Make Me Worry MORE About Your Characters

When readers are truly worried about your characters, they keep turning the pages or watching the show. I've known that for a while, but I recently stumbled across a TV series that taught me something new.

Presenting a character's vulnerabilities on many levels compels people to stick with the story.

I've long known that concern for characters requires two things: People must empathize with the characters and the characters must be at risk. For the first, stories where a character does something noble (classically, saves a cat) are common, but there are other ways to build empathy. we empathize with wronged characters, with those who have an interesting talent, and with those who are funny, according to Damon Knight. There are other approaches, but, as a general rule, people want to empathize with the protagonist unless the actions and descriptions are boring or foul. You can't do anything about boring characters, but foul ones can be saved by adding positive traits.

For some authors, creating risks, dangers, and vulnerabilities is difficult. They are comfortable with exploring flaws, and they reflexively shy away from the chance that the characters could face real suffering. I found some success in counseling writers to focus on cravings as a way to include flaws. Suffering? Some people are too kindhearted, even though they'll admit that the challenges to a character are what promote growth and change (essential to most successful commercial fiction).

The show I came across was the original, Venezuelan version of The Cleaning Lady. In a half hour, the writers got me so agitated with concern about the protagonist I had to stand up and walk around to some my nerves. What they did was expose a series of vulnerabilities in the character. Her job is in jeopardy. Her boss is a soul-crushing bully. She has a critically ill son, and depends on a somewhat feckless mother to help care for him. Because she's so poor she has to work two jobs.

For her second job, she's employed by criminals. She witnesses a murder and is forced to destroy evidence. The detective in charge of the case is clever and suspects her as an accomplice right away. The criminals who hold both her employment and her life in their hands are messy and incompetent, inviting more attention from the law.

She's vulnerable in terms of family, safety, freedom, reputation, psychological health, and life. That's a lot to worry about. The attacks kept coming and the stakes shifted through a variety of possibilities… And I couldn't stop watching. I was reminded of Breaking Bad's pilot episode, where Walter White's health, family security, and dignity were all under assault. The pilot for My So-Called Life also exposes multiple vulnerabilities, even though it is a domestic drama with no focus on murders or criminal empires.

Cruising up and down Maslow's hierarchy, it's easy to say that life makes all of us vulnerable because we all have essential needs. The job of the writer is to create enough vulnerability to make a story compelling. So, if one vulnerability doesn't do it or doesn't create enough storylines, it's a good idea to add more. Personally, I went back to some of my stories and found some that already did a good job and others that immediately benefited from exploring more ways in which the protagonist could be made more vulnerable. Though I lean toward simplicity, my new rule of thumb is to see if presenting three or more vulnerabilities early in the story can make people (reasonably) worry more about my characters. (Shorter works don't usually need more than one vulnerability, so this is for longer works.)

Balancing all of this is the power the protagonist has. In an age of super heroes, it can be helpful to consider how reducing options and undermining the strengths of a character can make things more interesting. There is a reason why the creators of Superman invented kryptonite.

A Wealth of Emotions, and One That’s Special

The music of Ashokan Farewell moved me deeply when I watched Ken Burns’s Civil War years ago. Going sideways from friend’s post of the reservoir that lent it its name, I recently listened to the music with fresh ears. It churned up powerful emotions, undiminished by time. Yearning? Maybe. Regret? A hint of that. Nostalgia? A cousin of that, but richer and more authentic.

Since storytelling is underpinned by emotions, I dug deeper. I found 300+ Emotions and Feelings, a site that offers odd and familiar emotions, defined. I discovered some intriguing ones: 

Dépaysement (French): The disorienting feeling of being an outsider.

Duende (Spanish): The mysterious power we feel when a work of art deeply moves us.

Evighed (Danish): The felt eternity of the present moment.

As well as a couple that felt close:

Aware (Japanese): The bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty.

Wabi-sabi (Japanese): A state of acceptance of the imperfections in life and appreciating them as beautiful. Appreciating the flow of life.

The nearest match was this: Mono no aware (Japanese): An empathy toward impermanence of things and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.

Close enough. The definition cued, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, which gives me something of the mono no aware feeling, especially since George died. Have I experienced it outside of music? I think so. Dead Poets Society (ignoring the crowd-pleasing standing on the desks in the finale) gives me the feeling. Especially since Robin Williams died.

That led me to think about happy endings. I prefer them as a reader, an audience member, and a writer. I’ve stopped reading work from people I truly admire when they got too bleak. But this mono no aware is neither happy nor bleak. It isn’t quite tragedy (which is much too scarce in popular culture). It leans toward bittersweet.

The feeling is also persistent, surviving repeated experiences in music and stories. As much as I love The Wizard of Oz, I can’t watch it anymore because the joy at the end is just a shadow for me of what it once was. The same is true for the upbeat ending of Star Wars (A New Hope) and a dozen other former favorites. It would be an eccentric but wonderful triumph to write something with such a deep and lasting emotional impact.

Have I ever created the feeling in my work? A short story turned short script of mine, Waverly, came to mind. It was inspired by a scene that struck me deeply as a child. In the Van Johnson version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, the unpaid Piper lures the children away from town, through a crack he creates in the mountain (at about 1hr 7 min). One disabled boy can’t keep up with the others and, when the mountain closes, is left as the only child left in Hamelin. This level of exclusion resonated with me as a child.

Though I doubt I felt mono no aware as a small child, that’s what the memory created for me over time. I think, over the years, it was transformed into a sense of loss of the younger me. The feeling (I hope) is created in Waverly. Is it possible to provide a guide to creating the feeling in prose?

This is my attempt:

• The character must lose something.
• It must be precious. The loss must leave a mark.
• Time must pass, enough so the broken character can be remade.
• The character must understand that the loss brought a gain.
• While still holding onto the melancholy of deep loss, the character must be grateful for the time before the loss, the healing, and the ability to assimilate the truth revealed.

Of course, this pattern needs to be followed sincerely. The story needs to be personal in some way. I can’t imagine conveying this emotion with out feeling it. The prose must be impeccable, creating as few distractions as possible. That kind of writing requires a lot of rewriting, and here’s something surprising. The feeling is as resilient for the writer as it is for readers and audiences.

I’m hoping I’ll become more conscious of mono no aware in life and art. And, though I still have happy endings in my future, I’ll be making more room for this special emotion.

Characters Acting and Reacting

Someone told me that the best way to remember someone is to visualize them doing something. I found it to be extremely useful as I’ve tried to recall relatives and friends who are lost or no longer part of my life. Sometimes, I get images of a gradient gardening or a friend playing catch with me or a neighbor from years ago walking his dog. But at other times, my mind simply shows people turning to face me or breaking into a smile.

No matter how complex or simple such action is, there is often a release of places, events, distinctive mannerisms, and even hearing words spoken. I use such memory mining to open up my past and deliver moments for my own amusement or to provide models for characters and situations in my stories. The process can work in reverse, too, as I conjure up scenes and am reminded of real events that have parallels.

Now, when I am deliberately creating or exploring characters, my primary approach is to interview the characters. But it's amazing how often visualizing them acting (or reacting) pays off in ways I don't expect.

Obviously, watching a character as he or she participates in the scene both provides material for what transpires and deepens my understanding of who he or she is. That's analogous to see my neighbor walk his dog. The problem is, with something that's imagined, it's necessary to look closer. 

It is amazingly easy for someone who has read a lot of books or watched a lot of television or movies to grab clichés for character action. It takes some discipline to make every scene original, even though it may feel new within the context of a story that's being composed. One of the most powerful questions to ask when a character is in motion is, have I seen this before?

It's easy to assume the details, too. Remembering something that's experienced will make unusual details stand out. Imagining those specifics can be more challenging in fiction. (One reason I like writing fantasy and science fiction is, to do it well, even the most mundane elements need to be re-examined.)

When a character is visualized turning toward me or breaking into a smile, those actions are so common, originality becomes essential to cueing the mental cascade of mannerisms, places, sounds, etc. that I get with real memories. That means there is an automatic check against drifting into clichés. The question I use when asking a character to look at me or smile is, but what’s new and authentic here?

Of course, character can come across under pressure. That's how I usually apply my questions, and it works with actions and reactions as well. Forcing an innocent character to shoplift or an evil one to share a bag lunch or almost anyone to walk through the woods at night without a flashlight can bring out quirks and flaws and hidden virtues that otherwise might go undiscovered.

More and more, I've found that characters in combination expose a lot of who they are (even if there shielding their vulnerabilities with dishonesty). But, just as actions that commonly show up in stories need to be challenged, action/reaction moments can't be accepted as they first appear in my imagination. 

There have been times when I have needed to rerun scenarios a dozen times before they felt fresh. Two characters digging a grave together might go full Sopranos cliché on me, while the action/reaction of the same two characters digging a garden might provide surprises. (This scene from All in the Family is my favorite example of two characters revealing themselves through a mundane action.) Of course, if the grave digging is under extreme stress, say with two teenagers who are strangers to each other burying the body of someone one of them accidentally killed, it could get interesting quickly.

With actions/reactions, you don't have to use two characters from the same story. You actually can introduce a stranger or a real person or a character from someone else's work. (Reminder — don't include recognizable real people or characters under copyright in your stories.) Creating such scenes may open amazing and unanticipated images and ideas.

Giving your full attention to any scenes with characters acting and reacting provides real value even if the scenes don't end up in your stories. Most people come to fiction for good characters, and creating full and authentic characters requires a real investment in the process. But there is a dividend beyond audience approval. As these characters come to life for you, the storytelling will become easier and a lot more fun.

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I'm teaching an online course, exploring The Promise of the Premise, beginning March 7.

 

Inviting Readers into Your Stories

I write to accommodate my audiences. With nonfiction, that has been varied, from six-graders to PhDs. From salespeople to poets. From accountants to Disney Imagineers. And, of course, I address a lot of very different audiences with my fiction.

If you don’t set the tone, the vocabulary, pacing, and the interests areas correctly, people may still pay attention, but they’ll have barriers. They will be spectators more than participants. They won’t feel invited in.

I expect everyone feels that way at times. A lot of academic work pushes me to the side, and a big piece of my education (formal and informal) has been learning to expand the circle in which I feel comfortable. Today, I calibrate myself to reading. It takes a few pages for me to get past the language and be immersed in Shakespeare. I need a running start for Brecht, too. 

I’ve learned to move myself past the artificiality of screenplays, so much so that I’ve had to be reminded that they are “white noise” for some readers. (Although someone as brilliant as Frank Darabont, who wrote the screenplay for The Shawshank Redemption, may draw in readers with his elegant style.)

The point is that while we may be able to participate in many areas as readers, it’s important to lower the barriers and invite in those we hope with be audiences for our writing. That means first and foremost knowing who you are writing for. 

For speeches, I always talk to the sponsor asking what was the worst speech to this audience. Then I ask what was the best. But my go-to for all of my writing, I imagine a specific person I’m writing to. (I can always name the person who’s my first audience.) That sets the initial tone, vocabulary, pacing, and interest areas because I can easily imagine reactions along the way.

It takes some doing. Practice, especially storytelling and reading work aloud to people may help if it doesn’t come naturally.

Easier, and often neglected, is what the text looks like on a page. Screenwriters know this, and there are many articles about “white space” and balancing description/action with dialogue. Many novelists consciously break work up with short passages of dialogue (often in rewrites) so readers aren’t faced with a dense page of text.

I can remember coming across a short story I was excited to read because it was by one of my favorite authors, a lyrical stylist who appealed to my ear as much as my head. But not, for this story, my eye. His paragraphs were four or five times longer than for his typical stories, and I labored through the work the first time through. It was only later I realized he’d made it difficult on purpose because the protagonist was suffering in prison.

There are good reasons for making stories uninviting. Showing mania and obsession, especially when in builds, is just one. Often, incantation, rhythm, repetition, and all sorts of poetic approaches can make dense prose engaging and pull even reluctant readers in as surely as I know Shakespeare will grab me.

However, if you don’t have a specific purpose for making your work uninviting for your readers, it’s probably better to serve them in rewrites that simplify reading. That means making paragraphs one topic each and less than a standards (Times New Roman, 12 point, double-spaced) page. It means avoiding sentences that take on too many ideas and run beyond two independent clauses. (Generally, vary length and keep under 40 words.) Break the page up with dialogue, and ration the monologues. Dialogue is inviting when, by just looking at the pages, you can see the back and forth than implies purpose and conflict rather than exposition.

Parallel construction can provide relief because it suggests comparison. Description, going from big to small (neighborhood, house, kitchen) or general to specific (soldiers, officers, General Patton) also help readers. (Going from small to big and specific to general can work, too.) For a character, balancing experience with reflection provides a good way to get readers to identify.

And for all of these, break things up were it makes sense.

One more thing. Be cautious with the omniscient narrator. As much as I love this point of view in literature, it tends to be distancing and difficult to do well. When in doubt, use third person limited (unless you’re writing young adult fiction, which often uses first person).

Action and dialogue for individual characters can be combined in paragraphs (reducing the need for he/she said) successfully. And there are games that can be played with punctuation (m dashes, ellipses, and italics). 

Good contemporary writers come up with a lot of devices, and it’s becoming more common to see Texting in stories. I haven’t seen anyone recreate Zoom calls in stories, but I supposes someone has. This is new, but not breakthrough. The use of quotes and artifacts (like descriptions of video and clips from newspapers) have been used a long time in stories. 

You are not limited, but you are responsible for those you invite into your stories. (Or choose to discourage.)

Creating Quirky Characters for Your Stories

My mind is populated by less by the heroes of stories and more by the quirky characters who add color, humor, and strangeness. Dickens was my on-ramp to these weirdos, and his work provides many examples, from the obsequious and ‘umble Uriah Heep to the implacable Madame Defarge to the unmoored Miss Haversham to the garrulous Alfred Jingle.

Those kind of high-relief characters often provide a lot of the fun, but also pathos. I think of the Weasley twins in Harry Potter whose pranks provide relief, but who are deeper than their jokes. (The Weasley family has always reminded me of the Cratchit family, but more fun.) From dramas like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to sitcoms (I think of Taxi), quirky characters provide essential ingredients.

What defines a quirky character? The answers are infinite, so I’ll offer a few common examples:

• They may be people with obsessions or cravings they can’t control, but it’s often in a small way (a pickpocket, not a bank robber). If they are aggressive, they rarely actually hurt anyone other than themselves.
• A fish out of water is quirky because their habits, customs, and appearances are out of place. Think Crocodile Dundee.
• There are delusional characters who imagine they are Lotharios or geniuses when they aren’t. In fact, people with false beliefs undermine their own best interests (pursuing imaginary, impossible goals or avoiding opportunities because of superstitions).
• Many are damaged and can’t move on from the harm. Often these, unlike most quirky characters, have out-sized power. On a lesser scale, they could be cowards or fools or gossips.
• Some create a deceit about themselves they believe is invisible to others (and it isn’t) or are successfully deceptive (making many of their choices inexplicable until the secret is revealed.
• Characters like Sherlock Holmes and Raymond Babbitt (Rain Man) are neurodiverse and face challenges in trying to fit in.
• The list goes on. Oddballs and pests. Characters who need protection and others who charge in at the worst moments. Schlemiels and schlimazels.

Almost all comedies include quirky characters since one quality of most comedies is putting the audience in a superior position. Quirky characters have been created (and looked down on) in a deliberate way at least as far back as the creation of the commedia dell'arte characters about 500 years ago. But beyond humor, quirks and quirky characters may be used to:

• create obstacles for the protagonist (Charlie Babbitt)
• present an inclusive environment (think of depressive Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh)
• illustrate the consequences of bad choices and, perhaps, forgiveness (Ralph Kramden)
• challenge societal norms (The Little Tramp, Forrest Gump)
• humanize a hero (snake-phobic Indiana Jones)
• break rhythms and patterns in a story (characters who have panic attacks or get completely distracted at inconvenient moments)
• create immovable objects (let the wookie win)

An easy way to create an oddball character is to use what’s above to build a character who’s quirky (or modify one you have who isn’t). Or you can recall people you’ve met or know now who are eccentric and amplify their weirdness. Nowadays, mine tend to appear within stories as I write them (so recognizing them has value). And since interviewing characters is part of my development process, they often give themselves away to me when they provide unexpected answers.

I think of that quote “we all have that one friend.” I think it’s true, and, whether they are endearing or exasperating or both, they are memorable. So writers who include quirky characters do more than generate more plot options, they also create the possibility of making their stories memorable.

Justice in Storytelling

We have a deep sense of fairness. It's in our genes. Even monkeys, if they see that another monkey is getting paid in grapes while they are getting paid in cucumber bits, will go on strike.

Obviously, the search for justice is almost always involved in legal dramas. Police dramas can be more complicated, especially if there's a level of corruption. (Though even something as straightforward as The Fugitive has the memorable exchange, "I didn't kill my wife." "I don't care.") Playing fair as usually a big component of sports dramas. Tragedies often turn on a lack of fairness because of unjust systems (especially with social dramas). A major part of romances is the so-called "grand gesture."

A grand gesture has a specific structure. First, it needs to come from the character who goes through the most change (usually, the man in a romance). Second, it has to involve a level of admission of a flaw and a real sacrifice. Third, grand gestures and romances often take place in a public setting.

If all of those elements are present in a grand gesture, it's usually satisfying. Justice is served. We don't have to accept cucumber bits.

There are interesting correlations between the grand gesture and the Catholic form of confession. A "good confession" requires reflection, sorrow, admission of culpability, penance (which is usually prescribed prayer, but may include reparations for a sin like theft), and forgiveness.

I think romance readers often provide most of the reflection on a flaw than the character making the grand gesture does. Much of this is set up by the author, of course. The sorrow is evident in the price being paid — the character losing the love of his/her life, seemingly forever.

The admission is usually an explicit part of the grand gesture, along with an apology. Unless and less there is a symbolic element (which may be the character, say, wearing a costume that implies admission and apology), the culpability and regret are expressed explicitly. When/where the sacrifice is may vary in a grand gesture. Sometimes it's seen in letting go of a reward that's within the characters grasp. Other times, it's the run through the airport or battling guards to reach the character’s true love. And, in romances, there will be enough forgiveness to allow a happy ending.

There may be something else as well – humiliation. In Jerry Maguire, Jerry's statement is presented in front of a group of women whose main purpose seems to be discussing the foibles of men. Jerry is the only man there, and the crowd is decidedly unsympathetic to begin with. He needs to face their anger and disdain, and it's undoubtedly a humiliating experience. (But, hey, it's Tom Cruise.)

In romance, there's usually healing as well, with a better path evident (and often shown a scene or two later). We tend to hope for healing in justice, but it's not always part of the deal. Few police procedurals carried the story through to a reintegration of the criminal into the larger society. Punishment is enough.

But back to humiliation. It's a kind of punishment that is so often part of stories that the phrase "creative humiliation of the villain" has become a maxim in advice to storytellers. This is especially true in stories where there's a big difference in power. Bring down someone who is in authority (and using it unfairly) or who is not living up to an exalted reputation, and punishment or healing may not be enough. We want something equivalent to a perp walk, preferably including manacles.

To me, this goes too far in some stories. The more the villain's humanity is taken away, the more simplistic the story becomes. Often, true justice can be undercut when a character is dehumanized.

Revenge fantasies not only indulge in this brutalization of the character, they require it. Whatever the villain has done, that he/she is unforgivable. Everything must be taken away from him/her. The death must be gruesome. The bad guy must be unmourned. There is no necessity for healing, and justice is beside the point.

We all want justice. Some want revenge. So it's good to know who your audience is as you work toward a satisfying ending. Personally, I lean toward stories that have justice and healing, and I assess my drafts by looking at the elements above that can satisfy the urge for justice without undercutting the humanity of villains. With that said, many big, popular successes sacrifice justice in the name of getting even and ending with a bang.

Sharpen Your Stories by Exploring What Characters Fear

Guidance on storytelling almost always includes a focus on goals. On the secondary level, wants and needs are explored. But fear is often ignored, even though it offers opportunities for understanding values, doubts, "bad" choices, unlikely alliances, and even humor.

On the last, anyone who is obsessed with movies (as I am) knows that Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. This fear humanizes him, making him less of a super man. It's funny when a man who faces outrageous odds and isn't fazed panics in the presence of snakes. But that fear is also used to demonstrate a kind of Hemingway-esque courage when he faces down a room full of snakes in an Egyptian tomb.

Fear can also be used to explain bad decisions. My favorite is in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where Sundance isn't afraid of an impossible cliff dive because of the height. He's afraid and refuses because he can't swim.

Many stories turn on unlikely alliances between people who need to cooperate to avoid otherwise certain death. Their motivation doesn't even need to be explained. And this is true for many other fears that are strong and most of us, such as fear of humiliation or abandonment/expulsion (or even being rejected by a clique).

Because all this comes so naturally, it's understandable that fear isn't featured by some story gurus. But I found that fear has a real advantage in solving one of the problems I often face when teaching. People just don't want to identify flaws in their protagonists. Some say any real flaws (like the Seven Deadly Sins) make their protagonists unlikable — despite recognizing that many of their favorite characters in fiction have such flaws.

On another level, I suspect that some writers identify so deeply with their protagonists they feel personally threatened by any exploration of weaknesses. And here's where fears have a real advantage. It's a lot easier for most people to talk about protagonists's fears than their flaws. Why? It may be that admitting fears doesn't challenge core beliefs. It's easier to admit to fearing poverty than it is to acknowledge a tendency towards greed. In the musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Molly says, "it's not the money I love, it's the not having it I hate."

Exploring fear allows discovering a deeper understanding of flaws from a safe distance. (Of course, fear of snakes, spiders, heights, flying, etc. provides even more distance from the real vulnerabilities in a character or a writer.)

How do you do this? Identifying fears is easy enough. There are plenty of lists online of phobias or you can find them from your own experience or just think of some favorite characters and what they fear. For your story, it's important to have a sense of how that fear fits in. The second Indiana Jones movie shows the origin of Indy's fear of snakes, and that can be useful. 

Poverty, trauma, losing a parent, and more will tend to both provide deep (and even irrational) fears and suggest a larger context that fills out the character. And many fears simply match the circumstances of the character. A small, relatively weak character is more likely to fear bullies than a large powerful character would.

So, finding of fear, making sure it's appropriate to the character, making sure there is a context and perhaps a back story provides a good basis for the next step — writing a scene where the fear is active. This can involve the character avoiding the fear or overcoming the fear, but it's helpful if the character is able to form a strategy to deal with the situation.

Also, it’s tremendously valuable to include the emotional and physiological reactions to the fear. Many people get angry when they are afraid. Others get quiet and retreat within themselves. Some run away and some attack. Some gain power in some lose it. Swearing, sweating, laughing, blaming, getting inventive, and pleading for help are all human reactions to fear. How does your character react? And by writing the scene, rather than just listing bullet points, a lot can be learned that feeds into other scenes.

Living through the fear with the character's amazingly powerful tool. So, even if the "fear scene" doesn't belong in the story, it's worth the trouble to create it.

It can be worthwhile to test the fear in a number of ways. People will respond to a fear and reveal themselves differently when they are alone or when they are with friends or when they are among enemies or strangers. They'll respond differently to a threat when they know it's coming from the way they'll react when the thing they fear most comes out of nowhere. (Comic relief is often used to manipulate the fear of audiences by getting them to put their guard down. Think of how often something funny happens before a big scare in a horror movie.)

Stakes also make a difference. People will face tremendous fears to do something attached to the principles or people that mean the most to them. I suspect most people would sacrifice themselves for the children, for instance. And history is filled with tales of courageous soldiers who gave their lives for their peers or their country and with martyrs to die for the sake of their faith.

I have not exhausted all possibilities, story-wise , that come from exploring the fears of characters. My hope is that some of the examples I've offered will open some doors that will add richness to what you're writing.

Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. . . . Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present.

                                                                                                                            Machiavelli