taught in a lot of creative writing courses is that it's a great one for creative writing tutors to teach.  You could spend a whole term on it without having to think of any new stuff that might be really useful to a student writer.  Even better, you can teach it as an academic subject, in just the same way English is taught by academics who analyse books, rather than by writers themselves. 

I first came across it on my MA in Creative Writing where it was being taught by an academic.  Everyone was very excited because here seemed the answer to one's prayers - a surefire structure that you just had to fill in the gaps, join up the dots, and bingo! a lovely shiny new novel or film script would emerge. Except it doesn't.  What you get is lots of writing ABOUT your novel, and not much writing OF your novel.  

So - are there any writers out there who use the Hero's Journey as a starting point?  Or even as a finishing check-list?  Is it really a useful tool for writers who want to write? Or is it, in Hero's Journey speak, just another temptation on the Road Of Trials for those of us who want to write a novel?

Scenes in the Air

I'm sure you recognise the feeling.  You're reading something and after a bit you get this dislocated feeling as if you're floating somewhere.  The characters on the page are still talking to each other, but you're not quite sure where they are so you have to break off from reading to locate their whereabouts.  Then, having established where they are, you carry on.  

Or so the author hopes, because every time a reader has to stop and go back to check something, you risk losing them.  Writing creates an imaginary world that the reader becomes immersed in so completely that they begin to believe that the characters are real, not imaginary.  

The writer of the scene can picture it clearly in his or her head.  They can hear the dialogue, so they write that down, they know how their viewpoint character feels so that gets included too.  But they forget that the reader isn't there watching the scene in the way that the writer is, so they omit all the grounding details that create the scene.  Instead it floats in space.  

My first editor told me that the reader needs to be clearly told where and when a scene takes place - preferably in the first couple of lines of a scene, certainly within the first paragraph.  After all, why keep it secret?  Yes, it's good to show rather than tell, but there are somethings that really, it's easier/quicker/more sensible to simply tell.

Then the writer needs to add little reminders throughout of where the characters are - footsteps ringing out on the pavement, for example, or the honk of a bus, or smells wafting from a delightful cafe (or stagnant river).  

Not only do those reminders help to anchor the scene, but they can provide useful character info.  For example, in Kissing Mr Wrong, Briony and Lu are having a discussion about their respective relationships. That was originally a scene set in space (a lot of mine are, in the first draft).  When I came back to it for the next draft, I had them walk down Milsom Street in Bath (a real place) and go into a (real) department store so Briony can make a purchase.  While she's doing that, Lu tries on some make-up but doesn't buy anything because she can't afford it.  What they try, what they buy, both grounds the scene physically but also shows the characters' different situations. 

Trying to think of a final, closing para, it suddenly occurred to me - what about a scene actually set in space?  All that floating in blackness.  But then you'd have the stars around you, the crackle of the space suit mike, the sound of breathing, the lack of easy movement, the tug of the umbilical cord connecting you to the capsule/mother ship.  See - even scenes set in space don't need to be written in empty space.  

The Antidote to Character Data Sheets: Sarah's List of Stuff to Do

I roundly condemned the Character Data Sheets a couple of days ago, because they concentrated on superficial characteristics rather than character - the What not the Who.  

I believe that, in real life as in fiction, character is revealed through action so rather than a list of 'what was your first pet called' questions, here is a list of things that you could get your character to DO...aka Sarah's List of Stuff to Do.

Make your character…

- Wait at a bus stop, an airport, a station, for a job interview, for a doctor’s appointment

- Eat a meal…alone, with friends, with a lover, with a parent, in a restaurant, in a café, on a park bench, at the office, on a train

- Take a journey by car, lorry, taxi, train, bus, coach, bicycle, horse, jet, plane, boat, ferry, Take some exercise – aerobics, yoga, walk, tennis, golf, football

- Go out to the cinema, club, winebar alone or with friends

- Get a letter/parcel in the post, send an important letter

- Get stuck in traffic on the way to job interview, first date, meeting with lawyer

- Look for a new job in a newspaper, shop window, small ads, job centre

- Interact with an animal – stroke a cat, bitten by a hamster, walk the dog, kill a chicken

- Go to the library, buy a newspaper, do a tax return

- Prepare some food, clean the house, do some gardening

- Watch television, read a book, read a magazine

- Make something with fabric, wood, paper

- Go shopping for clothes for a camping trip, a school reunion, a week in Tuscany

- Phone someone up and complain about something, receive a phone call selling something

- Spend half an hour googling

- Write a diary, a short story, a letter to their best friend, a letter to a hero, a postcard to a lover, a Valentine’s day card

- Have a birthday alone, with friends, with family

Have fun! 

Technology and Me

I had rather a trying day yesterday, battling with computers and talking with my agent about ebook rights. I ended my final email with her with the heartfelt plea: I wish I didn't live in a digital world.

Which is actually nonsense. I love living in a digital world, I love my Macs, big and small, I love the iPad and I'm getting more attached to my Kindle. I love blogging and Twittering, although I'm not very good at doing the more promotional side of things, but I reckon that's OK. I'm trundling along at my own pace and

My brain has always done a bit of a freeze when confronted with anything too technical. My fault - I can't be bothered with it. I only discovered my car (after 5 years of ownership) had air conditioning when last month the garage offered to service the A/C for me. I said I didn't have A/C. There was a short pause. You do, they said. No, I don't, I replied full of confidence. They then showed me the button marked AC...

I am trying to be less swamplike but I recognised myself in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ (Not to imply that I look like a man in a habit and a tonsure, because I don't think I do.) Hope any other dinosaurs out there find it funny too.

Is There Such a Thing as Pointless Conversation?

My student daughter came into my room at the weekend, puzzled by a text conversation she was having with another girl, a sometime student on her course who she hadn't seen for 6 months. The conversation went something like this:

A - Hey, how are u? x

B - I'm good, how are u?

A - I'm fine. It's been ages. Hows everything going?

B - I'm at home, going up to London in a few days.

A - oh v nice. How is it in Bath then. Is the weather nice? Are u in London over the summer? I'm back home myself.

B - Yes the weather's lovely. I've got my room this summer, but I don't think I'll be living there. Have u still got your flat?

A - Yeah it's lovely here too. Hope it lasts. Nice. I moved out of my flat so not going back. Any plans over the summer, holidays or anything?

B - I'm not sure, will probably go somewhere but not sure when or where, how about u?

And at this point, B, my daughter, turned to me and said 'What IS this conversation about?'

I asked her what she meant. She said:

' You'd think she'd get to the point. Usually, I kind of start off with a bit of the point so it's hinted in the conversation what the point is, and then I move it through the conversation. You start with the point of why you're texting. Surely that's the question you'd ask - how's X, have you seen Y. She doesn't seem to want anything.' Daughter looks at phone in puzzled way. 'I mean, I don't think she wants anything except maybe to keep contact but I don't know what she wants. It's weird.'

In real life we don't have pointless conversations. Subconsciously we're making points, and we're on the alert for the points the other person is either making or hoping to make. When we can't see the point we think it's weird.

It's exactly the same with dialogue in fiction. When we can't see 'the point' of the dialogue we give up reading. Your characters should know what points they're making - it could be anything such as establishing a relationship, angling for information, working round to asking a favour. But there should be points to be made, and you as the writer should know what they are. Otherwise your readers will be looking at your dialogue and thinking...weird.

Character Data Sheets

I like going to creative writing workshops as a student, not a teacher, and I went to two last week, both run by editors. They were useful and informative, and I had two great days playing around in areas I don't normally touch - 1st person, present tense etc. But oh, how I gave an inward grimace when they both trotted out the character data sheet.

For those who don't know, a character data sheet is a list of things about a character - name, age, what they're wearing now, what they had for breakfast, what did they dream about last night, what is their favourite/least favourite food etc. Sometimes the questions are mundane - what sort of car do they drive - or quirky - if they were a piece of furniture, what would they be?

The data sheet was presented, and the writers dutifully scribbled their answers. Me too, although I think the character data sheet is one of the more pointless tasks for a writer to do. Why? I hear you cry. Lots of books/teachers insist that the character data sheet is an essential part of creating a character. To which I say: Phooey!

The answers are simply made up by the writer. They're not genuine reflections of a character, just where the writer's imagination lands them on the spur of the moment. Give anyone a data sheet, and they can come up with answers which can amuse/entertain/fill an awkward moment but they are superficial responses, ungrounded in anything real.

What makes a person real? How do you 'know' someone in real life? By what they had for breakfast? I think not, unless you truly believe that everyone who enjoyed a bowl of Cornflakes this morning has an identical personality. You know people by what they do. It's their actions that reveal character. So to start building a personality with made-up data is daft, in my opinion. Far better to write scenes that show them interacting with other people and things, and understand their personality through that.

So, why do they keep turning up in classes? Because it sounds logical. Know all the information about someone's life and you will 'know' them, except you don't, until you explore the reasons behind their choices - but the character data sheet doesn't go that far.

Secondly, I don't think it's coincidence that the people who seem most keen on data sheets are non-writers and beginners. Put it like this, getting a group of students to fill in a data sheet and then read them out cheerfully fills at least half an hour of teaching time - you could probably stretch it out to an hour at a push.

Thirdly, if you fill in a character data sheet you feel you've done something positive to promote your writing. OK, you haven't actually done any real writing, but the sheet was at least something....

I've never done a character data sheet for my writing. When I need to know what a character had for breakfast I make it up there, on the spot. The decision is based on what I know about the character's internal make-up - their hopes, their fears, their conflicts - all of which I've learned about through their actions and thoughts.

I can see that I'm laying myself open to an accusation that my characters aren't 'real' and that may be true. But I don't see how knowing what they had for breakfast would make any difference to that at all.

Over to you - is there anyone out there who'll defend the character data sheet as a means of discovering character?

Flashback and Backstory 2

I hopefully put you off Flashback yesterday, now it's Backstory's turn. To recap, Flashback is this:

In the morning Dolores stared at herself in the mirror. Last night it had all been so different. She'd walked into the bar and seen Emilio glowering at a table in the corner, so she'd gone over to him.

'Hello, Emilio,' she'd said.

Emilio looked up. 'Dolores! What are you doing here?'

'I came in looking for Juan - have you seen him?'

'No. Have you seen Conchita?'

'Not since this morning.' Dolores licked her lips. 'How about buying me a drink?'

etc etc etc until

Dolores shook her head. Thinking about last night wouldn't make any difference. She began to slowly, sadly peel her false eyelashes off.

And this is Backstory:

In the morning Dolores stared at herself in the mirror. Last night it had all been so different, so different from West Whimpering, the place she'd grown up in. She lived there for her earliest years. West Whimpering was a sleepy little town, and the inhabitants liked it that way, but Dolores had always yearned for something better. She finally left to go to the University of Watereddown to read History, but there she'd met Alberto and ended up in this one horse town. It was just like West Whimpering, but with rancheros, she thought, peeling off her false eyelashes.

Actually, I don't feel as strongly about Backstory as I do about Flashback. It does have its place, but that's rarely in the second paragraph of a short story, which is where it often pops up in my experience of student work. And then continues in the third paragraph, and the fourth. So, my concerns about backstory concern its location within a narrative and its length, and finally its relevance.

Right. Imagine you've just met someone at a party. Does the conversation go something like this....

'So, how do you know Emilio, Dolores?'

'Oh, through Alberto. What about you?'

'Through Alberto, too. It's strange that we've not met before. Tell me about yourself.'

'There's not much to tell. I live down the road and I work in accountancy. What about you?'

'How bizarre - I'm an accountant too. Which company do you work for?'

'Really? I work for Sneak, Grabbit and Fiddle.'

'You had the big tax fraud case - how did that go?'

etc etc etc

Or like this...

'So, how do you know Emilio, Dolores?'

'Oh, through Alberto. I was born in West Whimpering which is a sleepy little town, and got away the second I could to read accountancy at the University of Watereddown which is where I first met Alberto. We became friends, then lovers and then when I graduated - after a bit of a dodgy second year when I really questioned the purpose of double entry book keeping - we got married and I ended up here. Then we divorced after two tempestuous years, and I thought I never wanted to speak to him again but after a lot of water had passed under the bridge we started to see each other again and recover our friendship, so here I am! What about you?'

'I met Alberto first in 1985 I think it must have been. Our parents went to the same church and....'

etc etc etc

I hope your real life conversations follow the same pattern as the first exchange. In real life we give out little snippets of fact about ourselves as we get to know a person, we don't give whopping dollops of biography on first meeting. So why do it in fiction? So, the correct location for a chunk of backstory is going to be quite a way into a narrative, once we've got to know the characters a bit better.

The other thing about real life is that we give out our little snippets of biography on a need-to-know basis. The chances are there is stuff about your life that your closest friends don't know about you, for the simple reason that they haven't needed to know it so far. Exactly the same with fiction. Does the reader need to know Dolores went to the University of Watereddown? If the answer is yes, then put it in. If the answer is no, leave it out.

At which point a student says, yes, but we won't understand her character unless we know about her backstory, which show her motivations for behaving as she does. This is true, but often that's not what the backstory - as written in the narrative - is telling us. The mere fact of going to the University of Watereddown won't tell us much about her deep inner motivations, as presumably lots of people went to Watereddown and they aren't behaving like Dolores. Now, if someone who the reader has been led to believe is dim suddenly reveals they have a double first from Oxford, that becomes relevant.

(I'm thinking of that scene in The Graduate when Benjamin decides to have a conversation with Mrs Robinson, who reluctantly reveals that she went to university and did a history of art degree - I think it was history of art, it's ages since I've seen the film, it could have been English - which tells us lots about her boredom with life, and that she's only after sex with Benjamin not conversation, and in the process also reveals his immaturity.)

So before you put in some backstory, check that its in the right place - does the reader need to know it to continue understanding the narrative, check on the length - long chunks are as interesting as reading CVs, and finally check on the relevance - does this fact really tell us something about the character.