The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 19 July 2009

Let's see.

We're writing a quest story. And I've rambled a little about the inciting incident, and suggested that perhaps Jim Butcher's story skeleton might be useful to put backbone in your tale. "When something happens, you are protagonist pursues a goal. But will he succeed when the antagonist provides opposition?"

Another part of Butcher's blogging over here http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/ talks about interesting characters. After all, you got at least a protagonist and an antagonist, if not a few supporting characters. So how do you make characters interesting? Jim Butcher suggests five key points.

The first is exaggeration. It may seem melodramatic and certainly not egalitarian, but interesting characters are a little bit bigger than life. The easiest way to do this is simply exaggeration.

A second, related approach is exotic positions. Nothing to do with the Kama Sutra or Kinsey Reports, and Mrs. Grundy won't even get excited. This is simply unusual work or social positions. And as someone once told me, almost anybody else's work is more exciting than our own. So don't be too fast to decide that stocker in a grocery or wearing the golden arches aren't exotic positions -- just consider providing enough detail to make them interesting.

Butcher's third point is unusual. He focuses on the introduction -- how you bring your character into the story. He suggests that a characteristic entry action -- something that your character does whenever they come on stage -- can help to make them interesting.

The fourth part is verisimilitude. We like characters to seem real. We need to see their emotions, reactions, and decisions, and feel like this is the way people act. Butcher suggests that tags and traits -- two or three per character -- are a useful way to organize this.

Finally, there's that funny thing called empathy. If the reader feels for the character, they are invested in the character, they are going to be interested. There's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg thing here, because it's not always clear which comes first, being interesting or having empathy. But when the characters feel real, and the plot causes them real trouble, readers are likely to root for them. And vice versa -- when you're rooting for a character, they feel real, they're interesting.

Okay? Admittedly, we're dealing with short stories. And you may feel as if you don't have time for a lot of deep character development. At the same time, you want to have enough characterization to make the story exciting. And here's some clues about things you might want to use in building your characters. Exaggeration, exotic positions, the character introduction, verisimilitude, and empathy.

So write!

original posting: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 19:19:25 EST

On Thu, 27 Feb 1997 15:17:27 EST, Chris wondered:

:) I am currently working on a novel in which one phase of the action
:) takes place in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. I am familiar with
:) many of the small towns that lie within this area, but, for reasons of
:) plot, I would prefer to have my setting be a fictional amalgam of these
:) towns. The other settings in the novel are real places, and I will try to
:) make my description of them as accurate and detailed as necessary. I have
:) two questions: 1) Can anyone offer some general critical observations
:) concerning the use fictional places as settings? 2) Can anyone suggest any
:) problems I might face in having part of my story occur in a fictional place
:) while the other parts occur in real places?

Don't get out the butterfly nets and straightjackets yet, but I'm puzzled...

How does the "reality" or "fictionality" of a place influence the description of it which is all that is found in a novel?

I'm very serious. I don't really know that I can tell from the verbal description (or whatever use you may make of the setting) whether or not the place is "real." I might notice that the description seems inconsistent (when we drove into town, the chapel was in the hills, and now it's on the beach? Something funny there...), but I can't tell whether or not the description has a simple one-to-one correspondence with something "out there" that I can point to or visit.

It may be easier to keep the description of a real place consistent--you can just look at it--(but don't be fooled, you still have to do the work to make the description complete and carefully consistent), but that doesn't mean that I (as reader) will know whether the "model" behind the description was "out there" or "all in your imagination."

I do think there is a tendency to overdo the accuracy and detailing of descriptions of scenes (either real or imagined) in the hope that the overload of details will force the reader to believe in them. Something like the "superrealists" in art. I sometimes think the selection and arrangement of a few careful details can do more--something like the artist blocking in a cloud of "forest" with one trunk carefully picked out in the sunshine, making the whole "forest" believable.

Anyway, I don't believe the "reality" or "imaginarity" of your place settings will make a difference in whether people believe in them--it is the way the characters, action, and scenery interact that makes us believe in the whole world--whether it is one that the prosaic would agree can be found on a map or not isn't all that important.

Now you can get out the cuffs or whatever, if the question still doesn't make any sense...

hehe, hoho...
and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats...