Creating empathy for your character&nbsp;

How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Exaggeration
How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Unusual Position
How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Characteristic Entry Action

Links

Characters, Jim Butcher.

Monday, April 12

How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Verisimilitude

This post continues my mini-series about how to introduce a character. I’ve already written about Exaggeration, Unusual Position and introducing characters in Action.

Today I’m covering Verisimilitude and later this week--I’m aiming for Thursday--I’ll close the series off by writing about Empathy. Here are links to my previous posts in this mini-series:

(Here is an index to all the blog posts in my soon-to-be written book: How to Write a Genre Story)

Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude. No, that’s not an exotic disease.

If a character has verisimilitude then they act believably which means that they act in a way that is consistent with who they are, with their core attributes. By the way, I’m getting much this information from Jim Butcher and his wonderful article, Characters. Jim Butcher calls verisimilitude the “V-factor.”

He writes:

“The most exotic character in the world becomes nothing more than an annoying cartoon figure if he doesn’t behave in a consistent and believable manner.”

As an example, Butcher mentions Jar Jar Binks. As you likely know, Jar Jar was first introduced in the first of the Star Wars prequels, The Phantom Menace.

It seems as though the character of Jar Jar checked most of the right boxes. He definitely had exaggerated and unusual traits and he was introduced in a way that helped make him memorable. But then WHY were Star Wars fans' reactions to him so mixed? Jim Butcher thinks that it is because, at least in part, Jar Jar didn’t have a consistent and believable manner. To paraphrase Butcher, the V-force was not with him. (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)

How to give a character verisimilitude

I think there are two things that make a character feel real.

First, as we have seen throughout this mini-series, you give the character tags and traits that illustrate who they are. Further you make at least one or two of these traits exaggerated, unusual.

Second, a character’s V-factor has to do with HOW you communicate a character’s emotional reactions. That’s what Jim Butcher focuses on and that’s what I’ll talk about, below. Here I just want to note that if this sounds similar to the pattern of a sequel, I would agree. This is the very same pattern. And it is enormously important.

Think of when you’ve encountered a sudden setback. What happens? Well, myself, I’m hit with a wall of pure, raw emotion. There’s no thought, not yet. It’s sort of like when I touch a hot stove (and, yes, I have been that idiotic, ‘Gee, I wonder if it’s hot yet.’) My hand started to move away from the burner before I felt the pain. Then I had a reaction which was, “Wow, touching a hot burner was a really bad idea.” Finally I made the decision to not do that again.

That’s perhaps a silly example but think of any sudden, negative, shock you’ve had. A significant other suddenly breaking up with you, hearing that you’ve been betrayed, and so on. Human beings have a reaction to those sort of things and it happens in a particular order. If that order isn’t right your readers probably won’t notice it but, still, it won’t FEEL right to them.

So. Jim Butcher lays out the three stages:

1. Emotions
2. Reactions
3. Decisions

In one of Jack Bickham's books he gives an example of a person coming home from work and, as they usually do, he calls out, “Honey I’m home!” But he is met with the silence of an empty house. Puzzled he looks around and spots a piece of paper on the hall table. He walks over and looks at it.

It’s a note from his wife. She tells him that she has been having an affair with the grocer for the past year and that she has left him.

What is his first reaction? EMOTION. A wave of emotion, of pain and regret. He’s not thinking about anything. There’s a chair nearby and he slumps into it because he doesn’t want to fall down.

Then he REACTS. Then he’s angry. How could she? How could she lie to him like that? How could she betray him, deceive him? She had told him she loved him, and all that time…

But what should he do? He could try to get her back, try to track them down. He could hire a private detective to find them. Perhaps the grocer had pressured her, perhaps he had blackmailed her. Even if not, perhaps he could win her back. But does he really want to do that? Perhaps he should let her go her own way.

The man presses bloodless lips together and makes a DECISION. To hell with her. He will scrub her from his life, from his memory, from his heart.

You see the pattern. If we had the decision before the emotion, it wouldn’t be credible or if the man had the reaction after the decision that wouldn’t make sense. You might be thinking, “Well, yeah… Did you really have to tell anyone that? Isn’t it obvious?” And, sure. On one level it is, but it is something that writers can get wrong and then the character doesn’t feel real.

Summary

When an event important to your character occurs, have your character react to it in a way that makes sense (see above) AND in a way that makes sense for them, that is true to their core characteristics. Those two considerations are equally important.

Well! That’s it for today. I’m trying to keep to a schedule of putting out a blog post on Monday and publishing my interview with a marvelously interesting writer on my YouTube channel on Tuesday. Tomorrow I will upload my chat with a singularly fascinating individual, Lydia Moore.

I hope you have a wonderful week, I'll talk to you again on Thursday. Good writing!

-- --

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:
Twitter: @WoodwardKaren
Pinterest: @karenjwoodward
Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter
YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like:

Saturday, April 10

How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Characteristic Entry Action

Introductions are important.

Do you remember the first time you introduced your Significant Other to a parent? There are few things in life you need to get right the first time but that’s one of them! Another one is introducing your protagonist to your reader.

Character Introductions

What makes a character introduction work? What needs to be communicated?

Jim Butcher writes:

“...it is critical to make sure you get the bare bones of your character into his [the reader’s] head immediately.”

By “the bare bones of your character” I think Butcher is referring, at least in part, to what I’ve been talking about in previous articles in this series: character tags. (For example, see How to Write a Genre Story: Characters: An Introduction to Character Tags)

Characteristic Entry Action

Sorry for using a long quotation, but Jim Butcher hits the nail on the head here. I can’t say it better or more clearly.

“A solid CHARACTERISTIC ENTRY ACTION consists of introducing your character to the reader by bringing him into the story in the course of an action which clearly, sharply typifies who and what he is.
“Lethal Weapon 2 starts off in the front seat of a stationwagon during a police chase, with Mel Gibson howling in excitement and pounding on the ceiling while Danny Glover fumbles for the siren, tries to talk on the radio, and tries to convince Mel that they don't really need to be doing this. It strongly establishes both characters as cops. It demonstrates Mel's love of wild action, Danny's cautious approach to his work, and the relationship dynamic between the two. (I liked it so much that I borrowed shamelessly from it to start off Grave Peril.)
“Every Bond Pic that opens on the "opening mission" template does the same thing: it shows you Bond being a heroic spy and engaging in lots of danger and action.
“Your character is a frustrated high school nerd? Then have him come on stage late for his school bus, which promptly drives away even though the driver obviously saw him coming. (IE, Spider-Man.) Your character is a titanic lumberjack? Then start him off towering over the north woods and felling fifty trees with each swing of his axe.
“Make the introduction count. This is something you can't afford to screw up.” (Characters, Jim Butcher)

An Example: Riggs and Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series

I just rewatched the start of Lethal Weapon 2 (sometimes I love doing research! ;). It was epic! It sets up Martin Riggs as a reckless thrillseeker, interested in going after bad guys regardless of the price to either himself or those closest to him. And then there’s Roger Murtaugh, Riggs’ partner. Murtaugh is an excellent foil for Riggs. He overthinks things where Riggs underthinks them. Murtaugh has a loving wife and family, Riggs is alone. Murtaugh is patient and careful, Riggs is impatient and careless. And all those qualities come out right at the start.

As for what Riggs and Murtaugh’s character tags are, I would say that one of Riggs’ tags is what I’ll call his ‘crazy face’: those insane wide eyes coupled with that almost Joker like grin. Also, Riggs wears casual clothes while Murtaugh wears a proper suit with a red tie. These nicely help to both indicate each man’s character as well as help us remember it.

An Example: Trinity from The Matrix (1999)

Another example of a (literally) kick-ass Characteristic Entry Action is how the character of Trinity was introduced in The Matrix (1999). She appears to defy the laws of physics as she methodically, quietly, dispassionately kills those who have been ordered to arrest her. This establishes her as an outsider, a rebel. Further, she clearly possesses knowledge and abilities beyond what seems possible for humans.

I know I’m dating myself by saying this, but the first time I saw The Matrix was in the theatre. I don’t think anyone breathed during that opening sequence. It’s, hands down, the best I’ve ever watched. And it gave us a very good sense of who Trinity was and, by extension, who her companions were, what they were like and what her role in the story was.

To sum up:

A. Get the essential characteristics of your protagonist (or any major character) into your reader’s head as quickly as possible.

B. Make these essential characteristics interesting! (An unique object that is a bright color or an object--like a wizard’s staff--that can do unusual and unpredictable things, a low laugh that is tied to Bad Things Happening, and so on.)

C. Especially if you’re writing a genre story, be sure to make at least one of the traits exaggerated along either a mental, physical or familial dimension.

By the way, I know that some of the tags I’ve mentioned can seem like cliches, but I think that whether people groan when they read a story about a wizard and his staff depends on the writer making that particular wizard unique. One way to do this is for the writer--you--to use your own memories, your own particularity, as a lens through which the reader can see the character. Since you are unique, this will guarantee that your stories will be unique. And, of course, they will also have your voice.

A Writing Exercise

As an exercise pick someone in your life and make a character of them. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Now tweak these traits so that they are extreme. (You never have to tell them you’ve done this!)

For example, one of my friends (I went to school with him) is very smart and open to new experiences (that’s one of the personality dimensions). This means that his tagline in life could be stated as: ‘Boundaries? What boundaries?’ His nimble mind and his readiness to explore alternative possibilities have given him a few good stories over the years.

If I were to create a character based on my friend I would make him as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes but in every story he would hold a different eccentric theory about how the universe really is. But he would also find a way to test the theory and, if it didn’t hold up, he would change his beliefs. And I would try to tie that theory, or the testing of that theory, into whatever it was that cracked open the case for him.

Oh, and he’d name all his children from characters in his favorite books. I think I would give him seven children. They would be adults and live all over the world. Perhaps a different one would be his Watson in each story. Or something.

That’s just a silly example, but perhaps it will inspire you to think how you could help merge the universal (I think my character will be a detective…) with the particular (...and he will be based on my experience of my friend.)

Until next time, good writing! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

-- --

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:
Twitter: @WoodwardKaren
Pinterest: @karenjwoodward
Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter
YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like:

Tuesday, April 6

How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Unusual Position

Today I continue my series on how to create a memorable character.

In my last post (How to Write a Genre Story: Character Introduction: Exaggeration) I went over Exaggeration. In this post I would like to chat with you about what Jim Butcher refers to as “Exotic Position,” but I’m going to call, “Unusual Position.”

a. Put an exceptional character in an exceptional situation.

Jim Butcher writes:

“Locating your character in an unusual location or situation is another way to help create immediate interest. ... A sentence about a young woman sitting in a chair is far more blah than a sentence about the first female shuttle commander maneuvering in her EVA frame in high orbit.”

Here are the first three paragraphs of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring:

“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
“Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved; but unchanged would have been nearer the mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth.
“‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. ‘It isn’t natural, and trouble will come of it!’” (The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien)

Everything about Bilbo and his surroundings is unusual. Bilbo Baggins lived longer than was normal for hobbits. And not only that, as his years stretched out, he showed no signs of aging! Also, he was extraordinarily rich as well as adventurous--in fact, his travels abroad had made him a local legend! And of course we’re talking about hobbits, a population of people who are completely unaverage in all sorts of ways, including their diminutive height.

b. Put an exceptional character in an ordinary position.

Jim Butcher writes:

“Naturally there's the inversion of this, too, where you take a very unusual character and put him in an utterly mundane position, like Mister Incredible working in Insurance Cubicle Purgatory.” (Characters, Jim Butcher)

The movie True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis springs to mind.

“Harry Tasker leads a double life: to his wife Helen and his daughter Dana, he is a boring computer salesman often away on business trips, while in actuality he is a secret agent for a U.S. intelligence agency named Omega Sector whose motto is 'The Last Line of Defense.' ” (Wikipedia)

True Lies was a nearly perfect movie! Harry was a spy who had one of the most exciting jobs imaginable who pretended to be in one of the most boring jobs imaginable.

Subdivisions: social, geographical, intellectual and moral

Butcher doesn’t go into detail about these variants, but here’s my interpretation:

Social position

An unusual social position, so something different from the average. Some of these are tropes, the commoner who is really royalty, the fey child unwittingly raised by human parents, and so on.

Geographical position:

Everything is relative. What would be considered unusual to Americans--a trip to Reykjavik or Honolulu--would be ho-hum to the people who lived there! Visiting Mars or The Moon, today, would be unusual but perhaps in 500 years it will be commonplace.

Intellectual position:

I think that Sherlock Holmes’ intellectual position was quite different. He was a genius. Perhaps he would say that he just noticed things other people didn’t and understood what he noticed. Perhaps it’s the same thing.

Moral position

This one I’m not sure about. Perhaps it would involve taking an extreme moral stand? Someone who cannot, or who refuses to, tell a lie no matter the cost? A monk or a nun who lives in a religious community? Someone who has vowed to never harm another creature?

The Unpredicted

We, as humans, are interested in the unpredictable--or at least the unpredicted--because it can kill us--because, by definition, we can’t prepare for it. We are on the lookout for things that violate our expectations, our understanding of the world. This is true for our story worlds as well.

Think about your life, what memories, events, come to mind? For myself, I remember when I came in third place for the high jump in elementary school. That event stands out because I wasn’t (and this is a charitable way of putting it) a top student in Physical Education. I was definitely more of a nerd than a jock!

Going back over my personal memories--especially my early memories--there is something emotional involved with all, or at least most, of them. For example, receiving an unexpectedly wonderful gift at Christmas or someone breaking their word about something I cared very much about.

As humans, we need to remember the exceptions, the things that aren’t as we would expect. When, in real life, we come across these things we need to understand them and incorporate them into our world view.

Jim Butcher’s character, Mouse

I’ll close with an example.

One of my favorite characters in Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series is a dog named Mouse.

Physically, Mouse is impressive. He is a Tibetan Temple Dog (which in The Dresden Files is a rare breed) and is absolutely massive, standing waist high to Harry, and Harry is 6’9’’ tall!

Intellectually, Mouse is exceptional. My impression from reading the series is that he is much more intelligent than the average human. Harry Dresden is the Watson to Mouse’s Holmes--though that’s not quite right because, although Mouse might be smarter, Dresden is a powerful and wiley wizard.

Mouse’s origin is unusual. He is thought to be a descendant of an ancient Foo spirit. In Blood Rights a litter of puppies had been stolen by someone evil and Dresden had been commissioned to get them back. But one, Mouse, chose to stay with Harry and stowed away in his car, the Blue Beetle.

Okay! That’s it for today. I tried to get this post out on Monday but, well, better late than never! :-) Good writing! I’ll talk to you again on Thursday.

Story Openings: Introducing a Main Character

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Today I want to talk about character introductions.

First, an acknowledgement. This post is inspired by Jim Butcher’s post, Characters, where he goes into all this in great and glorious detail.

Second, when I write, “a character,” what do I mean? I like what Jim Butcher has to say about this:

“Maybe your people look like sentient renaissance mice, or maybe they look like talking cats, but there are going to be beings running around your story with a bunch of conflicting desires. Those are your characters.” (Characters, Jim Butcher)

Characters must be interesting.

We all know that characters must be interesting. I mean, of course!

Jim Butcher gives five characteristics that make a character interesting. I’ll list them and go over each one.

1. Exaggeration
2. Exotic Position
3. Introduction
4. Verisimilitude
5. Empathy

We’ll go over each of these starting, today, with Exaggeration.

1. Exaggeration

Exaggerate something, some feature of the character.

Physical: Big nose, striking blue-white eyes, enormous height, and so on.
Mental: Extremely smart, clairvoyant, telekinetic, and so on.
Emotional: An extreme and irrational fear, extreme courage/bravery, and so on.

i. Exaggerated traits are more interesting.

We are hard-wired to pay attention to exaggerated characteristics. Jim Butcher gives the example of two different situations and then challenges his audience to ask themselves which situation is the most interesting. What follows is roughly based on Butcher’s example.

Imagine an ordinary path with oak trees that reach out to each other over the path (this forms a green tunnel of sorts) and an ice cream shop at the end.

Situation A:
An average sized man walks down the path, under the tree branches and enters the shop.
Situation B:
A seven foot tall man walks down the path, bangs his head on the first branch before ducking. He then tries to enter the shop but clobbers his head on the door jam.

I’m more interested in the second character because there is nothing to the first. The exaggerated trait by itself, though, isn’t all that interesting. It only becomes interesting when it comes into contact with an environment that is calibrated for people of ordinary height.

Note: This reminds me of what I wrote about in my post about settings, specifically that the setting is the crucible for your character. It’s rarely the characteristic in itself that is interesting, it is that characteristic in conjunction with an environment. For more on this see my blog post, How to Write a Genre Story: Setting and the Hero's Journey (Part 1).

ii. Exaggerated traits are more memorable.

I’ve found that exaggeration does help recall. I have a book to recommend, “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering,” by Joshua Foer. Foer goes through the history of memory techniques, the role of memorization in history as well as how to improve one’s own recall.

Anyway, in that book Joshua Foer notes that (this is an extreme simplification) to remember something--say the capital of Delaware, Dover--it helps if it is associated with an image. The idea is then to recall this image, and have the image act as a memory prompt.

One thing Joshua Foer stresses is that it helps recall if the image depicts something that is exaggerated. Here’s the key I think, the brain doesn’t notice things we expect to see, but it will notice something it doesn’t. The exaggerated is, by definition, unexpected.

Jim Butcher writes:

“SECOND, it's a device to create an acute mental awareness of your character for the reader. Remember that the goal of this kind of story-craft is to create that virtual world inside your reader's head. The reader is glad to help you along with that. I mean, readers will provide a lot of the background sets and extras and so on if you give them a chance--but one way to make it easier for them to get into the story is to create a clear impression of a character on them, so that they always have a clear image in their head of who that character is. Exaggeration helps with that--it gives the reader something unusual and memorable to associate with any given character.”

Well said! I’ll leave you with that. Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll talk to you again on Monday. Good writing!

Story Openings: Throwing Trouble at the Protagonist
Story Openings: Five Choices
An index to Jim Butcher's posts on writing: Jim Butcher on Writing

-- --

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:
Twitter: @WoodwardKaren
Pinterest: @karenjwoodward
Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter
YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like:

Monday, March 29

How to Write a Genre Story: Make Your Character Memorable & Unique: Tags

In a previous post, How to Write a Genre Story: Characters: An Introduction to Character Tags, I talked about why tags are important for characterization (essentially, it is because they help describe someone in a memorable way). For example, when Hercule Poirot’s green eyes glow--like a cat’s!--we know his little grey cells are working overtime, we know he has either solved the mystery or is very close. In other words, we know a lot that hasn’t been written.

Today, I would like to drill down into what kinds of tags there are.

Kinds of Tags

Tags of Diction

"Diction" refers to a speaker's "distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression"[2] and can be used as a tag to tell one character from another.

When Edith Wharton writes that a character was "Dragging his words along like reluctant dogs on a string,"[1] she is talking about a character's diction.

Here are a few descriptions of diction:

"He [Edmund Wilson] spoke in a curiously strangled voice, with gaps between his sentences, as if ideas jostled and thrashed about inside him, getting in one another’s way as they struggled to emerge, which made for short bursts," Isaiah Berlin, New York Times Book Review, April 12, 1987

"Intoned monotonously like a sleep-walker," MacDonald Harris

A character might use the word "sir" repeatedly or use slang terms such as "awesome," "brilliant," "dude," and so on. (Also, the words one uses, especially slang, can be a nice way to indicate age or social group.)

Accents & Jargon

Accents can help to differentiate characters but I would advise caution, it is easy to overdue them.

The same can be said for “jargon.” Most professions--the police, lawyers, academics, doctors, and so on--have words unique to the discipline.

Mannerisms

Google tells me that a mannerism is a “habitual gesture or way of speaking or behaving; an idiosyncrasy.”

Here are a few examples:

Hands on hips, pouting, chewing strands of hair, a shy half-smile, drawing a hand across one's brow, foot tapping, biting fingernails, toss the hair out of one's face, twirling hair around a finger, running fingers through long, glossy, locks of hair, biting fingernails, winking, snapping fingers, stuffing hands in pockets, learning forward, grin stretching from ear to ear (cliched), and so on.

Mannerisms are one of the more commonly used tags. Also, many of them have the advantage of involving action.

Attitude

I’ve written about tags of attitude in my post, How to Write a Genre Story: A Character's Dominant Attitude, so I won’t go over them here except to say that, just as I would characterize a flesh and blood person as a cheerful person or a grumpy person or an angry person, so characters have an attitude that characterizes them; Dwight V. Swain calls this the character’s Dominant Attitude. This attitude will be the lens through which both they see the world and the window through which the world sees them.

Appearance

In order for a characteristic/tag to help us remember a character, it must be unique to that character. So it would be potentially frustrating for a reader to read a story with two characters who looked nearly identical--except, of course, if that was important to the plot.

I think the first rule of writing is, “Write clearly.” Part of this is having characters who look memorably different from one another.

Examples of tags of appearance. Harry Dresden is the main character in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. Harry is Chicago’s only wizard to advertise in the yellow pages! He is out of the magical closet, saving damsels and wreaking havoc. Three of Harry’s tags of appearance are his black duster, his wizard’s staff and his immense height (6’9’’).

Ability/Capacity

Let’s say one of your characters, Alfred, is a caterer. At some point in your story Alfred will show that he knows something about cooking, shopping, balancing books, and so on.

On the other hand, if Alfred was a spy then he would know how to tail someone without being detected, how to tell when he was being tailed, how to lose a tail, how to plant a bug, how to pick locks, and so on.

In the above examples cooking, shopping, knowing something about accounting, how to plant a bug, pick locks, and so on, are all tags of ability.

Dwight V. Swain writes: "Failure to provide Character with the ability to perform as required believably can destroy--or make--a story."

As with everything, though, there are exceptions. For example, if your protagonist is a new spy he might be really good at some things, like tailing someone, but horrible at others, say lockpicking. Imagine that your protagonist knows he’s terrible at lockpicking. This means that when he goes out into the field with a team he would be terrified that he will be asked to pick a lock. Perhaps this fear makes him distracted at just the wrong time and something else terrible happens. Or whatever.

My point is that you can do anything you like with tags, it just has to make sense given the context.

Tags Help Readers Recall A Character To Mind

As I’ve mentioned, because tags are unique they help make characters memorable. If Jim is the only one of your characters who has greenish-blue eyes, and if those glacier-like greenish-blue eyes are tied into something about his character--or, to put it another way, a tag of attitude [3]--(‘his eyes are as cold as his soul’ or something slightly less cheesy!) then when the character is reintroduced after the absence of a few pages or chapters and glacial eyes or cold eyes are mentioned, not only will that particular character be brought to mind but you’ll also remember something about his personality, his essence.

In the following, Jim Butcher writes about how to create a good villain but, of course, what he writes applies to any major character:

"A good villain needs to be instantly recognizable to your reader, so that even if he hasn’t appeared in a hundred pages, your reader will recognize that character instantly. You can achieve this pretty effectively using Tags and Traits, identifiers for a character which reserve particular props, personality traits, and words to associate with any given character."

Note: The above quotation from Jim Butcher was included in my article, "How to Build a Villain."

You can read more about what Jim Butcher has to say about tags and traits over at his livejournal blog. Here is an index I put together.

A word about traits

I haven’t talked much about traits because, the way I understand it, traits are tags that are dispositions. That’s confusing, so let me unpack it.

In the real world I like coffee. That’s a disposition. But that is a preference. Unless I’m sipping coffee from an oversized mug you couldn’t look at me and realize that I like coffee, you can’t just look at someone and see a disposition.

That said, my disposition to like coffee and have four or so cups a day is going to manifest in my life in various ways. For example, I always have my favorite oversized red mug sitting close to my left hand whether or not it is filled with the luscious liquid. My desk may have some coffee grinds scattered around it from grinding the coffee beans and I can easily reach my french press, an object that enjoys pride of place on the bookshelf behind me. In this little tale, my red coffee bug, the scattered coffee grinds and the French press would be tags that bring my trait (my liking-of-coffee) to mind.

Here’s another example. Let’s say a character, Herbert, hates cats. His hatred of cats is a disposition, a trait. But we can’t look at Herbert and see, “Oh, yes, he is obviously a cat hater.” (Sure, we could just tell our readers, “Herbert hates cats,” but that’s telling not showing. It’s better if readers get there on their own.)

So, given that we can’t see Herbert’s hatred of cats, how do we get this across to readers? Well, with tags. Herbert might have a chihuahua. The little dog is very cute but--although he gets along fine with all the other dogs--he goes completely insane when he sees a cat. Herbert smiles at this and says, “Good doggy.” So the tag, here, would be a behavioral tag: the dog's aggression toward cats, and only toward cats. We might go on to explain that Herbert is violently allergic to cats and has to carry around an epipen. He hates being allergic to cats, he hates having to carry around an epipen and constantly worry about dying because a damn cat might decide to jump up on him. In this case, Herbert’s epipen could also function as a tag.

Does that make sense? If not, please let me know!

That’s it for today. As always, thanks for reading. Good writing. I’ll talk to you again on Thursday.

Links/Notes/References

1. Coming Home, by Edith Wharton.
2. Diction, Wikipedia
3. I talk more about this in my post, How to Write a Genre Story: A Character's Dominant Attitude.

-- --

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:
Twitter: @WoodwardKaren
Pinterest: @karenjwoodward
Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter
YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like:

Thursday, March 25

How to Write a Genre Story: A Character's Dominant Attitude

I’ve already gone over Swain’s idea of a character’s dominant impression, now let’s talk about their dominant attitude.

A character’s attitude

“Attitude is a matter of behavior patterns—a character’s habitual way of reacting to a particular kind of situation. Mary Poppins’s eternal cheeriness reflects an attitude, and so does Rambo’s macho stance.” (Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Dwight V. Swain)

Other examples of attitudes: sanctimony, ingrained suspicion, anxiety, discontent, and so on.

Like flesh and blood people, a character has more than one attitude. For example, a character can be both cheerful (like Mary Poppins) and sanctimonious, though at any one time one attitude will be stronger than the other. Overall, though, the character will have one attitude, aptly named the ‘dominant attitude’ that defines the character more than any other. I’ll go over a character's dominant attitude in a moment, but before I do let’s look at some examples.

Examples

I was at a party the other day and fell into conversation with someone I knew slightly. This wasn't the first time we'd met, but it was the first time we had a chance to exchange more than awkward pleasantries.

After a minute or so my impression of him was fixed: he was not a person who suffered fools gladly. It was an observation that didn't set me at ease since I was keenly aware that what constitutes a fool in someone's mind can be distressingly relative. Anyway, if he was a character I was writing, that would be his dominant attitude.

Keep in mind that our characters are pseudo-people and so tend to have less subtlety than their flesh-and-blood counterparts. For example, if a character's primary attitude is fearfulness, then that trait, that quality, will find a way to insinuate itself into everything that character does.

Example 1: Mr. Midgley

If a character--Mr. Midgley--is, say, irascible then he might snap at other characters over minor slights or inconveniences. As a response to this, other characters might gossip about him. This character’s house would be the one school children are gently but firmly steered away from on Halloween.

An irascible character can be kind or considerate, but there would have to be a reason. It would require an explanation. For example, perhaps one of the neighborhood children--Sarah--reminds him of his estranged daughter and so he has a soft spot for the child. He's sentimental. It's his daughter’s birthday so he bakes his daughter's favorite cookies--chocolate chip with extra chips. Then he sees Sarah creep hesitantly, fearfully, onto his back lawn to retrieve a baseball that has landed in his flowerbed. Something about the sight makes it hard for him to swallow and he wipes his eyes with a tissue. Rather than bawl her out for trespassing he goes out and gives the child a cookie. An unlikely friendship is forged.

Example 2: Monica Geller from Friends

Here's another example, this time from the TV show Friends. I would say that Monica Geller's primary attitude was obsessive compulsiveness when it came to cleaning. Informally, we would call her a neat freak. Everything had to be just so or she'd clean and scrub and rearrange until it was. Monica didn't need a reason to clean, no explanation was required. If she didn't clean up a mess, THAT would require an explanation.

Example 3: Mr. Monk

One last example: Mr. Monk from the TV show Monk. I would say that Mr. Monk's primary attitude was fearfulness.

Mr. Monk was obsessive compulsive and he had an uncanny knack to remember even the most minute, irrelevant detail about his environment. He was also scared of just about everything. Even milk. Milk! One reason that show was a success was that, in practically every scene, the screenwriters demonstrated Monk's primary characteristic--fearfulness--and tied everything else to it. Then, at the end of nearly every show, the writers had Monk do something that for him was courageous. He had goals he was driven to attain--becoming a detective again, figuring out who killed his wife, protecting a friend--and was temporarily able to overcome his many fears. So, really, the most terrified man in the world was courageous.

Once you've picked a character's dominant attitude it should be reflected in some way in nearly every scene.

The Dominant Attitude

Dwight V. Swain writes, “...you’ll need to become aware of the special areas of mind and thought that your story brings into focus.

“You can do worse than to term this collective pattern your character’s dominant attitude.” (Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Dwight V. Swain)

“Thus, in a romance, Female Lead’s dominant attitude very well may center on the way she sees—and, in action, reacts to and behaves towards—men. Are they dominating bullies, like her boss? Frail reeds, in the manner of her hopeless, helpless uncle? Eternal womanizers...? [Are they] [s]hadow images of her boastful, bragging brother?…. Stalwart partners for a lifetime of warmth and peace? (Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Dwight V. Swain)

In a science fiction story the dominant attitude of the protagonist might be one of ingrained suspicion. In keeping with this attitude he might believe that the human race is doomed to extinction at the hands of an alien race. He feels/thinks that, because of the aliens’ technological superiority, that our only hope is to ‘acquire’ their technology before they have the opportunity to crush us.

In a suspense novel, perhaps the protagonist’s dominant attitude is one of distrust. He looks at his fellow humans either as perpetrators--those who take advantage of others--or victims--those who are taken advantage of by others. Because of this belief he becomes withdrawn, leaves society and goes to live all by himself in the hills.

In a mainstream novel, the protagonist might have the dominant attitude of cheerfulness, she believes that there is good in everyone, even the most hardened murderer. Because of this belief she becomes a psychologist and opens a rehabilitation center for hardened criminals.

So you see the pattern. A character has an attitude which, in conjunction with a belief, contributes to the character having a goal. The conjunction of the attitude with the belief might even suggest a way of achieving the goal.

Attitudes and beliefs

Above, I’ve mentioned a belief.

I haven’t written much about what this belief is, where it enters into things. It seems as though the belief encompasses that character's view of what the best way to live one’s life is. Perhaps the character’s attitude stems from this belief, or perhaps the belief is a result of their attitude. Who knows!

In my last example the belief (or worldview) the protagonist had was that, "Good is in everyone," and the course of action she took based on that view was to get a degree in psychology and open a rehabilitation center.

Dominant Attitude and Theme

At some point I would like to write a blog post about a story’s theme, what it is and its importance to making a story riveting. It seems to me that a character’s dominant attitude would tie them into the theme of the story, or--to put it another way--set the theme of the story. I need to think about that some more.

That’s it! As always, I’d love to know your thoughts. 😀

Good writing. I’ll talk to you on Monday.

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:
Twitter: @WoodwardKaren
Pinterest: @karenjwoodward
Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter
YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like:

Monday, March 22

How to Write a Genre Story: Dwight V. Swain and the Dominant Impression

"A tag is a label, but a limited, specialized label. It identifies a character and helps your readers distinguish one story person from another." (Dwight V. Swain, Creating Characters: How To Build Story People)

Tags or labels are important because they are a practical, concrete way of making a character memorable.

In my last post I introduced the idea of a character tag or label. In this post I would like to look at this through the lens of what Dwight V. Swain has to say about what he calls a character's Dominant Impression. (In my next post I'll take a look at a character's Dominant Attitude.) In the following I’ve drawn from Dwight V. Swain’s excellent book, Creating Characters as well as Jim Butcher’s Livejournal posts.

(Here’s a link to an index I put together for Butcher’s posts about writing: Jim Butcher On Writing.)

Dominant Impression

One of the most effective ways of using tags or labels is through formulating a dominant impression for each character. In this post I'm going to go over what a dominant impression is and how it achieves its effect.

Swain tells us that a character’s dominant impression is made up of her gender, age, vocation and manner. Since the importance of a character's gender and age are obvious, I will only go over vocation and manner.

Noun of Vocation

The noun of vocation is the one word that best describes either what the character does or how they define themselves. Swain writes that the noun of vocation should communicate the character’s occupation as well as their role in society. For example, “server” or “artist.”

The noun of vocation isn’t necessarily what a person does for a living. Many people define themselves by their skills AND their passions and not just in terms of what they do to earn a living. For example, a struggling actor who doesn’t yet make enough to pay the rent may pay rent by being a server, but they think about themselves as an actor. Or not. It’s up to you and what you want to say about the character.

A tag is like a shorthand for something else. “His eyes were a shade of blue that made me think of bones bleached by the sun.” In this example, light blue eyes would be a tag. For a tag to be of use, though, it needs to be unique to your character (I’ve written about this in my last post).

Defining our terms: tags or labels

Before we get too far along I want to talk about how I’m using the word “tag” or “label.”

Each tag--and a character’s gender, age, vocation and manner are all tags--identify a character uniquely. Swain uses Kojak as an example; that character's tags were his ever present lollipop and his shaved head.

A tag as an object or characteristic

A tag can be something like an object that is always--or very nearly always--associated with them. For example, in Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series, Harry Dresden’s black duster or his rune carved staff. Or, as I just mentioned, it can be the color of a character’s eyes, as long as it is unusual and unique.

A tag as a disposition

A tag can also be something one can’t see, something more like a disposition. Think of love. You can get into an argument with someone you love and want to strangle them. Perhaps you even berate yourself for thinking that going out with them that first time was a good idea! But you haven’t really fallen out of love with them, you’ve just had a spat. Love is a disposition. It is something that is there through the lows as well as the highs.

Another example: Sherlock Holmes hated to be bored, that was a disposition. We can see instances of him being bored, but we can't see the disposition itself.

Dispositions can be called to mind through the use of tags. For instance, the needle Sherlock Holmes used to inject his seven percent solution of cocaine could be used as a tag. In the beginning of a story we might find Sherlock resting in his favorite chair with a syringe lying on the table next to him. That one image, even though static, would give the reader a lot of information about the current state of the character.

Okay, onward!

Adjective of Manner

Dwight V. Swain writes that the adjective of manner is, “...an individual’s personal bearing; his or her habitual stance and style.” For example, if I describe someone (this is Swain’s example) as “loud and pushy” this conveys a lot of information about their personality. This is the sort of character description we want. Yes, it’s important to let the reader know the color of a character’s hair and eyes, and so on, but summing up their essential character quickly and memorably is more important.

Another thing to note is that adjectives of manner are dispositions, which is the second kind of tag I wrote about, above.

Dominant Impression: Summary

Putting this together, let’s combine an adjective of manner with a character’s noun of vocation.

Adjective of manner: grumpy
Noun of vocation: server

This gives you the thumbnail description: grumpy server. It conjures up an image. Sure, it needs to be filled out--as it is we are dealing with a two-dimensional character--but it gives us a start, it can serve as a kind of summary of a character, a hook to hang other qualities from.

Swain writes,

“Make the surly cop a sloppy cop or a forthright cop or friendly cop or worried cop, and he becomes a totally new person. Frequently such switches can even be parlayed into intriguing, character-defining, contradictory touches that add extra interest. Let happenstance throw the wise-cracking secretary into contiguity with the long-faced undertaker...” (Dwight V. Swain, Creating Characters: How to Build Story People.)

That made me think of the secretary (Janine Melnitz) and the scientist (Dr. Egon Spengler) from Ghostbusters (1984). That combination worked!

Okay, that’s it! Currently I'm publishing a post on Monday and Thursday. On Tuesday I will publish a new interview on my YouTube channel. This week my video will feature poet and prose writer Kevin Gooden. Kevin and I chatted about his experience with the Gotham Writers Workshop, which was overwhelmingly positive, how to write a good cover letter as well as how one's own life experiences can enrich one's writing.

Good writing!

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:

Twitter: @WoodwardKaren

Pinterest: @karenjwoodward

Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter

YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like:

Thursday, March 18

How to Write a Genre Story: Characters: An Introduction to Character Tags

Let’s talk about character tags.

In a later post I’ll talk more about how Dwight V. Swain and others thought of tags and traits. In this post I'll provide an overview. Hopefully this post will give you an idea what I mean by “character tag” and why it can be the single most powerful tool in your writer’s tool box.

A character tag is something visible--a favorite ugly neon pink scarf, an odd pattern of speech, eyes that turn colour when the character has solved a puzzle--that helps a reader remember a character and bring them back to mind after she has been absent for a few pages.

It sounds simple, perhaps even simplistic, but a reader cannot love a character she doesn't remember.

I’ve been reading Jim Butcher’s new books in the Harry Dresden series, Peace Talks and Battle Ground. I think Butcher would agree that much of the success of his Dresden Files series is that his readers find the protagonist, Harry Dresden, memorable. (Of course, Butcher’s readers do more than remember Harry, they love him, but getting readers to love your character is a series of posts all by itself. We’ll get there though!)

Character tags: an example.

“The new mailman, who looked like a basketball with arms and legs and a sunburned, balding head, was chuckling at the sign on the door glass.” (Storm Front, Jim Butcher)

This description comes from the fourth paragraph in Storm Front, Butcher’s first book in his Dresden Files series. That’s a good description! He “looked like a basketball with arms and legs.” Okay. Not the kindest thing to say, but I can picture this guy, this new mailman, and I think you can too. And, by the way, even the fact that that wasn’t the kindest thing to point out--after all, I suspect both you and I have a characteristic or two we’re not completely thrilled about--says something about Harry Dresden. That’s because Butcher writes this book from a first person perspective, from Harry’s perspective, and so we are getting not a disembodied narrator's description but Harry’s thoughts.

Two kinds of character tags.

I think that character tags fall into roughly two categories: some character tags reflect the character’s strengths and weaknesses while others are primarily about making the character memorable. I’ll talk about both, below.

Character tags that express core attributes of a character versus those that don’t.

Ideally, all character tags would tie into some deep characteristic, something important to that character, something that makes them the character they are: a strength or a weakness. But that doesn’t always happen, and that’s okay.

Character tags that are just tags.

One of my favorite characters that Agatha Christie created was Mrs. Ariadne Oliver. She wasn’t a major character, only appearing in (I think) nine Poirot stories and one featuring her detective Parker Pyne.

Oliver was a self-insertion which is to say that she had many characteristics of Christie herself. Christie occasionally made mistakes with clues, mistakes which fans constantly informed her about. In “Mrs McGinty’s Dead,” Oliver groans about radically underestimating the length of a blowpipe. Well, Christie did this herself in Death on the Clouds. That's just one example.

Anyway, Oliver’s tags work for the character but aren’t especially tied to whatever characteristics make her the character she is. For example, Oliver loves apples. She’s always got an apple near her, in her bag, there will be a plate of apples in her room, etc.

Another of Oliver’s tags is that she attempts overly intricate hairdos but it doesn’t quite come off. Or, rather, it does! Hairpins work their way loose, etc. Oliver makes decisions based on emotion and not reason--something Oliver refers to as “feminine intuition.”

The fact that Ariadne Oliver’s hairdo was always coming loose, fake curls springing out from her head helter skelter, did show that while she liked to be creative, she had these grand plans, but they didn’t really come off the way she wanted them to. And she never noticed that her intuition had led her down a dead end. Though, that said, she did guess the correct murderer in one of the stories before Poirot did (I won’t say which one, that would spoil it), however that seemed to be a fortunate accident; even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Obviously, Mrs Ariadne Oliver was a character that Christie used to assume the role of “The Watson," but also because it amused her to insert herself into the story and gently mock herself. The fact remains that at least one of Oliver’s main tags doesn’t have anything to do with either a strength or a weakness: Oliver's love of apples. That said, it worked wonderfully.

Character tags that tie into the deeper self.

I think the best tags tie into a character’s strengths or weaknesses. Let’s go over three examples: Nero Wolfe, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

Nero Wolfe

Nero Wolfe liked to have a comfortable life, he valued a high standard of living. That isn’t necessarily a weakness, but that desire requires a lot of money to fulfill. This demand drove Wolfe’s occasionally lazy self to seek out and solve cases. Also, Wolfe’s desire to stay indoors and enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle made solving cases more difficult. As far as weaknesses go, that’s great!

So how did Rex Stout, author of the Nero Wolfe books, visually signal Wolfe’s desire for luxury? Wolfe wore expensive immaculately tailored suits, he loved gourmet food and had his own private chef (Fritz Brenner), he had a passion for cultivating orchids (an expensive hobby), and, above all, he relished never having to leave his brownstone to do physical labour, he had Archie Goodwin for that.

In terms of strengths, Wolfe was brilliant and could solve cases that stumped everyone else--IF he was properly motivated. Also, if push came to a very energetic shove, Wolfe was loyal to those who were loyal to him.

So, to summarize, there were more tags than just these (I didn’t mention anything about beer), but here are the ones I’ve covered so far.

Wolfes’ fine dining and lack of exercise made him obese. Enormous. He likes having his clothes tailor made from the best materials, but I also imagine Wolfe couldn’t just breeze into a department store and buy something off the rack. And then, as I’ve mentioned, there is Wolfe’s love of what are among the most expensive plants to cultivate, orchids.

So those are some of Nero Wolfe’s character tags: obese, dapper, lazy, an orchid lover and brilliant. All around, a marvelous character.

Since these tags are tied into both Wolfe’s strength (he is very smart and good at solving cases when he is properly motivated) and his weakness (he would would much rather tend orchids and eat delicious food than solve cases) they not only help us remember the character, but bring to mind what makes him interesting.

Hercule Poirot

I can never decide who is my favorite detective, Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. I was introduced to Poirot in grade nine when my English teacher asked us to read one of Christie’s most popular novels, “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.” After that, I quickly worked my way through every detective story Christie had written.

Hercule Poirot’s strengths were his intellect and his understanding of psychology. His weaknesses were his immense ego and an anachronistic, rigid, sense of fashion. I would say that Poirot was vain, but if he was, his vanity only extended to his sense of style (because he wasn’t stylish!). But he was usually--though not always--correct when it came to his mental ability. [1]

Christie expressed these traits in appearance and behavioral tags. She gave Poirot a mincing walk, an antiquated sense of style, an oddly shaped head (egg shaped), a passion for unhealthy delicacies combined with a disinclination to exercise (she contrasted this with Author Hastings’ love of sports).

Another behavioural tag was Poirot’s green eyes which tended to glow when he was in deep thought (this reminds me of Sherlock Holmes playing his violin).

Also, Christie gave Poirot the ability to break certain social norms. He could (and did) lie easily--but never to himself! Also, he felt no compunction about, for example, searching a young woman’s bedroom for love letters and then reading them. (This happened, for example, in Peril at End House.) And he was very neat, orderly and methodical.

A summary.

A character tag is something that is associated with your character that is:

- Unique to this character
- Unusual/uncommon
- Exaggerated
- (If possible) tied to a character’s strength or weakness

Always keep in mind, though, that writing is more of a dark art than a science. Do whatever works for you.

That's it for today! Good writing and I'll talk to you again, likely on Monday.

Notes:

[1] I’m not sure how many people will be interested in this, so I’ve put it in a footnote.

This is an excerpt from Peril at End House that illustrates some of the points I’ve been making:

(By the way, SPOILER WARNING!!!)

“[Hastings says,] You think she [Nick] is keeping something back?”
“Yes.” [Poirot replies]
“Possibly with an idea of shielding whoever it is?”
Poirot shook his head with the utmost energy.
“No, no. As far as that goes, she gave me the impression of being utterly frank. I am convinced that as regards these attempts on her life, she was telling all she knew. But there is something else—something that she believes has nothing to do with that at all. And I should like to know what that something is. For I—I say it in all modesty—am a great deal more intelligent than une petite comme ça. [I am much smarter a little like that.] I, Hercule Poirot, might see a connection where she sees none. It might give me the clue I am seeking. For I announce to you, Hastings, quite frankly and humbly, that I am as you express it, all on the sea. Until I can get some glimmering of the reason behind all this, I am in the dark. There must be something—some factor in the case that I do not grasp. What is it? Je me demande ça sans cesse. Qu’est-ce que c’est? [I keep asking myself that. What is that?]”

I hate doing this, but I’m going to spoil the ending of Peril at End House. I think this is one of Christie’s best books, so if you haven’t read it (the book is better than the TV adaptation, beautiful though that is) stop reading this footnote.

Poirot is completely wrong about Nick, but he is understandably wrong. He is making two errors. First, he thinks he is always the smartest person in the room. And, sure. Usually he is. But this time is the exception. Christie plays fair with the reader here, she gave us clues, she--as Poirot might say--gives us the psychology of the situation. Poirot actually says:

“For I—I say it in all modesty—am a great deal more intelligent than une petite comme ça. I, Hercule Poirot, might see a connection where she sees none.”

And, sure, it’s not unreasonable for Poirot to think that he might see something a person who isn’t a detective wouldn’t, but Christie is mildly mocking Poirot here, because he is so sure that a young woman couldn’t outwit him. But, in the best possible form, she has given Poirot what every protagonist needs: an unlikely antagonist who is smart enough to pull the wool over his eyes. At the end of the story Poirot, thoroughly stumped, is able to see past his belief in his own brilliance and accepts that he could possibly not be the smartest person in the situation and sees Nick for who she really is, only then does Poirot realize who the murderer is.

Second, I think Hercule Poirot has a tendency to think that Nick is warmer and kinder than she actually is because she’s a woman. Christie used this trick over and over. Poirot constantly uses the fact that he is odd looking and foreign to encourage others to underestimate him and let down their guard. And then Cristie creates the character of Nick and uses this very thing against Poirot. Brilliant!

I’ve read this book MANY times, but it never disappoints even though I know the plot because I so enjoy seeing how Christie hoodwinked me the first time. And, also, I love her characters as well as her voice.

Other posts in this extended series (I'm blogging a book):
How to Write a Genre Story: The Index

Where you can find me on the web:

Twitter: @WoodwardKaren

Pinterest: @karenjwoodward

Instagram: @KarenWoodwardWriter

YouTube: The Writer's Craft

Blog posts you might like: