EXERCISE: Kickstart that dialogue

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First posted 27 April 2007

Writer's Digest had this exercise about conversation starters, borrowed from Write Great Fiction: Dialogue by Gloria Kempton. Fairly simple, really. Just imagine that one character is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle enthusiast. This could be a hobbyist or a Hell's Angels member, your choice. Now have that character engage in a conversation with the following:

1. A Buddhist monk
2. a small child
3. A political candidate
4. A mental hospital escapee
5. A female police officer

Make sure that the voices -- the choice of words, the viewpoints, etc. are distinctive for each of these.

And when you're finished those, feel free to mix up your own dialogue meetings.

And write!

TECH: Putting Life in Your Characters

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first posted 28 April 2007

Bringing Your Character to Life

How do you make compelling rounded characters? Well, Writers Digest, August 2004, page 20 and 21, James Scott Bell suggests three key features. Let's take a look at them.

Attitude! "Compelling characters have a way of looking at the world that's uniquely their own" In first person point of view, the attitude is part of the narrator's voice. In third person, the dialogue, actions, and thoughts of the character (if you sneak into the head of the protagonist, at least) show us their attitude. James suggests a little freeform fast writing to learn about the attitude of the character. You might use some of these questions to kick off your thinking (answer from the character's pov, please? Although your own answers may be interesting, right now we're exploring your character):

• What do you care most about in the world?
• What really ticks you off?
• If you could do one thing, and succeed at it, what would it be?
• What people do you most admire and why?
• What was your childhood like?
• What's the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?

Courage. "Novels are about challenges and threats to your hero, and that means he's going to have to show courage. This creates a rooting interest in the character, always a good thing for readers." James suggests that a dragging novel often means the protagonists has given up too easily, is just taking it or thinking about it. Make sure that your protagonist gets up and does things.

"Go back and put some fight in an earlier scene. Get the hero's dander up again, make him take some action against a person or circumstance. Whether it's as simple as taking a step into the unknown or charging ahead into a dangerous battle, courage bonds your readers with the main character."

Surprises! Raymond Chandler suggested that when your story starts to drag, "bring in a guy with a gun." Surprise us! People often do surprising things when they are excited, under stress, or have some inner conflict pushing them. So get your protagonist in trouble, crank up the tension, and let the behavior be a surprise.

Okay. That's the three suggestions that James had. Make sure your character has attitude, courage, and surprises us. Now, how do you put that into action? One easy thing to do is go back over your story and see where the dialogue or the action shows us the attitude, courage, and surprises of the character. You might use a highlighter and see if there are sections of your story that don't get marked up. If so, you may want to go back and think about putting some attitude, courage, and surprises in those sections. Another trick is to do some brainstorming. Take a sheet of paper, and make a list of at least five possible dialogue or action bits that would show us the attitude, courage, and surprises of the character.  15 little bits? Then pick out some really good ones and work them into the story.

In any case, don't forget. A character with attitude, facing vicissitudes with courage, and some fireworks and other surprises keeps the reader reading - and that's the point!

So write.

TECH: Putting Frustration to Work

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First posted 29 April 2007

Frustration is a writer's best friend

Writer's Digest, August 2004, pages 43 through 45, has an article by Nancy Kress talking about the most important emotion for your characters. You may need love and desire, you may have hatred and anger, but Nancy tells us that the most important emotion is frustration.

"Without frustration, there's no plot. Period. Frustration means that someone's not getting what he wants, and that's what makes a story work."

First, how does frustration work into characterization? Well, how do your family
and friends handle frustration? You've probably seen:

• Anger
• Tears
• Determination to try harder
• Blaming the closest person
• Blaming the universe
• Blaming oneself
• Drinking
• Venting to a trusted friend
• Giving up
• Seeking revenge on whatever is causing the frustration
• Prayer
• Stoicism
• Depression
• And many others!

How does your character respond to frustration? You want to decide this based on two things, what kind of person she or he is and what you want your plot to do. This needs to be part of the overall characterization. Think about the natural response to frustration, along with how well is at controlling and modifying that response, perhaps by substitution.

In regard to plotting, Nancy says "How your character handles frustration will heavily influence your plot. Does she fight back, seeking revenge on whomever's blocking her? Then your plot will feature fights and payback schemes. Does he give up? Then someone will need to motivate and/or rescue him, or else he'll have to learn to live without whatever he wants (both respectable plots)." Think about how your character reacts when he doesn't get something. Does this reaction provide you with plot ideas?

So let's suppose you've got the frustration. The next question that Nancy turns to is how to portray frustration, or dramatization. "How well you portray frustration can make the difference between characters who seem real and those who seem cardboard. A common mistake is to assume that your readers just know what your character's feeling. This usually occurs because the author feels exactly what the character does and assumes the reader does, too." Unfortunately, we don't all feel the same, so you need to dramatize the frustration, fully and convincingly so that the readers share it. You need to let the readers know what the character is feeling, the mix of emotions and the thoughts behind it. Nancy suggests that we use three methods to dramatize the reaction to frustration, body language, dialogue, and the character's thoughts.

Frustration and other emotions affect our bodies. So showing the physical reaction, gestures, facial reactions, tone of voice, breathing, and so on really shows us the character's feelings. Especially for a point-of-view characters, you can describe bodily reactions in detail. Notice your own physical reactions, your throat, your eyes, your stomach, even the itching in your toes, then use them to create character reactions that your readers can identify with.

Body language, though, is ambiguous. Are those tears of anger or sadness? Dialogue can help identify the frustrations. "Set up a situation in which a character would reasonably talk out his frustrations with a listener who might reasonably sit still to hear them."

Finally, for a point-of-view character, you can dip into their thoughts. Nancy points out that you need to be careful not to substitute thinking for action. A few thoughts for clarity and flavor, but mostly use action and drama. Make sure your characters do things, not just think about doing them.

"Frustration is universal. Make it work for you by building characterization, driving plot and hooking our sympathy on your characters' plights. What frustrates them will benefit your fiction."

Let's see. There is a sidebar exercise, too. Three easy steps.

1. Think about the last time you felt completely frustrated. Remember as much as you can about how you felt, what you thought, how your body reacted. Make a list of the key points.
2. List three people that you know well who have personality types different from yours. For each one, write down how she or he might react to the same frustration. What would they think? Feel? Say out loud? What would they do?
3. Look at your lists. Are any of these characters interesting to you? If so, imagine giving them more and larger frustrations. Repeated harassment from a neighbor, an unfair job firing, identity theft, or whatever you  like. Do their reactions provide you with more plot developments for this situation?

I'll toss in that you might want to do this whenever you are facing a conflict or frustration in your story. Think about how you and several other people might react to that frustration, then use the one that really fits the character and story you are building.

So remember, flavor your stories with frustration and watch your characters grow.