Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover… Or a TV Series by the Movie

Three of the main characters, courtesy of robot6.comicbookresources.com

Alright folks, confession time. This summer, I watched all 54 episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix. I know, it’s a cartoon heavily influenced by anime that has a target age of 8-10. But surprisingly, I didn’t hear of it from a child. I heard about this series from teens/adults my age. I thought it sounded lame at first, but when I actually watched the first episode, I was instantly hooked. And not necessarily by the story, the humor, or the animation, but by the characters.

My brother and I bond through watching movies and playing games, so we sat together developing inside jokes from quotes and coming up with scenarios like, “If I were a bender…” When we had finally finished the series, we found that the new live action movie was on instant play. I had heard nothing but negative remarks about it, but we decided to watch it anyway, just to keep the fun going.

Needless to say, we got about 5 minutes into the movie and completely hated it. It was nothing like the TV series. Why? Not because the story was all that different, but because the characters were completely flat. There was none of the humor of the series, none of the depth that the series held. I didn’t bond with the lifeless movie versions in an instant like I had while watching the series.

The point of this confession of my childish tendencies? A story that has a good plot will only keep you afloat for about 5 minutes. A plot needs to be character driven. I’ve heard numerous times that there are only so many kinds of conflict: Man vs. nature, Man vs. man, and Man vs. self. But in all of these, it is the Man that makes the story and creates the conflict. Without a heart, the reader cannot identify with Man.

I once had a story with a great plot. Everyone I showed it to was so excited about it and wanted to know what happened next. The problem? I ended up hating the entire book because the heroine and hero I had created were basically perfect. He never lost his suave coolness, and she was always brave. Only, she cried when she was upset, and he had a tendency to fall into bouts of depression. Your characters need to have problems like the rest of us; a good plot won’t keep you afloat for long.

Keep these things in mind when you come up with a great plot that needs a cast of characters:

1. Who will be the focus of the action? The conflict must happen to someone in particular, even if the conflict occurs on a large scale (like to a nation)
2. What is this person’s past? You should know more about your main character than needs to be said. Maybe she hit her head when she was four and after stitches, she had a bald spot that haunted her for years to come. Maybe he really doesn’t like to play basketball. The reader doesn’t need to know all of this, but you do. Why? Because of point 3.
3. How will your character react to the conflict you introduce? You need to know your character inside and out because if you don’t, you won’t be able to realistically predict how they would act to everything you will throw their way. And if it doesn’t seem in character for them to act a certain way, but you make them do it anyway, the reader will be able to tell, and your cardboard cutout will fall over in despair.

I’m not saying that you will know everything about a character before the story starts; I often let my characters tell me about themselves as the story progresses, then I go back and rewrite the story based upon how I know they would react. Your characters can be your friends, if you’d let them speak instead of babbling for them. But no one would want to live in a world of mirages that disappear when you try to touch them. Don’t make one for your readers and expect them to enjoy it.

Perceptions of Beauty

I got together with an amazingly wonderful group of girls this past week, and I am always blown away by the deep and interesting topics these ladies bring up. We were sitting in the middle of a Victorian-themed party, giggling over teacups and dainty snacks, talking about how thankful we were that we didn’t have to wear long dresses in the hot summer months, let alone corsets that probably would have made us all pass out

Why is our perception of beauty so distorted? Photo from news.softpedia.com

before we had finished laughing. Then came the subject of beauty and how humans view beauty. This made me think of the Dove Evolution video, a 1-minute clip in which they airbrush and makeup a lady so much that the end product–which ends up on a billboard–doesn’t look remotely the same as the original woman. This also tied into another frightening thought: What won’t women do to be seen as beautiful? For instance, we mentioned foot binding in Asian countries, neck rings in Africa, and in my mind, I eventually connected the topic to anorexia in the US.

All this to say: We as a culture have ideals of what beauty is. Should characters reflect this? I think that more often than not, a perfectly beautiful protagonist is boring. She doesn’t have insecurities about her nose, she doesn’t compulsively check her complexion in every mirror or window she passes, and she definitely is not lacking in attentions from the opposite gender. And it does seem to matter how mentally-absent she is or that her personality is more limp than a dead fish; she always ends up with the guy. Why is that? I do believe that every girl is beautiful, but then why do I gravitate toward societal norms as to what a beautiful girl “should” look like? I don’t want to write clichés, so why do I still cling to this? What is the best way to escape it?

Do “plain” protagonists attract your attention more? Do you tend to be attracted to looks or personality? Have you ever tried playing with a protagonist (or a good supporting/minor character) who truly was just revoltingly disgusting? Share some experiences!

Why Do You Write?

What do you want to write? A romance, a thriller, a day-in-the-life? Will your protagonist be an overweight, middle-aged woman who works at a hospice house but just wants to be a dancer? A bodybuilder who wishes he didn’t choke his girlfriend with his bicep every time he puts his arm around her shoulders?

Photo copyrighted by James Darell, taken from http://www.visualphotos.com

Plot and character details are necessary to know, but I feel that there are a couple other things that you should know first:

1. Why do you want to write this story? Which story has caught hold of your heart, swallowed it into a Venus flytrap, and won’t let it go? Does it hold special significance for you? If the story doesn’t hold a place in your heart, it will be difficult for the reader to hold it in theirs. Normally people write because they have a story to tell, a lesson to teach, a word to say. What burns within you to be spoken?
2. What are your motivations? If you’re writing for the sole purpose of becoming published/famous/rich, you might want to rethink this whole author thing. I’m not saying that you can’t dream for those things when you write; they just shouldn’t be the basis for your writing. Write because you love it! Putting a story into written words is a beautiful experience, and if you care more for the ends than the means, chances are you won’t enjoy the ride or get the results you’re looking for.
3. Do you know your story? We’re always told to write what we know. Sometimes that means from research, but I also know that stories turn out better when writing from personal experience, or from emotions that could be applied to a similar situation. Don’t try to write about being a surfer if you’ve lived inKansas your entire life and never visited the beach.  

I write because I love it. I write because I want to share it. I write because I want my readers to see what I see, hear what I hear.

Why do you write what you write?

How Anticlimactic! Bin Laden and Character Motivation

Bin Laden. Photo from http://www.abc.net.

The news has been heard round the world; Osama Bin Laden is dead. One of the things that I noticed was that it all seemed somewhat…well, anticlimactic. I doubt that anyone who doesn’t check the FBI’s Most Wanted List on a regular basis even thought about Bin Laden the week before the news leaked.

So what does this mean for us as writers? Characters need motivation, a driving idea that overshadows what they say and do. Without a goal (revenge, love, money), a character will seem like a cardboard cutout—not quite as thin as paper, but flimsy all the same. Once you have given a main character a goal, how do you help them to achieve this climax, the apex of all their striving, without it deflating like a nuked marshmallow Peep?

I’ve noticed this often in my own work; I’ll write a scene ahead of time where my protagonist “wins.” And it sounds great. But when I try to plug it into the story, if I have let my characters live instead of dictating them, this scene may not work effectively anymore. How to avoid this?

Name: Montoya, Inigo. Motivation: Revenge. Purpose: Now? Meh... pirate? Photo courtesy of http://www.mandypatinkin.net

1.) Don’t fence in your characters. They need room to breathe and grow. And by the end of it, their desires might have changed and achieving their goal may not even be wanted anymore, much less climactic.

2.) Don’t let the reader forget about the goal. Don’t overdo it either, but if your protagonist is going to fulfill this desire, make sure it burns in the mind of the reader as deeply as it does in the heart of your character.

3.) Make sure the character has a new motivation for living. Unless you want to show how revenge (or anything else, for that matter) can consume a person until they lose all purpose besides completing their goal, devise a new dream for them to chase. Otherwise they will end up pretty pathetic, and even if the climax was great, this ending will disappoint.

Have you noticed this, either in Bin Laden’s case or in writing? How do you avoid dead-fish climaxes?

Profanity: Does it have its uses?

Photo taken from http://www.kingsspeech.com

I went out for lunch and coffee with some close friends today, and the topic of movies came up on the drive. We first started out talking about how this year was kind of the Year of Animated Film, coming with some of our new favorites including “Toy Story 3,” “Tangled,” and “How to Train your Dragon.” Then we started talking about movies we hadn’t seen yet. Take “The King’s Speech,” for example. It was rated the best film of 2010, but it was also rated R, nearly entirely for profanity. We happened to bring up how we didn’t think that it deserved that rating, seeing as lots of other films rated PG-13 often showed content that was much worse and shouldn’t even be watched by adult audiences. Then I started thinking about some books that I’ve read where I can tell that a character, had (s)he been in a film, should have sworn, just due to continuity of character. That’s when I can really tell when an author is censoring his/her work.

As of right now, I have not been able to make any of my characters swear. I know these words would never come out of my own mouth, so I can’t make them come out of my own creations. Usually, when I reach that point where I know a character would swear, I stop. But I don’t want to hinder my characters by censoring them completely.

So what do you think about profanity in literature? I don’t believe that when an author writes a character as swearing that it means that the author is condoning the use of profanity; I think that swearing can be used as an effective tool to build character. When used in moderation, is a swear word more shocking to a reader than the overused (s)he-spouted-off-a-stream-of-expletives-that-would-make-a-sailor’s-ears-burn type sentence? Is it appropriate for characters to swear in stories by Christian authors? Even big-name Christian authors have gotten a lot of flack for this type of thing; have you run across anything like this?

Japan: 1 month ago

Japan: 1 month ago. Tokyo was in a state of calm… at least, that’s the way it seemed to me. I was eating at a sushi restaurant in the Ginza area of Tokyo with a group of friends and fellow students when the earthquake hit. We all rushed outside at the waiter’s motioning as others crawled under tables. Buildings were swaying, as were the power lines above us. I grabbed the girls around me as our professor began to pray out loud. And yet I was not afraid. Up to the moment that my professor said, “In Jesus’s name we pray…” and the quake began to settle, I still hadn’t realized what we had just survived.

All this to say that we lived through the biggest earthquake in Japan’s history and made it home unscathed, if a few days late.

I’m not sure how many of you would consider this a miracle. We weren’t in reach of the tsunami, and while not a lot of damage occurred in our area, I still thank God for His protection. We made it home safely, if a bit… well, shaken.

The point I’m trying to make out of this? Perhaps just to say that miracles can happen. Coincidence is a word that sometimes just doesn’t cut it. Do your characters deserve a miracle every once in a while? I’m not saying that you should make that a go-to option whenever your character is in a fix. Then even miracles would become commonplace and even expected. We don’t want deus ex machina here. But don’t be afraid to incorporate one if you think it would prove a point. Miracles happen. I should know.

In other news, please pray for Japan. The nation is in a state of recovery now, but with new earthquakes and aftershocks, radiation and unrest, it’s going to take a long time for it to heal. Their people are strong, but lost. Check for pictures here, courtesy of The Atlantic.

Dabbling in Grey

Portrait of Dorian Gray. Cute, I know. Photo from inthegoldroom.com

I would really like to discuss the idea of characters that are dabblers, hiding in the grey area between good and evil.  I think this type of character would be pretty self-seeking, focused mostly in personal gain or even just enjoyment.  He/she would almost have to retain no sense of loyalty, since their motivations may lead them to do something which halts the advance of the hero.  As a result, either that character would have to have to be completely amoral (i.e. not knowing the difference between good and evil) or they would live a life of complete regret and irrevocable guilt.  And yet they would need to have some sort of reward in order for this lifestyle to persist.  We have also heard of characters with the opposite effect, who seem to be mainly evil but feel remorse, or a loved one shows them the error of their ways.

So are characters of this sort possible?  The closest I’ve ever come to finding such a character is in Ted Dekker’s lesser known young adult series, the Lost Books.  In the last two novels, the reader is introduced to Shaeda, a very powerful and mysterious creature whose intentions are uncertain and her loyalties questionable.  While she does help the hero, Johnis, in some few regards, she also has him act against his character and will.  While this may seem like an evil character, yet she wants to ensure that power is not given to the Horde, a group of disgusting, diseased people and the main source of conflict within the series.  So while Shaeda does want to take power from the Horde, she also works to take people’s minds captive in order to fulfill that goal.  Is she entirely evil?  Debatable.  Is she entirely good?  I think not.  Is she at once intriguing and yet annoying?  Indubitably.  Do I want to write one?  You betcha.  Am I currently working on one? …Definitely possible.

The Marble Face of Perfection

Michelangelo's David. Photo courtesy of gimundo.com

When I think about fantasy fiction, many times I am obliged to contemplate why I like to read it, write it, immerse myself in it.  I love the feeling of being able to escape from reality.  An alternate world offers me the ability to go places that I could not visit in real life; the fantastic can happen while seeming nearly commonplace, and for just a while, we are able to lose ourselves in another person’s troubles, completely forgetting our own.  On the other hand, this leads into another facet of the gem that is fantasy fiction.  As readers, we tend to attach ourselves to a certain character that is either most like us in personality, or—as is often the case in fantasy—the person we wish we could be the most like.  I find that fantasy fiction just becomes an idealist’s version of the world (s)he wishes we all lived in.  Good is good, bad is bad; black and white are the only two colors on the moral spectrum.  And this is quite appealing to those of us who are often struck by how awful our world can be.  But when I come back through the wardrobe, so to speak, I always seem to have withdrawals—I miss the pristine world where everything is clean-cut ethically.  I get depressed about the state of our world. 

Is this the way fantasy should be written?  I can long to be perfect as much as I want, but I can never always make the right decisions.  I make mistakes; my characters should be no different, unless I am writing about a porcelain doll on a shelf instead of a person.  And perfect characters are annoying.  He might be the perfect hero, but if he’s untouchable, he won’t mean a thing to me. 

So what can be done to breathe life into the marble statues of characters in fantasy fiction?  Physical imperfections?  Emotional/psychological weaknesses?  Putting them out of their element and watching them flounder?  Facing them with an unanswerable dilemma?  What hooks you about characters and stories?