How I Write A Critique

The Critique

To recap: There are two parts or stages to writing a critique. The first part—what I’ve been talking about the past few posts (see here, here and here)—is all about studying it, reading it critically.

Today I’m going to concentrate on taking the information we’ve collected through a critical reading of the story and arranging it, writing it up and presenting our views, our opinions, to the writer.

After I finish taking all these notes, after I finish asking myself all these questions about the text I’m reading, I’ll end up with rather a long document. I do not pass along all this information along to the writer! For one thing, it would overwhelm them.

The Audience for a Critique

Let’s step back a moment and talk about the tone of a critique. 

When writing a critique, I think it’s important to ask oneself the question: What sort of a story is this and, given this, what sort of critique would the author appreciate?

In a way, critiquing is no different than any other kind of writing, it’s just that with a critique your audience has been whittled down to one. In this sense a critique is very personal. It is like a letter, a passing of thoughts and feelings between two people.

One thing I attempt to always keep in mind is that, really, I (as the critiquer) have it easy in this exchange. I’m not exposed. It’s the writer who has, metaphorically speaking, just stripped themselves naked.

In this sort of situation the writer is often going to be sensitive—especially if they’re new or if this is your first time critiquing their work. (Often it is helpful if you can chat with the writer beforehand and find out what kind of critique they are looking for.)

Critique vs Review

One thing I want to make clear from the outset is that a critique—at least, how I use the term—is a very different creature from a review.

A review, first of all, is primarily for potential readers of the story. A critique, as I’ve said above, is only for one person: the writer of the story.

Although a review may be read by the author of the work in question, it isn’t written for the author, it is written for folks who are wondering whether they would enjoy reading the story. As such, the reviewer has a responsibility to—if I may put it like this—call it as they see it. They have zero obligation to think of the authors feelings. 

In what follows I’m writing about a critique, not a review. I’m going to focus on writing a critique a writer would like to get. Such a critique, IMHO, is tactful and presents both praise and criticisms as opinions as opposed to the universal voice of truth. After all, the only way one’s observations will do the writer any good is if they are accepted, and no one is likely to accept a truth offered in an insulting manner. 

Okay, enough preliminaries!

The Anatomy of a Critique

Just as there is no right way to write a story there is no one right way to write a critique. What I’m going to share with you is how I do things. That said, I haven’t yet gotten into any fist-fights with writers. So! Onward.

Begin with a general impression.

It depends upon the depth of my critique, but I’ll usually (critically) read the story through once and then open with an overall, general, impression. If, overall, I loved the story—if I thought it was a good read—I’ll tell the writer this. 

Even if the story wasn’t to my liking, I’ll find something positive to say. Perhaps I liked the dialogue of one (or more) of the characters, perhaps one of the descriptions was particularly vivid, perhaps one or more of the try-fail cycles were clever. Perhaps I liked how the stakes built throughout the story. Perhaps I liked the overall structure of the story. Perhaps I found one or more of the characters interesting. 

(Of course liking is not required when it comes to characters. For instance, I thought Andrew Scott’s portrayal of Moriarty on the TV series “Sherlock” was wonderful. Brilliant! But I didn’t like the character.)

For myself, when I can’t find anything laudatory about a story after a first pass, I look deeper. There’s always something, even if it is simply the writer’s enthusiasm. That said—and this has never yet happened—if I really can find nothing to put in the “I liked this!” column, I wouldn’t send the writer my critique.

The Body of a Critique

As I said, I’ll begin the critique with my general, overall, take on the story. I’ll begin by drawing attention to something I liked and then give a succinct one line summary of how I felt about the story as a whole. After that I’ll present a ...

Line by Line Critique

As I read through the story I’ll comment on parts I thought were exceptionally well done or, depending on the genre, I’ll mention what a certain clue makes me think about how the story will turn out. It depends on how in-depth the critique is going to be. If a friend wants a quick evaluation and his/her manuscript is pretty clean (no awkward bits, etc.), I’ll often skip this step.

I will also flag any text that struck me as awkward. If I didn’t understand something because the sentence was mangled or because the idea the sentence expressed didn’t seem to fit with what came before, I’ll indicate this.

Generally speaking, I’ll flag sections of the text:

- that I liked, 

- that seemed awkward or confusing, as well as 

- places where I lost interest. 

The End of A Critique

I’ll close a critique with a more general analysis of the story. I’ll mention details of scenes or characters, or perhaps of the general structure, that didn’t (or did!) work for me. 

- Were there inconsistencies in characterization? Was one character’s hair red in one scene and black in another? 

- Were any of the characters underdeveloped or boring?

- Were the character’s goals clear? Were the stakes clear?

And so on. (Since I’ve explored these questions in my previous posts—see the links I gave in the first paragraph of this article—I won’t repeat them here.)

I think the number one thing to keep in mind is what the writer was trying to do. Were they attempting to write a genre piece? If so, then it’s both appropriate and helpful to point out if and where the story departed from what a reader of that genre would expect. 

For instance, a murder mystery that doesn’t unmask the culprit at the end would generate quite a bit of ire on the part of mystery buffs. Also, if the story deviates from something like the three act structure—and this negatively affects the story—it might be something to mention.

End Thoughts

I always open a critique with something positive and close with something positive. 

Beyond that, I usually try and focus on three things I thought the writer did well and three things I thought could, perhaps, be improved upon. Or, if I am writing a very short critique, I will confine myself to giving one thing I thought the writer did well and one thing I thought could use improvement. 

In this series I’ve written exclusively about genre stories. But, often, a writer just wants to write a story. They don’t have anything particular in mind and they aren’t planning on publishing anything. They wrote their tale for their own edification and no one other than their family and friends will ever see it. 

In this case there are no rules. What this person has written is a work of art (which isn’t to say anything about the skill with which the story was rendered). If I were asked to critique a story like this I would talk about what thoughts and feelings the language evoked in me; I would talk about whether I found the ending satisfying, and so on. 

That’s it! I hope you found something I’ve rambled on about useful. In any case, thanks for reading.

Question: How do you write a critique? Do you have a tip to pass along? 

This blog post, How I Write A Critique, first appeared on KarenWoodward.org.

Photo credit: Wikipedia.com.

Reading Critically: Try-Fail Cycles (Part 3 of 3)

Today I’m going to finish up the critical reading portion of these posts. We’ll finish examining the anatomy of a scene by taking a look at try-fail cycles. Then we’ll look at an alternative to try-fail cycles. Finally, we’ll take the briefest of peeks at backstory and setting. And that’s it! 

The first post in this series: Reading Critically

The second post in this series: Reading Scenes Critically

In my next post I’ll talk about how to write a useful critique that a writer would like to receive.

Onward!

Scene Level Analysis: Try-Fail Cycles

I had this part of my post written and then, yesterday, came across a talk Jim Butcher gave in 2013 for the Space City Con. (part 1 is here, part 2 is here.) JB talks for less than half an hour at the beginning of each part, the rest is Q & A. Part 1 is about scenes, part 2, sequels. It’s great stuff, I highly recommend it. 

One thing JB talks about, and something you’ll come across in almost every scene—at least in genre novels—is the try-fail cycle. After all, it would be pretty boring for readers if the protagonist had a goal, there was some sort of opposition to this goal and then the protagonist either gave up or achieved the goal. 

At the beginning of the cycle, the protagonist tries to surmount the obstacle. Usually, her first attempt fails, as does the second. The third will either fail completely, partially succeed or completely succeed. But, whatever the outcome, the third attempt should be different. (Heidi Tighe has written a wonderful blog post on this, so—if you’d like to read about a great example of try-fail cycles from Breaking Bad—go check out her post: Four Elements of a Try-Fail Cycle.)

But that leaves us with a question. At the very end of the scene—that very last try—should the protagonist succeed or fail? Actually, there are four possibilities to choose from:

a. Total Failure: Does the protagonist achieve their scene goal? No!

This is a great way to end a scene! In the sequel we would then cash out the stakes and show the negative consequences for both the hero and those who were important to her. Then she would have to scrape herself off the floor (perhaps with the help of friends and allies), formulate a new plan and try again.

One of the most common pieces of advice offered to writers is to throw as much trouble as possible at the protagonist—and then triple it! Why? Because the way the protagonist reacts to adversity will show us who she is. It will skin her like an onion, showing readers the layers of her personality. It will (changing metaphors) whittle her down to her essence. Want to know who a person is? What they’re really like? Look at how they preform under pressure, when everything is going wrong. 

b. Total Failure with complications: Does the protagonist achieve her goal? No! AND there is a messy complication.

Everything we’ve said about (a) holds true here, but we pile even more trouble on the hero. Not only did his final attempt fail, but now it will be more difficult for him to reach his goal.

c. Success: Yes! The protagonist achieves her goal.

The hero achieves her scene goal. Often when this happens (unless it is the final scene in the book) it turns out that achieving the scene goal doesn’t get her closer to her story goal—although she had every reason to think it would!

For example, let’s say our protagonist found a way to overcome her allergy to the rejuvenating cream (this continues my example from last time). At the end of the scene her skin glows with youthful vitality. In the next scene, when she gets to the audition, she discovers that the modeling agency wants a more mature looking model, so her youthful glow actually works against her. Once again, the goal of her securing a modeling contract is in jeopardy AND now she has next to no time to fix matters, thus ratcheting up the tension.

d. Partial Success: Yes! The protagonist achieves her goal, BUT there is a messy complication.

The hero achieves part of her goal. She achieves something but also experiences a disaster. 

This can work fine as well. After all, it makes sense that a price must be paid for success. It makes sense that one can’t get something without first giving up something. I’ve written two articles on this, if you’d like to read more about try-fail cycles:

Try-Fail Cycles And The Gap

Making A Scene: Using Conflicts And Setbacks To Create Narrative Drive

Questions to think about when reading critically:

- How does the main character of the scene attempt to surmount each obstacle put in front of her?

- Do the stakes build throughout the scene?

- Does the character’s success or failure connect up to the scene goal?

Questions to think about when writing a critique:

- Not all scenes have try-fail cycles, but if a scene does, was each iteration clear? By which I mean, was it clear what the obstacle was, how the character tried to overcome it, why they failed, why they tried again (as well as why they tried again the way they did), and so on.

- I mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating: Is there a clear resolution to the scene as a whole? At the end of the scene is it clear whether the character has attained their scene goal? (Note: Some scenes can end on a cliffhanger. This occurs when a scene ends just before we know the answer to the scene question. Of course that’s fine. Everything will be cashed out, it’s just that the cashing out will be delayed.)

- Is it clear how the scene goal connects to the story goal?

- When the character doesn’t achieve her goal, are the stakes worse than she thought? (They don’t always have to be, but the stakes should gradually increase throughout the story.)

Alternatives To Try-Fail Cycles

The try-fail cycle isn’t all there is. As Orson Scott Card points out, there are other ways of progressing through a scene. (See: Uncle Orson's Writing Class: Novel Length: August 2, 2000.)

a. The Conflicting Objectives Cycle.

Conflicting objectives are “Things that are worth doing, that need doing, which sidetrack the characters and distract them from their quest.”

b. The ‘This Can’t Happen!’ Trick

 OSC writes: “Then there's the This Can't Happen trick (Gandalf dies?) that ‘changes everything’ and causes the group to reconfigure (again, some of them being distracted as they go off on sub-quests).”

c. Unequal Commitments

Not every character is going to be equally committed to the story goal. And that’s as it should be. “[Y]ou need characters who are not equally committed to the main quest (think Boromir) or who have other quests that only they can perform (think Aragorn).”

d. The Protagonist’s Conflicting Emotions About The Quest

Even the protagonist is going to, occasionally, have his doubts. He’s going to have “conflicting feelings about having undertaken the quest in the first place, and about putting other people's lives at risk. (I'll go off by myself, says Frodo, because this way I'm only bringing destruction down on myself [Actually, this was deeply stupid, since the friends were his main hope of avoiding being killed by the ring-wraiths; but Tolkien made it all come out anyway <grin>].)”

Alternatives to try fail cycles: something to keep in mind:

OSC cautions that the thing to keep in mind, here, is that whatever you do has to advance the story (in other words, whatever you do “to make us care more or worry more about the characters”) it has to arise “out of who they are” and it must eventually transform them.

Other Elements: Backstory

The goal in introducing backstory is to:

a. Give backstory only when the reader needs to learn the backstory. The trick here is to make the reader want to learn the backstory.

b. Give as little backstory as possible. That is, give only as much as will make the scene intelligible. Ruthlessly cut the excess.

- Is this true of the book/manuscript you’re reading? Are you showered with details you don’t need to know or, alternatively, do you often feel that a character’s behavior lacks motivation?

Other Elements: Setting

Is the setting interesting? Memorable? Is it unusual, exciting, exotic?

A Bird’s Eye View: How Do The Scenes Fit Together?

After I finish reading a story, I’ll spread my notes out on my desk (this includes my notes on each scene). Then I’ll look at how the scenes fit together.

- Do the stakes continually increase from scene to scene?

- Are the stakes interesting? The stakes will be interesting if they connect to a character’s deepest desires as well as their emotional scars/vulnerabilities. This works especially well if the character’s vulnerabilities are similar to the readers vulnerabilities.

- Are the scene goals connected to the story goal? (I mentioned this earlier, but I thought I’d list it here as well since it is very important.)

That’s it for reading critically! Next time I’ll talk about how to write a critique a writer would be happy to receive.

Photo credit: Karen Woodward.

Reading Scenes Critically

Today I continue my two part series on reading critically. I had hoped to wrap things up today, but that’s not going to happen! Last time we talked about two levels of textual analysis, macro and micro: the story and the scene. Today let’s continue discussing scenes and what to look for. Let’s dive in.

Scene Level Analysis: Character’s Goals

Each significant character in a scene will have a goal and each goal will have stakes attached. That is, each scene will make clear what will happen if the protagonist achieves her goal and what will happen if she doesn’t.

Further, these consequences should be real-world consequences—concrete rather than abstract. We need to see and feel what happens to the character as a result of her emotional reactions, her decisions and actions. Also, these consequences shouldn’t just affect the protagonist, they should also affect those she cares about, those she feels responsible for.  

(Of course, in the beginning of the story the consequences may only affect the protagonist. After all, if everyone she ever cared about is affected right at the beginning there’s nowhere to go! The stakes should grow over the course of a story, so it’s fine to start small.)

Note regarding scenes and sequels:

In this article I’m concentrating on scenes rather than sequels but since I just discussed stakes let me make one comment. Often one uses a sequel to show the stakes being cashed out, to show how both the protagonist’s life, and possibly the lives of those he cares about, have been changed. (For more on sequels see: The Importance of Sequels and The Structure of Sequels.)

Scene Level Analysis: Character’s Motivation

Imagine that a character, Xan, is in a rowboat fleeing from a man-eating shark. He’s rowing to the shore, really putting his back into it, sweat soaking his clothes. In this scenario the shark (and accompanying bloody loss of life) is Xan’s motivation to reach his goal, which is the shore.

- In your scene, what motivates the main character’s action?

- What is the main character’s goal? Where are they headed?

- What obstacle (or obstacles) oppose the main character achieving his/her goal?

In my example, Xan was fatigued, worn out. That’s an obstacle to him reaching the shore. Or we could make the obstacle a bit more solid and have him hit a reef, one that shatters his rowboat. The possibilities are only limited by one’s imagination. 

Scene Level Analysis: The Antagonistic force

The antagonistic force is something that conflicts with, or opposes, the protagonist. This force can be a person, a place, a thing, an idea, or mental state. Further, if the antagonistic force is a person, then that persons’ goal must oppose the protagonist’s story goal such that if the protagonist achieves her goal then the antagonist cannot, and vice versa. 

In the example, above, the antagonistic force was a shark. Why? Because it opposed Xan’s goal of reaching the shore and because their goals were mutually exclusive. Xan’s fatigue and the reef are obstacles. Even though they weren’t placed there by the shark, they aided it in foiling the protagonist’s plans.

Obstacle vs Antagonist. One might wonder what makes one thing an obstacle and another an antagonist. It’s a good question; I think it largely depends on the context. In my example, above, if there had been no shark I might have thought of the reef as an antagonistic force rather than simply an obstacle. To my mind, antagonists tend to have agency, or we tend to attribute agency to them. Obstacles tend to be physical and specific. 

The Local Antagonistic Force

The Big Bad of a story is the protagonist’s ultimate opposition, but the Big Bad won’t be in every scene. However, the protagonist’s attempt to achieve his goal should be opposed in every scene. 

Let’s call this scene-specific opposition the local antagonistic force. For example, the protagonist could want to try out the latest in anti-aging creams so she can win a modeling contract (the story goal), but she can’t because she’s allergic. If she puts the cream on, her skin will become red and scaly. 

In this example her allergy is the (local) antagonistic force that prevents her from achieving her goal. The Big Bad of the story, on the other hand, could be another model she’s competing with for the modeling contract, one who will do whatever it takes to succeed. 

Questions To Ask When Reading A Scene Critically

Drawing upon all that we’ve said, here are a few questions to ask when reading a scene critically:

- Who is the main character of the scene?

- What is the main character’s goal?

- What are the stakes? What will happen if the main character achieves his/her goal? What will happen if he/she doesn’t?

- What is the antagonistic force in this scene? That is, who or what prevents the main character of the scene from achieving his/her goal?

- What are the concrete obstacles put in the protagonist’s way?

- How does the protagonist try to defeat these obstacles?

- Is the protagonist successful?

Here are a few points to consider when formulating a critique:

- Was it clear who the main character was?

- Was the main character’s goal clear?

- Were the stakes clear?

- Was it clear who or what was the local antagonistic force? That is, who or what opposed the main character in the achievement of his/her goal?

- Was it clear what obstacles were thrown in the character’s way and was it clear how these items (events, etc.) could prevent the main character of achieving his/her scene goal?

- Was it clear how the character dealt with these obstacles? Did he/she triumph against them or did they defeat him/her? (I’ll talk more about this next time.)

- At the end of the scene, was it clear whether he/she achieved his/her scene goal or not?

A Caveat

I’ll talk more about this when I discuss how to sift through this mass of information and use it to write a critique. But I want to stress that the questions I’ve shared, above, are only meant as an aid in reading critically. 

There are no rules. Stories don’t have to have try-fail cycles. Characters don’t have to have clear-cut goals. Actually, let me take that back. There are two hard-and-fast rules when it comes to writing: To be a writer, you must read. To be a writer, you must write. And that’s it.

With that out of the way, let me say that the stories I had in mind while writing these articles were genre stories. Generally speaking, readers have more expectations when it comes to genre stories than they do for literary ones (though I admit that the dividing line between genre and literature can be blurry at times).

What I’m saying is: Please do feel free to put everything I’ve written aside, read a story, and respond from your gut. Your heart. I’ve written these posts because ... well, I know that, for myself, I often would appreciate a framework. 

This is especially so when I feel that there’s something wrong with the story but I just can’t put my finger on it. In those cases, sometimes it helps to do a deep reading of the material while keeping questions—questions such as the ones I’ve raised here—in mind.

That’s it for today! I had hoped to finish talking about critical reading today, but I’d like to cover try-fail cycles. Also, I want to touch on both backstory and setting. I’ll pick this up again on Wednesday. 

Till then, just write!

Photo credit: I took this picture!

Writing A Critique: Reading Critically

This title should read “How I Critique A Story” because that’s what I’ll be writing about, but it just didn’t have the same ring to it!

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to do more constructive critiques of others work—and to submit more of my own work for critiquing!—so I thought I’d write a blog post about  ...  well, not so much about how to write a critique, but about how to read critically and, from one’s close reading, how to develop a critique.

This post was originally about 2500 words so I’ve divided it into two. Today we’ll look at how to read critically and on Monday we’ll finish up that discussion and talk about transforming one’s notes into a critique.

Index:
Writing A Critique: Reading Critically (Current Post)
Reading Scenes Critically

Reading Critically: Try-Fail Cycles (Part 3 of 3)
How I Write A Critique

Reading Critically

Before we roll up our sleeves and dive in, let’s talk about levels. 

There are two ‘levels’ to a story: the story itself, and the scenes (and sequels) that make up the story. Let’s call these two levels the “story level” and the “scene level.”

Story Level

First, a note on terminology. By “protagonist” I mean the main character in a story. Which character is the protagonist is obvious in a story told from only one point of view, but many stories are told from multiple points of view. In this case I refer to each POV character as a main character. In this case, while each main character will have their own story arc there will still be one arc that draws all the others together. I call this character the protagonist.

Significant characters are characters who are important enough to the story to have their own goals, their own character arcs, within the story.

Clear as mud? (grin) If you have any questions about how I use these—or any other—words or phrases, please do ask.

Story Level: Characters

- Who is the protagonist? If there is more than one main character, is one character more important to the overall arc of the story than the rest?

- If there is more than one POV character, is one of these more important to the story than the others? If so, generally this character has the initial POV as well as the final POV. Of course, there can be exceptions, but, if so, ask yourself: why? If you can’t think of a good answer, this might be something to note in your critique.

- What is the main character’s goal? 

- If there is more than one POV character, what is each POV character’s goals? How does each goal connect up to the goal of the main character?

- If the protagonist achieves her goal, can the antagonist? (And vice versa.) The answer should be a resounding “No!”

- What are the stakes? What will happen to the protagonist if she doesn’t achieve her goal? (Ask this about each of the significant characters.)

- Are the characters memorable?

Jim Butcher talks about how to create memorable characters in his excellent article: Characters. Briefly:

a. Does the character have an exaggerated feature? This feature can be physical, mental or emotional. Exaggerated traits are both interesting and memorable. 

b. Does the character act believably? That is, do they (a) have an emotion which leads to a (b) reaction, which leads finally to a (c) decision?

c. When the character is introduced—the very first time your readers see the character—is she (a) introduced in action? Does this action clearly and sharply typify the essence of the character?

- Is the protagonist introduced before any of the other characters? This isn’t necessary, but if another character is introduced first, ask yourself what doing so adds to the story. Would the story gain by having the protagonist introduced first?

Characters and story threads or story arcs

- Is there a story thread for each significant character?

- Does each story thread have a clearly defined goal?

- Does each story thread have clearly defined stakes? Each story thread should have stakes attached to it, depending on whether the (significant) character of the thread attains their goal. Further, these stakes should increase over time.

Story Level: Genre

- Is the genre clear? Are the special rules of that genre met?

Each genre has its own rules, it’s own structure. For example, if a story appears to be a murder mystery (a murder occurs at the beginning, this event incites the protagonist to sleuth about trying to uncover the miscreants identity, and so on) but there’s no reveal at the end, and so we are left wondering who committed the crime, then that’s a problem. 

Why? Because anyone who reads this book because it’s a murder mystery will expect the story to obey the rules of the genre. Readers will expect the sleuth to not only figure out who committed the crime but to reveal who committed the crime. Also, the murderer should either die at the end or be brought to justice. This allows for peace to be restored. (The meting out of justice brings things full circle, back to the peace and security of the Ordinary World.)

If the story isn’t brought full circle, the average reader will regard it as unfinished and may even be tempted to throw the book across the room. (If it’s an ereader, that could get pricy!)

Critiquing: Scene Level

Often, perhaps too often, we only talk about the story goal, the initial (or final) stakes, etc. But, really, a reader never really reads a book, they read a series of scenes that, when strung together, forms a story.

Scene level analysis: Character

- What are the names of all the characters in the scene?

- What are each character’s tags and traits? For more on tags and traits see: 

Bringing Characters To Life

Tailoring Your Cast of Characters To Your Protagonist

Crafting Interesting Characters

- What role does each character play in the scene?

About Character Roles

There are two ways of looking at this (there are likely many more than two, but these are the two I use most often):

a. Archetypes

In “The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers,” Christopher Vogler listed a number of archetypes especially relevant to story development. To read more about this, I recommend the short article Vogler has on his website. It lists all the archetypes and explains what he means by the hero’s journey. (See: Hero’s Journey.)

Generally, while a character may exemplify more than one archetype over the course of a story, she will only exemplify one at a time. For example, while a mentor may turn out to be a nemesis, in the beginning scenes they will act as a mentor and in the latter as a nemesis. You get the idea.

b. Tropes

I’ve found that tropes are much like archetypes, but more finely grained. For example, rather than speaking of a character as a mentor, one speaks of either a trickster mentor, a stealth mentor, a sink-or-swim mentor, an evil mentor, and so on. A list of mentor tropes can be found here: mentors. (For more on tropes, see: Story Openings: Tags, Traits and Tropes.)

Scene Level Analysis: Plot/Structure

- For each significant character in the scene, are they a significant character or a minor one?

Minor characters walk on and off the page without leaving a ripple. That is, they don’t influence the story; they don’t connect up to any of the significant character’s goals in anything other than a trifling way. Examples: the waitress who serves your protagonist coffee, a taxi driver, and so on.

Minor characters have very little page time and often don’t even get a name.

For me, the dividing line between major and minor characters is this: Does the character have a goal? If yes, is this goal related in some way to the protagonist’s goal?

For example, a waitress might have the goal of getting a big tip and will try to achieve this by flirting with your protagonist, but if this goal has nothing to do with the protagonist’s goal—or any of the goals of the other significant characters—then she’s a minor character.

Of course, when you’re reading someone else’s manuscript, the writer can fool you. Perhaps the waitress really was the antagonist in disguise and she just put slow working poison in the protagonist’s coffee. 

That’s it for today! Next time I’ll continue to look at how to read a text critically. I plan to close with some tips for how to write a critique that the writer will appreciate receiving.

Till then, good writing and reading!

Photo credit: Image based on: "Molinos La Mancha" by Hugo Díaz-Regañón under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.

10 Most Popular Posts of 2014

Happy New Year! I’m going to celebrate the upcoming new year by looking back at my most popular posts of 2014.

Coming in at number ten we have:

10. How To Write Like Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time and one of my favorite authors. I've spent many a night curled up in front of a roaring fire, cocoa close at hand, reading her familiar tales. 

Although no one can write exactly like she did—nor would we want to. The goal of each writer is to develop their own voice—time and again I have wondered which elements of her stories contributed to her phenomenal success. I'm not suggesting she employed any sort of formula, but I believe there must have been certain characteristic regularities to her work that contributed to her becoming the most read mystery writer in the world. (Continue reading: How To Write Like Agatha Christie.)

9. How Michael Moorcock Wrote A Novel In Three Days

Yes! Moorcock actually did write many short novels (45,000 words to 60,000 words) in only three days. (Continue reading: How Michael Moorcock Wrote A Novel In Three Days.)

I had intended to continue this article on Moorcock, to make it a series, but that didn’t happen. That said, I think Moorcock’s method was similar to Lester Dent’s and I did write a five part series on Dent’s Master Story Formula. Here are the links:

Lester Dent's Short Story Master Formula

Lester Dent: How To Write A 6,000 Word Short Story: The First Quarter

Lester Dent's Master Fiction Formula: The Second 1,500 Words

Lester Dent's Master Fiction Formula: The Third 1,500 Words

Lester Dent's Master Fiction Formula: The Fourth And Final 1,500 Words

8. How To Write a Terrifyingly Good Horror Story, Parts One and Two

Want to write a story chalk full with thrills and chills? A few months ago I reached a point in my WIP where I had to kill off one of my antagonist's minions and was curious what tips other writers had for creating a gross out scene. Then I thought: Hey! I should blog about this. That's how this post began, but it turned into a series on how to write a terrifyingly good horror story. Here are the links:

17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story

17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story, Part 2 of 2

7. 7 Tips From James Patterson For Writing Suspenseful Prose

Did you know that, since 2001, James Patterson has sold more books than any other writer? Apparently 1 out of every 17 hardcover books sold has Patterson's name on it.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Patterson's writing, there is no arguing with his popularity. So, how does he do it? Here are Patterson’s tips for writing suspenseful prose. (Continue reading: 7 Tips From James Patterson For Writing Suspenseful Prose.)

6. 4 Ways To Write Every Day

After years of writing, I've noticed certain things about myself, my writing routine, and I thought I'd pass them on in case you're one of those people who's a bit like me. Here are suggestions for ways to write every day: (Continue reading: 4 Ways To Write Every Day.)

5. How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery

Lets revisit one of my favorite topics and examine how to write an engrossing murder mystery. To do this I’m going to take an in-depth look at a classic: "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden. Auden writes that the "basic formula is this: a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies." 

Generally speaking, mystery stories conform to the overall structure of a genre story, which is ... (Continue reading: How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery.)

Other articles in this series:

- The Importance of Setting In Writing A Murderously Good Mystery

- Writing A Murderously Good Mystery: The Importance of the Murder Victim

- How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery: The Murderer

4. Jim Butcher On How To Write A Suspenseful Story Climax

Someone once said to me: The first few pages of a novel sell that novel, the ending of the novel sells the next novel.

I believe that.

Endings are important. If I like a book but hate the ending I probably won't read another book by the same author. (Continue Reading: Jim Butcher On How To Write A Suspenseful Story Climax.)

3. George R.R. Martin On The Art And Craft Of Writing: 9 Tips For Writers

Have you read George R.R. Martin's interview in Rolling Stone magazine? I was amazed and a little shaken by the depth of Martin's innate, intuitive, grasp of storytelling. All the more so because this wasn't an interview conducted with writers in mind. He didn't set out to give writing advice—at least, I don't think he did—but, nevertheless, the advice was there.

Here's what I've taken away from the interview ... (Continue reading: George R.R. Martin On The Art And Craft Of Writing: 9 Tips For Writers.)

2. Best Fonts For Genre Book Covers

One of the most difficult things about creating a book cover is selecting a font. I'll try Impact and maybe Engravers MT and then reach for Lucida and then ... you get the idea. It's a hodgepodge of guesswork. Eventually I'll trip over something that works, but there's got to be a better way.

Derek Murphy has come to the rescue. (Continue reading: Best Fonts For Genre Book Covers.)

1. How To Write A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story

Choose Your Own Adventure stories are making a modest comeback thanks to tablets and smart phones. Let’s look at the structure of a Choose Your Own Adventure story and examine how to write one. (Continue reading: How To Write A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story.)

That’s it! I’m looking forward to another year of blogging about writing. Have a happy, and safe, New Year!

Photo credit: I altered the photo and added text. The photo I used was: "Cannes - Firework 2014 (China)" by ludovick under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Story Openings: Tags And Traits: Tailoring Your Cast of Characters To Your Protagonist

Yesterday we saw that character traits don’t come singly but in pairs. If a character is, say, one angry SOB then, all things being equal, this should be balanced out by tenderness. 

This balancing can happen in one of three ways. First, the character can go from anger to tenderness over time. Second, the character can appear angry but it’s really all bluff and bluster, they’re a softie on the inside. Third, the character can be a barely contained raging storm of emotion and this quality is contrasted by tenderness in another character. (For more on this see my last post: The Power of Paradox. To read this series from the beginning, here is a link to the first post: Story Openings: Five Choices.)

In what follows, I’ll examine this third way of expressing opposing pairs of character traits, paying special attention to how this can be used to tailor our cast of characters to the protagonist.

4. How to fit the protagonist to the cast of characters and the cast of characters to the protagonist.

Both Dwight V. Swain and Robert McKee agree that one’s cast of characters should be created with the goal of using them to tease out all the various dimensions of our protagonist. In “Techniques of the Selling Writer,” Swain writes:

“Each person [character] should make a different dominant impression. If three characters all pulse dignity at every turn, each will detract from the impact of the others. What you want is variety, not sameness.”

McKee, in “Story,” goes on to extend this notion by telling us how to make each of our characters dramatize—hook into—the various dimensions of the protagonist. McKee writes:

“In essence, the protagonist creates the rest of the cast. All other characters are in a story first and foremost because of the relationship they strike to the protagonist and the way each helps to delineate the dimensions of the protagonist’s complex nature. Imagine a cast as a kind of solar system with the protagonist as the sun, supporting roles as planets around the sun, bit players as satellites around the planets—all held in orbit by the gravitational pull of the star at the center, each pulling at the tides of the others’ natures.”

That’s the analogy, the idea. Now let’s get into the nitty-gritty. (What follows is from McKee’s example in “Story.” The only things I’ve added are the names and situations.)

Let’s say our protagonist, Donald McTaggert, has the following dimensions:

i. Amusing -- Morose

ii. Optimistic -- Cynical

iii. Compassionate -- Cruel

iv. Fearless -- Fearful 

Since we’ve given Donald four pairs of opposing traits we say that he’s four dimensional. Now, what sort of characters should we build to flesh out, to dramatize, each of Donald’s dimensions? 

Creating characters to connect with each of the protagonist’s dimensions.

Following the pairs of characteristics McKee gives us in “Story” let’s fashion a cast of characters that ‘hooks onto’ our Protagonist.

Character A: Angie Wilkes, Donald’s ex-wife. 

Donald’s interactions with his ex-wife show us his morose (i) and cynical (ii) sides. Angie, on the other hand, is amusing (i), optimistic (ii), and completely out of contact with reality. She’s convinced that she and Donald have merely hit a speed-bump and that, any day now, he’ll forgive her for having an affair with his best friend. 

Character B: Henry McTaggert, Donald’s son. 

Henry is Donald and Angie’s only child. Even though Donald is often cruel (iii) and fearful (iv) when he is with others, when he is with his son he is both compassionate (iii) and fearless (iv)—or at least that’s the front Donald tries to put on for Henry’s sake.

Character C: Greta Kettles, Donald’s co-worker. 

Donald is secretly in love with Greta. Whenever he’s around her his stomach rumbles and he feels light headed. In those moments he is optimistic (ii) and even amusing (i).

Character D: Fred Danger, lurker.

One day Fred, a man of indeterminate age who has been hanging around Henry’s high school, comes into the boy’s classroom wielding a gun. Henry manages to use his cell phone to text his dad. After reading the text Donald is terrified (iv). His son could be killed, other children could be killed. Donald’s fear is quickly transformed into anger (--> fearlessness (iv)). His lip curled, Donald jumps into his SUV muttering, “How dare you threaten my son. I’ll show you what it is to be afraid.”

I put that example together in a couple of minutes, but hopefully you get the gist. All things being equal, the best way to dramatize one characteristic is by pairing it with its opposite. 

Which isn’t to say that a single character can’t be both, for example, fearful and fearless if we show them at different points in time or we contrast appearance and reality (they only appear terrified, they’re really not) but, since we’ve been interested in creating a cast of characters that teases out our protagonist’s dimensions, we’ve been focusing on pairing his characteristics with those of other characters.

As McKee writes, this is how to not only make characters multidimensional, but to show those dimensions to the reader.

Next week we’ll go into more depth about how to create a cast of characters that teases out the inherent complexities we’ve been at such pains to give our protagonist.

Photo credit: "Dark lemur on the branch" by Tambako The Jaguar under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0.

Story Openings: Tags And Traits: The Power of Paradox

This post is part of a longer discussion on tags and traits and how we can use them to craft unique and interesting characters. Here is the first post in the series (it contains links to subsequent articles): Story Openings: Five Choices.

3. Use tags and traits to modify the picture: The core of character.

The adjective of description that we looked at previously is all about the surface. All about appearances and first impressions. 

For example, let’s take a look at Agatha Christie’s sleuth, Miss Marple. Miss Marple comes across as being nothing more than a slightly doddering sweet little old lady. In a word she is harmless. But, really, she’s not. She’s Nemesis with white hair and knitting needles.

In the case of Miss Marple, we can say that two of her defining tags are “harmless” and “dangerous.” Notice how they seem to directly contradict each other?

Dwight V. Swain writes:

“Consider the dignified person. Is he really dignified—or is the appearance of dignity merely a mask he’s adopted to hide stupidity? Is the cruel man totally cruel ... cruel to certain people only ... or [is he] using the appearance of cruelty to hide the fact that he’s really so sentimental as to be a pushover for any appeal? [...] Is the boy’s rowdiness a mask for shyness?

“All of us are, in truth, a maze of inconsistencies and contradictions. That’s what makes man interesting. Capture the paradox in print, and your characters will be interesting also.”

Paradox. As we have seen with Miss Marple, there is a clash between appearance and reality, between the surface and the soul. This is appropriate. Each of us is a living, breathing, mass of conditions, a web of paradox. Like it or not, it’s part of what makes us human, and it’s a big part of what makes a character feel real.

I’m going to leave Swain’s discussion of character building for a moment to look at how Robert McKee develops this idea of contrasting characteristics (/tags). Then we’ll examine their role in creating unique and interesting characters.

Robert McKee on Dimensionality and Paradox

The contrast between inner and outer qualities is what McKee talks about when he speaks of the difference between characterization (the “sum of all observable qualities of a human being”) and true character. McKee writes:

“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure—the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.”

This leads us into McKee’s discussion of dimensionality.

I’ve written about this elsewhere (see the links below) but, briefly, McKee holds that the key to rounded, realistic, engaging characters is exactly the quality Swain mentioned (see above): Paradox. Contradiction.

Robert McKee And Characterization vs Character

Five Tips: A Miscellany of Writing Advice

McKee: There is no such thing as ONE dominant trait.

McKee takes issue with the idea that “fine character’s are marked by one dominant trait.” He sees traits not as solo qualities but as pairs of opposing qualities. The more pairs (/dimensions) one has the deeper and more well-rounded—the more interesting—one’s character will be. He writes:

“Dimension means contradiction: either within deep character (guild-ridden ambition) or between characterization and deep character (a charming thief).”

So, according to McKee, rather than looking for adjectives of description we should be seeking, instead, pairs of contrasting adjectives.

It’s not enough to say that a character is tidy, we must see how that trait is opposed either within the person (appearance versus reality), over time (then vs now), or person vs person.

The last way traits can be contrasted with each other—person vs person—is something I’ll pick up next post where I’ll argue that contrasting traits between people is the key to creating a cast of characters that not only ensures the uniqueness of your protagonist but that fits the supporting characters of a story to the protagonist like a key fits a lock.

In other words, we can use contrasting traits to create the rest of the cast from the protagonist. Which, incidentally, is Dwight V. Swain’s fourth way to make a character unique: 

4. Match the protagonist to the the cast of characters and the cast of characters to the protagonist.

More about that next time. Stay tuned!

Photo credit: "Mother and daugher : a love story!" by Tambako The Jaguar under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0.

Story Openings: Tags, Traits and Tropes

Yesterday I began a discussion of Tags and Traits and talked about how they can help bring a character to life. Today I’d like to extend that discussion by talking about ... 

2. How tags and traits can help us fit a character to their role in a story.

In this section we’re going to talk about the various roles a character can play, so let’s confront the elephant in the room: stereotypes.

Stereotypes are boring, but certain kinds of stereotypes—tropes—have gotten a bad rap. (If you think this is an outrageous view, please hear me out.)

Stereotypes vs Tropes

The way I’m using the word here, a trope is “a significant or recurrent theme; a motif.”

A stereotype, on the other hand, is “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”

For example, what’s the detective stereotype? When I say ‘detective’ what comes to mind?

Is the image of a man or woman? What are they wearing? How old are they? Are they a professional detective or do they moonlight? Do they have a Watson? On Saturday night, are they more likely to frequent a lady’s tea circle or a run-down bar? Do they have an arch-enemy?

My guess is that each of you has a radically different image of a detective. Why? Because there really isn’t any one stereotype of a detective, there are many, one for each sub-genre of detective story.

For instance, if you thought of a man who is a private detective, one who has a helper/sidekick and an arch-enemy then according to tvtropes.org (a truly wonderful site) you’re thinking about the trope of the Great Detective (e.g., Sherlock Holmes). 

Or perhaps you thought of the Defective Detective (e.g., Monk) or of a Detective Drama (e.g., Death in Paradise).

Or perhaps, like me, you thought of a fluffy old lady who knits and seems scattered but has a brain like a scythe (the Little Old Lady Investigates trope). But, then, you could be more the Hardboiled Detective type.

My point in mentioning all these tropes is to show that ‘the stereotypical detective’ doesn’t exist. We—I—talk about ‘the mystery genre’ but there’s really no such thing, not if what we mean by that is something concrete enough to actually produce a trope. No, there are a plethora of tropes, each unique to its sub-genre—or so I would argue.

We’re almost ready to explore the question of whether tropes can be a writer’s friend. But, first, let’s look at ...

The role of the trope

Let me approach this by example. Let’s say we want to write a tea cozy mystery, or “cozy” for short. (This is from the Little Old Lady Investigates trope.)

- The sleuth is usually female.

- The sleuth is older, usually in the second half of her life.

- The sleuth doesn’t get paid for solving the murder. Perhaps she is retired or perhaps, like Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote), she writes murder mysteries and sleuths on the side.

- The sleuth is a Cool Old Lady. She is clever; witty. She stands up for what she thinks is right. She is practically always polite and takes the high road. (Most people completely discount the ability of the Little Old Lady to solve a crime because, well, she’s a little old lady!) 

Okay, that about does it. Those traits won’t hold true for every case but—since this is the trope—they should capture the more important qualities of most of the sleuths in this sub-genre.

The big question: Should you cast to type or against type?

If you write a cozy would you cast to type and embrace the trope or would you cast against type and create something new, fresh, surprising? 

If I wanted to cast against type then perhaps I’d create a young male police officer, a rookie, who is a bit of a dweeb and couldn’t knit a scarf if his life depended on it.

This could work. My character would be fresh, new, unexpected. On the other hand, I would be throwing away one of the biggest assets a genre writer has: all those folks who love reading traditional cozy mysteries. Even worse, if a reader of traditional cozy mysteries were to pick up my book they’d likely be expecting a sleuth cast to type so, chances are, they’d be disappointed. Disappointed readers often give one star reviews and return books. 

I’m not saying this is a reason not to write against type, but it’s something to keep in mind when making your decision. 

My point here is simply that it’s the authors choice. Just as there’s nothing in the least wrong with writing against type (though there are consequences) there’s nothing wrong with embracing a trope. Doing so will give you a character cozy readers will immediately recognize and, hopefully, love. But you can’t use the type as-is, it needs a twist.

Tweaking A Trope

The danger with writing to type is, as you know, that your character will be exactly what the reader expects and so she’ll be bored silly. We need to tweak the trope so that our character stands out from the crowd.

For example we could keep practically everything the same but make our protagonist male rather than female. Or we could make the protagonist young rather than middle-aged. Or perhaps our granny has been uprooted from her life in the village and must brave the mean streets of the big city. Or instead of being sweet and kind she’s grumpy and selfish (the Agatha Raisin mysteries). Or perhaps the sleuth is a teenager visiting his grandmother. He solves the crimes but, because the police won’t listen to a kid, his gran takes the credit.

So, in short, if you choose to write to type (a) know the trope of the sub-genre you’ve chosen and (b) give it a twist. Above all, make sure your character is unique.

A Digression: Write What You Know

I think this is one reason folks say “Write what you know.” Even if you’ve never been a detective, even if you’ve never even met a detective, put parts of yourself—as well as folks you know well, folks you have strong feelings about for good or ill—into your character. 

Writers are a bit like Dr. Frankenstein. We take bits from our souls, bits from the souls of others, stitch them together and hope to make our creatures’ hearts beat, to make them live and breathe. I think once you reach that level of intimacy and specificity you can’t help but create something unique.

Putting it all together: Tags, Traits and Tropes

It’s taken us a while to get here, but we’ve done it. Now we’re ready to start using Tags and Traits to hook our character up to the role they’ll play in the story.

Once again, let’s do this by example. Let’s say we’ve decided to write a cozy mystery and we’re going to write to type. Yesterday we discussed the importance of tags and traits in breathing life into a character, to make them memorable, to make them the kind of artificial person readers will empathize with, the kind they will either love or loathe.

As we’ll see in a later post, Dwight V. Swain holds that there are four kinds of tags:

i. Tags of appearance

ii. Tags of speech

iii. Tags of manner

iv. Tags of attitude

I’m only going to use tags of appearance in this article but I will go into each of these categories in some detail in a later post. 

Let’s say that our sleuth has moved from a quaint English village into the hustle and bustle of London. She’s gotten to the stage where she needs a bit of help and her wealthy nephew invites her to stay with him in his spacious penthouse.  

Given the trope for this sub-genre, what tags and traits might we give our character? 

Tags of Appearance

What we want to do is choose characteristics which will make our little old lady sleuth memorable AND which will connect her to the trope.

Ball of yarn

Glinda Ellison, my sleuth, is going to crochet rather than knit but, like Miss Marple, a crochet hook and ball of yarn will be her near constant companions. 

How this hooks into the trope: Crochet reinforces her ‘harmless old lady’ feel and balls of yarn can roll all sorts of interesting places—behind couches, doors, into private bathrooms and all manner of restricted areas—thus providing our sleuth with a credible excuse to snoop.

Something fluffy 

She will always wear at least one thing she has crocheted and it will be something pastel colored and fluffy. 

How this hooks into the trope: The puffy frilliness reinforces her ‘harmless old lady’ feel.

Butterfly necklace

I want something that ties my sleuth to her nephew (Richard Fox), and I want this something to indicate how well off he is. At first I thought of having Richard give Glinda an emerald broach. I did a search on “emerald broach” and ended up at Tiffany & Co. looking at this lovely butterfly pendant. Butterflies are critters of air, which I associate with intellect. Sharp wit, though, can be like a two-edged sword, injuring both the prey and the huntsman, bringing them both to ruin. Perfect!

The other day I wrote about how the tarot can be used to help develop characters, so let’s see if it can help us fill in Glinda’s character information. Keeping with the butterfly motif, I’m going to say that Glinda was born in an air sign. Gemini, ruled by Mercury (quick intelligence), seems perfect. 

Richard is wealthy, so he’s going to be an earth sign, Virgo. I chose Virgo because I want him to be bright like his favorite aunt (Virgo, too, is ruled by Mercury) but I need to give him a weakness. The fall of Virgo is Venus, which is perfect! He’s going to be too smart for his own good and unlucky in love.

I’m going to stop there. Hopefully that gives you an idea how a character’s tags and traits can tie them to their story role and, in so doing, both make them unique and give them a simulacrum of life.

My apologies for the long post. I’ll continue this discussion on Monday when we chat about how tags and traits can help us build a character’s arc. Stay tuned!

Photo credit: "Roaring lion" by Tambako The Jaguar under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Story Openings: Tags And Traits: Bringing Characters To Life

I know I said I would write about how to create a great story opening by introducing a minor mystery. I’m still going to write about that, but not today! Instead, I want to go back to the topic of my last post—creating, and introducing, characters. There are a few things I want to mention.

The Goal of Writing

Let’s go back to basics. What is our goal in creating characters? And, beyond that, why do we write? What is our objective? Here’s Jim Butcher’s answer: To make characters interesting and, in so doing, to get readers to empathize with the characters. He writes:

“If you can manage to create a vivid character in a reader's mind, then establish him as someone believable, you have a real shot at the Holy Grail of character design. If you do your job, you will create a sense of empathy in your reader for your characters. This is what makes people burst out laughing while reading. It's what makes readers cry, or cheer, or run off to take a cold shower.

“[...] empathy takes time to build and it relies heavily upon the skilled use of sequels. But if you can get the reader to this point, as an author, then you WIN. Big time. This is the ENTIRE GOAL of all this character work, because the reader's emotional involvement is the single most important factor in how well your story is going to fly.

“Or put another way, if you can make people love who you want them to love and hate who you want them to hate, you're going to have readers coming back to you over and over again.” (Characters)

How do we make characters interesting? Jim Butcher mentions a few ways in his post (and I urge you, if you’ve never read it—or if you haven’t read it recently—to do so) but I think these all, more or less, fall under the heading of tags and traits, two of the most important tools in character creation.

Tags and Traits

As we’ve seen, we want our characters to be interesting. We want them to catch and hold the reader’s attention. How do we do this?

Using tags and traits to bring a character to life

Dwight V. Swain in “Techniques of a Selling Writer” asks: How is a character brought to life? His answer: You make them (a) vivid and (b) credible.

How does one do this? One word: uniqueness. 

The first step in making vivid, credible, characters lies in distinguishing each character from every other character. It is through the very process of rendering your characters unique that they begin to live and breathe. 

Why is uniqueness important?

In order to have a story with range and depth it needs to, at various times, provoke a wide range of emotions in the reader. How do we do that? Through creating characters that span the emotional spectrum.

Swain writes:

“Liking characters is vital to your reader. So is disliking, and feeling pity and contempt and respect and tenderness and sexual excitement.

“Why?

“Because without such variations of emotional reaction, the reader can’t care what happens to your people.

“If he doesn’t care, he can achieve no sense of inner tension when they’re endangered.”

Swain goes on to list five things that can make a character unique. I'm going to go through each of these points in the next few days. Today, let's begin with a discussion of the dominant impression.

1. Determine the dominant impression (also called an adjective of description)

When you meet someone new, they make a certain impression on you. One fellow I met, I’ll call him John, went on to become one of my best friends, but when I first met him I thought he was dangerous. Specifically, I thought he was a perpetually scowling, six-foot-four-inch mountain of very intimidating muscle. I couldn’t ever see myself getting into a car alone with him and, say, driving along a lonely stretch of highway. 

As so often happens, my first impression was WAY off, but, then, first impressions often are.

Dwight V. Swain urges us to ask ourselves what image we want our readers to receive. What’s the first impression you want your character to make on the reader? Do you want the reader to think a character is tidy, dignified, cruel, sweet, old, beautiful, slim, smart, angry, touchy, tranquil, shy or something else entirely. (Here’s a page with a great many adjectives of description.)

Keep in mind that the first impression is just that, a first impression. First impressions are often misleading and we go on to revise them. (In murder mysteries first impressions are almost always false, though rarely completely so. I’ll talk more about this in a later post on writing a cozy mystery.) But that’s good! The first impression is merely the beginning of that character’s arc.

When you’re devising a character’s first impression keep in mind that characters don’t have to be likable, just memorable. 

For example, recall Sherlock’s introduction in the series of the same name. He whipped a corpse! NOT a likable character—not initially—but very interesting. Also, recall Jim Moriarty (played by Andrew Scott). Moriarty was one of my favorite characters but I didn’t think he was likable.

That’s it for today! I’ll pick up this series on Friday when we’ll examine the pros and cons of sculpting a character that plays to type.

Question: What is your protagonist’s dominant impression?

Photo credit: "Oskar running in the snow II" by Tambako The Jaguar under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0.

Story Openings: Throwing Trouble at the Protagonist

As you’ve likely heard again and again, to be commercially competitive in today’s market your story’s opening has to shine.

Although an opening can be good—even great—without each of the five characteristics we began discussing on Friday, it’s not a bad idea to know what they are and to try and include as many as your story will allow (more on that in a later post).

On Friday we looked at one of these characteristics: immediate action. (If you would like to take a look at that article, here’s the link: Story Openings: Five Choices.) Which is to say that something interesting and memorable should happen right off the bat.

Today let’s look at the second characteristic of a great opening: meeting the protagonist as soon as possible and throwing some trouble at them.

2. Seeing the protagonist in a pinch

If you read the first article in this series you’ll know that these five points are from Chris Winkle’s wonderful must-read article: The Keys to a Great Opening Scene.

Chris Winkle writes:

“Think of it this way: you get +2 to audience attachment if you open the story from the viewpoint of your protagonist. Don’t give that up easily.”

I agree! In principle.

As a reader I’m going to be sticking with the protagonist through the lion’s share of the story, after all, the story is an account of how this person overcomes obstacles to achieve their goal. I don’t want to read about a minor character who dies after a few pages only to discover that I don’t much care for the protagonist and that I’m completely unsympathetic with her goal.

That’s NOT time well wasted!

As a writer I want to hook readers early. I want them to care about the protagonist and whether she can overcome the obstacles in her way and achieve her goal. If they become attached to a minor character who dies I’ve lost all the momentum I’ve built up. Also, often Chapter One, in addition to having all new characters, will take place in a different setting. It’s like beginning over from scratch. Not optimal.

We’ve seen that there are substantial drawbacks associated with not opening a story with the protagonist. You might wonder why, given this, it’s such a common way of beginning a story! CW answers this question when he writes:

“What I don’t recommend is the common practice of highlighting the villain in the opening instead of the protagonist, through the eyes of a redshirt. This is done to allow action and set tension, while keeping the main character in a state of blissful ignorance about the big problem at hand. It does that effectively, but it keeps writers from [introducing the protagonist at the earliest possible moment].

Exactly. Opening scenes—I think of them as trailers but they’re often called prologues—are used when we need action at the beginning but we’re not going to introduce the Big Bad until later on in the story. For example, George R.R. Martin uses the prologue of “A Game of Thrones” to introduce the threat that lies beyond the Wall, the white walkers.

Also, occasionally we want to show our readers what the antagonist is capable of without informing the protagonist of the antagonist’s abilities. When we show what atrocities the antagonist is capable of, we acquaint the reader with the stakes of the contest. We’ve shown the reader what will happen to the protagonist if he/she fails. (Of course, when the protagonist meets the antagonist the stakes will have escalated.)

For example, recall the first few scenes of The Matrix where Trinity runs from the Agents. I’d bet that no one, after watching that incredible, impossible, opening sequence, went: “Meh. I don’t know; same old, same old.” 

I read an article about the psychology of flow a couple of days ago, “that state of intense focus and crisp sense of clarity where you forget yourself, lose track of time, and feel like you’re part of something larger.” Yes. That. When I watched the opening of The Matrix I think I forgot to breathe. 

From a story perspective, I thought the trailer worked because it allowed us to meet the antagonist (even though the Matrix itself was the ultimate antagonist, its agents were the embodiment of that force) and still watch Neo’s journey from ignorance to knowledge, something that wouldn’t have been possible if he was forced to confront the antagonistic force himself.

But Chris Winkle has an excellent point. When I realized Neo rather than Trinity was the main character I was a wee bit disappointed, but in that case it didn’t matter. After the first half hour the story had swallowed me whole; there was no way I was leaving the theater until the credits started rolling.

And, yes, The Matrix was a movie but the same principle applies to stories told in novel form. If you present the average reader with a captivating story they’ll stick around. If the author pens a fabulous trailer/prologue they’ve demonstrated what they’re capable of, what the gist of the story will be, and, based on that, readers can decide whether they want to stick around.

When a prologue/trailer can lose readers.

Now, I’ll admit, that strategy doesn’t always work. Sometimes I’ll stop reading. But I’ve found that when I put the book down three things are usually true of the story:

a. There’s been a radical change of setting. 

If I’m introduced to a uniquely interesting setting, if that’s a part of what interested me, then if the setting changes and changes in such a way that I think the change is permanent, my disappointment might be enough for me to set the book aside.

b. There’s a complete change of characters. 

By this I mean that the character one reads about in the introduction seems to be in no way related to the characters that come after. The characters in Chapter One aren’t connected to the person in the trailer by family or profession or ... well, anything!

As we’ll see later when we discuss specific story openings, “Relic” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child avoids this by making the connection between the redshirt of the trailer and the main characters obvious from the beginning. They are all anthropologists and we know the redshirt has found and sent back something mysterious and dangerous that will form the core of the novel. As a result, the trailer feels like an integral part of the story.

c. The goal of the main character in the trailer/prologue is not related to the goal of the main character in Chapter One.

I think it’s a good idea to show the connection between the redshirt and the protagonist as soon as possible. That is, within the first few pages of Chapter One. The connection doesn’t have to be spelled out in minute detail, but there has to be some connection, no matter how tenuous. But, well, maybe that’s just me!

I’ll take this topic up again on Wednesday when we look at point number three: being introduced to a mystery. Stay tuned!

Photo credit: "The Court of Disney Captains" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.