Last night a friend and I debated about yesterday's post, and she raised some very good points worth sharing here.**
When Alicia and I were first brewing up this blog, we talked quite a lot about how there was a good amount of beginner information available to writers, but that advanced techniques and topics were harder to come by. That material is out there. It can be found. It's just not as prevalent as the other stuff. And so we wanted to include a fair dose of more advanced writing discussion because we saw a need for it.
As this blog evolved, we found ourselves talking frequently about topics on all points of the learning pyramid. For newbies, we've addressed danglers, beats, and the problem of the proboscis. We've hit the vast middle, too, with posts about reversals, backstory, and loads and loads of discussion on verbs. We've touched the peak briefly with ancient Greek theories of drama, reflections on pov in Ulysses, and transitioning to interior monologue when in a subjective pov.
In other words, we try to mix it up a bit. Not all posts will be useful to all people at all stages of their careers. But then, we're not providing one-on-one coaching through this blog, either. Do as the title suggests, and grab bits of the torrent which interest you most.
My friend emailed me with a grave concern about yesterday's post. She was worried that I strayed so deeply into detail that I had overlooked the importance of moving the plot forward. "Who cares about the carpet and the menu? The characters need to do something already." That about sums up her entire concern.
But here's the thing. When you're first starting out, you're learning how to control a plot. You might not know how to move it forward consistently, how to keep tension high, or how to manipulate pacing. You might become entranced with the sheer possibilities in creating entire worlds out of words. You might get seduced by the lure of all that creative energy, a siren's song. and spend so many pages describing wallpaper than you lose the actors on the set.
That's a beginner's problem. When intermediate and advanced writers fall into the detail trap, they do it with a foundational understanding about the importance of plot. And they usually understand that the lovely twenty page description they wrote about the park at the end of Filbert Street was a useful exercise, but it must get cut from the manuscript.
What happens when you're a solid plotter, then, and you're looking for ways to level up? Your manuscripts land in the "almost, but not quite" pile on editors' desks. You get great personal rejection letters with lots of helpful advice. You might have even published a book or two to lukewarm reviews and indifferent sales. You know your plots are solid and your characters are competent. You just want something more. You want to find a way to break out.
That's when you think about Drago and Johnny, core conflicts and resonant detail. Or maybe you need to improve your scene transitions, use jump cuts, strengthen your secondaries, enlarge your reversals, develop your pov -- the list of possibilities is long. The point is that after you master the basics, there are entire oceans of techniques that might help you raise your game.
I started the Johnny post series with three goals: to introduce the concept of core conflicts, to explore ways to leverage core conflicts between characters, and to show ways that detail can tie into core conflicts. These are complex, interrelated topics that I knew would require several posts to explore. We took it in stages, and we covered a lot of ground. I tried to do it in a way that would allow all types of writers to follow along. I think we achieved these goals.
*After* you know what happens in the scene, and *after* you know that the action moves the plot forward, *then* you get to play with core conflicts and resonant detail. These are not the plot. The plot is the plot. (sigh -- did I really just write that sentence? lol) If you liken writing a novel to building a house, first you pour the foundation and frame the walls, and *then* you pick the paint color for the window trim. Do you get to ignore the foundation and walls? No. Of course not. Can you build an entire serviceable house and use only plain white for the paint? Yes. Of course you can. But at some point, you might also think about where your house should be plain and where it can get colorful. The judicious use of detail is what can set your house apart from every other 3-bedroom ranch on the block.
It doesn't hurts to expose newbies to these techniques. They're probably going to want to learn most of it eventually, anyway. Will they understand it all? Will they use it properly? Maybe not, but so what? They've got a long learning curve before they get to publication. There will be much trying and failing along the way. Nothing wrong with that, really, as long as they keep learning.
Keep learning. That's the real message here. Yes, action and plot are important in a foundational sense. But at some point, you have to grow beyond that.
Theresa
** My friend did give me permission to quote her email, but not to name her. I mention this because it lets me reiterate that we avoid treating people as blog fodder. It's worth restating: we usually make up our own examples. Anything we see at work, whether from slush or from interaction with our authors, we use as a springboard to create examples of our own. We think that's better than making examples out of the people we interact with. In some cases, when we pull something from the comments (which you all can see, anyway) or get permission from the source (as in this post), we might use direct statements. But those are exceptions to the general rule.
Showing posts with label series - Johnny and Drago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label series - Johnny and Drago. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Once More Into the Lunch
Remember our old pals Drago, Johnny, and Dr. Cannon? When we last saw them, they were involved in an epic battle for an internship, with a thin veneer of sophistication provided by the china and linen of the restaurant setting. We've focused a lot on each particular character and how to play them off each other for maximum dramatic impact.
Now let's talk about setting.
In fairly large proportion of manuscripts I read -- perhaps as many as half -- setting is under-utilized and overlooked as a tool for creating dramatic impact. We know the scene has to take place somewhere, so we choose a kitchen or an office or a car, and maybe we paint the walls an interesting color because that's what the character might like. Maybe, if we get into it, we add a Viking stove or a corner-window view or whitewall tires. Neat. Now the setting is coming alive, right?
Eh, maybe a little.
It's a start, a solid base hit, but it doesn't get you all the way home. It's good to present physical details of the world in a way that grounds and orients the reader.
But it's better to present them in a way that grounds and orients the reader AND adds a new layer to the conflict and action.
When we first introduced Drago to Johnny, we did so in a restaurant. I provided the following setting description:
The lunch is at a white-tablecloth place. Hushed music. Heavy silverware. Well-trained waiters.
In the list of questions at the end of that exercise, I posted:
How does the environment impact their interaction? What does it highlight about their interpersonal conflict? What do they order for their meals, and why?
This question was meant to start you thinking about the impact of setting on character and conflict. Most of you understood right away that Johnny (the status-seeker) would feel at ease in this setting, but Drago (the survivor) would not. And most of you saw how Johnny would leverage that disparity to make himself look better. So already, we have a basic, big-picture understanding of how to use setting to highlight a conflict.
But what about details? This is where Show meets Tell. We can tell each other that Johnny feels comfy and on top of things. But how do we show it in the scene? What does Johnny actually DO that shows his ease? What does Drago DO that shows his unease? What other details come up that can highlight this situation? I asked specifically what they ordered for their meals, and why. (That was a test question, by the way. I was wondering if any of you would look deeper into Drago's background and make the jump to religious dietary restrictions. Epic fail, but I forgive you. *wink* More on this to follow.)
So let's look at an example from the comments. We're going to have two specific questions in mind as we look at this.
1 -- Does the setting detail accurately reflect character?
2 -- Can the conflict be exaggerated by choosing a different detail?
Murphy said:
Johnny knows Drago is unprepared, so he graciously offers to allow him to order before him. Drago doesn't want to fumble looking at the menu, so he says that he'll have the same as the Dr. When the waiter turns on Johnny, instead of ordering right away, Johnny asks the waiter how he is? The waiter is noticeably put at ease and is pleased that he's been acknowledged. Then Johnny orders his lunch. It's very precise, although it's a switched up version of something they have on their menu and will need to be changed - it's not so outrageous a demand that anyone would balk at it.
We have three interesting details here. Let's break them down in order.
1 - Johnny defers to Drago.
This isn't really a setting detail (it's an action choice), but it's worth discussing as an aspect of character. Usually, alphas eat first. Johnny is a status seeker, so we would normally expect Johnny to want to order ahead of Drago. The fact that he deferred -- and especially, that he deferred so that Drago would look bad -- shows a secondary characteristic. Johnny is cunning and a bit manipulative here. He gets to look like he's being polite (enhance his self) while simultaneously exposing Drago's unpreparedness (diminish his opponent). For a guy who goes through life ranking everything and everyone around him, this was a very interesting and appropriate move. (Note: Drago fumbles with the menu -- a character interacting with setting in a way that reveals the character's inner state. Would this be better if the menu was on a chalkboard? What if the waiter presented the day's specials in
French? Do these things enhance the conflicts, or detract from them? What if Drago had insisted that Johnny order next?)
2 - Johnny asks the waiter, "How are you?"
The waiter is part of the setting, so this qualifies as a setting detail. This is a salesman's move. Ordinarily, a status-seeker would treat the staff as invisible, right up to the moment he requires something, at which point he'll be evaluating the quality of service. But a salesman tries to put the entire world around him at ease as a way of eliminating objections in advance of his pitch. I'm not sure this detail perfectly gels with Johnny's character, but the scene could be worked in a way to overcome my hesitation. (Note: What does the waiter look like? Does it make a difference if he's smoothly handsome or dumpy and doughy? Can you dress him in a way that says something about the conflicts?)
3- Johnny orders a heavily modified version of a menu item.
Nice. The menu is part of the setting, so this definitely shows the character interacting with setting. What kind of person orders off the menu? Maybe two rough groups -- the supremely health conscious, and the supremely confident. In either case, this works to Johnny's advantage. Given that the doctor has already ordered a heavily modified version of a menu item (presumably to make it healthier), Johnny would understand implicitly that by behaving in the same manner, he creates an equation between himself and the doctor. Drago, who ordered the same thing the doctor ordered, may have hoped for a similar type of equality. But instead, he is reduced to imitator. This is a really good example of character interacting with setting to demonstrate subtle things about those characters and conflicts. (Note: What if Johnny ignored the menu altogether? What if, as Drago fumbled with it, he left it lying unread on his place setting?)
Because we weren't seeing a lot of concrete examples in the comments of the way the setting might influence the scene, I asked this question:
Drago might not know a fish fork from a salt cellar. Does he try to cover up his ignorance, or does he flaunt it?
My point was to try to make you all get specific and concrete. It's one thing to talk about a setting in the abstract (it's elegant) and another to think about how that abstraction is made manifest through details (fish forks and salt cellars).
I'm willing to bet that by now, at least one of you is wondering how to exploit setting without a block paragraph of description. You know that description is static and that it slows down the pacing. You worry that I'm about to advocate for more setting details -- and you're right. On all counts.
But keep in mind our basic formula for a scene:
Characters
In Motion
Against a Setting.
Motion is what links the characters and the setting. You don't just list a catalogue of details: white linen, white china, thick carpeting, waiters with long linen towels wrapped around their waists. You *show* the characters interacting with those details in a meaningful way. How do you do that? You start by brainstorming physical details about the setting. Then you think about how those details impact the characters as they move through the scene. Then -- and this is the crucial step, perhaps -- you decide whether this is the best possible detail to showcase the conflicts. And if not, you find something better.
Let's do a couple for practice. I'll start. Thick carpeting means that footsteps are muffled. So Dr. Cannon in her swanky high heels -- she clacks along the sidewalk, and then grows silent as they move through the room. Does this help the conflicts? Perhaps. If I can use it to show something about how she's hard to read, her cues are muffled, she seems different outside the hospital setting, etc. Or maybe I want to tap into the stealthy feeling creating by silent motion. Is she stalking her prey? Is she dangerous?
Remember our pov quadrant?
This can come in handy when thinking through setting details. Step outside your current perspective and consider how the detail might look to another character. Silence might sound peaceful to Drago. It might soothe him. (Think of the relief he would feel when the guns stopped firing.) Or he might equate it with death. (Think of how silent his village must have been when everyone in it was dead.)
For Johnny, silence might not be as meaningful. Or is it? Some men associate that clatter of high heels with feminine power. Maybe in Johnny's pov, we could have a sentence like,
They padded behind the maitre d' to their table, the powerful clicking of the doctor's heels neutralized by the plush carpet.
And that might give us a subtle suggestion that Johnny is using the environment detail to brace himself. She is muffled -- they all are -- they are on equal footing now, so to speak.
Here is the point. You can keep the setting detail small. You can braid them into the action. You can let them be subtle. But as long as you control and exploit them, you're going to add another layer of complexity to your scene.
Now. About those religious dietary restrictions. Drago's native country is predominantly Muslim. Who orders pork, and what effect does that have?
Theresa
Now let's talk about setting.
In fairly large proportion of manuscripts I read -- perhaps as many as half -- setting is under-utilized and overlooked as a tool for creating dramatic impact. We know the scene has to take place somewhere, so we choose a kitchen or an office or a car, and maybe we paint the walls an interesting color because that's what the character might like. Maybe, if we get into it, we add a Viking stove or a corner-window view or whitewall tires. Neat. Now the setting is coming alive, right?
Eh, maybe a little.
It's a start, a solid base hit, but it doesn't get you all the way home. It's good to present physical details of the world in a way that grounds and orients the reader.
But it's better to present them in a way that grounds and orients the reader AND adds a new layer to the conflict and action.
When we first introduced Drago to Johnny, we did so in a restaurant. I provided the following setting description:
The lunch is at a white-tablecloth place. Hushed music. Heavy silverware. Well-trained waiters.
In the list of questions at the end of that exercise, I posted:
How does the environment impact their interaction? What does it highlight about their interpersonal conflict? What do they order for their meals, and why?
This question was meant to start you thinking about the impact of setting on character and conflict. Most of you understood right away that Johnny (the status-seeker) would feel at ease in this setting, but Drago (the survivor) would not. And most of you saw how Johnny would leverage that disparity to make himself look better. So already, we have a basic, big-picture understanding of how to use setting to highlight a conflict.
But what about details? This is where Show meets Tell. We can tell each other that Johnny feels comfy and on top of things. But how do we show it in the scene? What does Johnny actually DO that shows his ease? What does Drago DO that shows his unease? What other details come up that can highlight this situation? I asked specifically what they ordered for their meals, and why. (That was a test question, by the way. I was wondering if any of you would look deeper into Drago's background and make the jump to religious dietary restrictions. Epic fail, but I forgive you. *wink* More on this to follow.)
So let's look at an example from the comments. We're going to have two specific questions in mind as we look at this.
1 -- Does the setting detail accurately reflect character?
2 -- Can the conflict be exaggerated by choosing a different detail?
Murphy said:
Johnny knows Drago is unprepared, so he graciously offers to allow him to order before him. Drago doesn't want to fumble looking at the menu, so he says that he'll have the same as the Dr. When the waiter turns on Johnny, instead of ordering right away, Johnny asks the waiter how he is? The waiter is noticeably put at ease and is pleased that he's been acknowledged. Then Johnny orders his lunch. It's very precise, although it's a switched up version of something they have on their menu and will need to be changed - it's not so outrageous a demand that anyone would balk at it.
We have three interesting details here. Let's break them down in order.
1 - Johnny defers to Drago.
This isn't really a setting detail (it's an action choice), but it's worth discussing as an aspect of character. Usually, alphas eat first. Johnny is a status seeker, so we would normally expect Johnny to want to order ahead of Drago. The fact that he deferred -- and especially, that he deferred so that Drago would look bad -- shows a secondary characteristic. Johnny is cunning and a bit manipulative here. He gets to look like he's being polite (enhance his self) while simultaneously exposing Drago's unpreparedness (diminish his opponent). For a guy who goes through life ranking everything and everyone around him, this was a very interesting and appropriate move. (Note: Drago fumbles with the menu -- a character interacting with setting in a way that reveals the character's inner state. Would this be better if the menu was on a chalkboard? What if the waiter presented the day's specials in
French? Do these things enhance the conflicts, or detract from them? What if Drago had insisted that Johnny order next?)
2 - Johnny asks the waiter, "How are you?"
The waiter is part of the setting, so this qualifies as a setting detail. This is a salesman's move. Ordinarily, a status-seeker would treat the staff as invisible, right up to the moment he requires something, at which point he'll be evaluating the quality of service. But a salesman tries to put the entire world around him at ease as a way of eliminating objections in advance of his pitch. I'm not sure this detail perfectly gels with Johnny's character, but the scene could be worked in a way to overcome my hesitation. (Note: What does the waiter look like? Does it make a difference if he's smoothly handsome or dumpy and doughy? Can you dress him in a way that says something about the conflicts?)
3- Johnny orders a heavily modified version of a menu item.
Nice. The menu is part of the setting, so this definitely shows the character interacting with setting. What kind of person orders off the menu? Maybe two rough groups -- the supremely health conscious, and the supremely confident. In either case, this works to Johnny's advantage. Given that the doctor has already ordered a heavily modified version of a menu item (presumably to make it healthier), Johnny would understand implicitly that by behaving in the same manner, he creates an equation between himself and the doctor. Drago, who ordered the same thing the doctor ordered, may have hoped for a similar type of equality. But instead, he is reduced to imitator. This is a really good example of character interacting with setting to demonstrate subtle things about those characters and conflicts. (Note: What if Johnny ignored the menu altogether? What if, as Drago fumbled with it, he left it lying unread on his place setting?)
Because we weren't seeing a lot of concrete examples in the comments of the way the setting might influence the scene, I asked this question:
Drago might not know a fish fork from a salt cellar. Does he try to cover up his ignorance, or does he flaunt it?
My point was to try to make you all get specific and concrete. It's one thing to talk about a setting in the abstract (it's elegant) and another to think about how that abstraction is made manifest through details (fish forks and salt cellars).
I'm willing to bet that by now, at least one of you is wondering how to exploit setting without a block paragraph of description. You know that description is static and that it slows down the pacing. You worry that I'm about to advocate for more setting details -- and you're right. On all counts.
But keep in mind our basic formula for a scene:
Characters
In Motion
Against a Setting.
Motion is what links the characters and the setting. You don't just list a catalogue of details: white linen, white china, thick carpeting, waiters with long linen towels wrapped around their waists. You *show* the characters interacting with those details in a meaningful way. How do you do that? You start by brainstorming physical details about the setting. Then you think about how those details impact the characters as they move through the scene. Then -- and this is the crucial step, perhaps -- you decide whether this is the best possible detail to showcase the conflicts. And if not, you find something better.
Let's do a couple for practice. I'll start. Thick carpeting means that footsteps are muffled. So Dr. Cannon in her swanky high heels -- she clacks along the sidewalk, and then grows silent as they move through the room. Does this help the conflicts? Perhaps. If I can use it to show something about how she's hard to read, her cues are muffled, she seems different outside the hospital setting, etc. Or maybe I want to tap into the stealthy feeling creating by silent motion. Is she stalking her prey? Is she dangerous?
Remember our pov quadrant?
This can come in handy when thinking through setting details. Step outside your current perspective and consider how the detail might look to another character. Silence might sound peaceful to Drago. It might soothe him. (Think of the relief he would feel when the guns stopped firing.) Or he might equate it with death. (Think of how silent his village must have been when everyone in it was dead.)
For Johnny, silence might not be as meaningful. Or is it? Some men associate that clatter of high heels with feminine power. Maybe in Johnny's pov, we could have a sentence like,
They padded behind the maitre d' to their table, the powerful clicking of the doctor's heels neutralized by the plush carpet.
And that might give us a subtle suggestion that Johnny is using the environment detail to brace himself. She is muffled -- they all are -- they are on equal footing now, so to speak.
Here is the point. You can keep the setting detail small. You can braid them into the action. You can let them be subtle. But as long as you control and exploit them, you're going to add another layer of complexity to your scene.
Now. About those religious dietary restrictions. Drago's native country is predominantly Muslim. Who orders pork, and what effect does that have?
Theresa
Friday, October 2, 2009
Relevant Details and Viewpoint
If you have a fairly small amount of information about a secondary character, it's fairly easy to extrapolate that and build a "solid enough" presentation. We know, for example, that Dr. Cannon is a doctor. From that, we were able to extrapolate:
Money is no contraint for her, because she makes several hundred thousand a year, and she is the daughter of another prominent surgeon.
~ Wes
And from that, Wes built a character wearing an expensively tailored, elegant suit and expensive but understated jewelry, all of which are appropriate to her socioeconomic status.
Gwen took her in a different direction:
She wears no jewelry, and her shoes are flat and suitable for walking. Her hair is dirty blonde and curly, pulled back in a quick bun. Tendrils are escaping from the front. She has blue eyes with slight darkening beneath them.
Where Wes was thinking about the status benefits of the job, Gwen was thinking about its demands. Flat shoes, efficient hair, and dark shadows under the eyes are some of the things a very busy doctor might be expected to have. This is also appropriate for the character, though the result is a different character.
Green Knight started by rejecting the request to describe the character's clothing, and ended up with a character who herself rejects fashion:
I can't describe Dr. Cannon's clothing - I don't have an idea of her character yet, and I don't know what I want to invoke.... Hm. I guess she took the easy way out and went to whereever women buy upmarket fashion and allowed a personal shopper to dress her. She liked the effect and bought the ensemble - her own wardrobe being out of date, and after six months in a dusty camp without running hot and cold water, she can't be bothered to invest the time it takes to keep up with fashion talk.
Again, by focusing on a slightly different aspect of the few known character details -- Dr. Cannon is not just any doctor, but one who donates her time to MSF -- we end up with a value system for this character that has tangible evidence in the way she dresses.
I also want to point out that Dave noticed a physical attribute unique to surgeons:
Her fingers are quick and clever, fitting for a surgeon.
When we started this series of exercises, I mentioned that there are no wrong answers to any of these questions. Now we start to see why. Each writer has a unique perspective -- voice -- which will lead you to create characters in different ways. Does this character play the same role in all version of the Johnny and Drago lunch meeting? Yes. Is the character identical across the board? No. Nor would we want her to be, because your unique voice (and the unique way that voice creates characters and other story elements) is part of what makes your story special and, ultimately, marketable.
So, your viewpoint -- your voice -- will influence your natural tendencies while building a character.
But here's where things get interesting.
Your other characters' viewpoints can also influence interpretation and extrapolation of secondary characters.
You're creating the secondary character, but that secondary character will be viewed through the prism of point of view. How that prism works depends in part on your pov choices. Who is the pov character in this scene? Johnny or Drago? How intimate is the pov -- do you choose a subjective, deep, intimate form of third person, or do you prefer an objective, external, narratorless omniscient?
During the "Paging Dr. Cannon" part of this exercise, some of you touched on how Dr. Cannon would view the students.
She's easy with Johnny, understands him. She can't help responding to his charm, which he turns on full blast; but she notices that he doesn't reveal much about himself.
~ Green Knight
Johnny seems eager, perhaps over eager, but he's charming enough. Drago seems nervous, which she can sympathize with, but he's also too pushy.
~ Jami G.
They looked worried and that’s exactly how she wanted them to feel.
~ Murphy
So you're already primed to deal with the ways these characters see each other. Which leads us to our next exercise.
Take out a blank sheet of paper and divide it in half horizontally and vertically so that it is separated into four quarters. The left half side of the page is for Johnny, and the right is for Drago. The top half is for subjective (deep) pov, and the bottom is for objective (ominiscient) pov.
Like this:
Here's your mission, should you choose to accept it. First, think about your version of Dr. Cannon, the character as you want her to be. Now, in the upper left quadrant, jot down the aspects of her character that Johnny would notice. These are things that are relevant to Johnny, things that he looks for when evaluating a person. Consider also the unique way he will react to these details, and jot that down too.
Now repeat this for Drago in the upper right quadrant. Are there details which both Johnny and Drago would notice, but would interpret differently?
Now we move to the lower part of the page. In the lower left quadrant, note the things that Johnny would NOT notice because they are NOT relevant to his personal worldview. Are any of these details important for the reader's understanding of the action?
Now repeat this for Drago, lower right quadrant. He'll ignore certain things, too, and these things might be different from the things Johnny ignores.
Sometimes it's difficult to choose the viewpoint character for a particular scene. By understanding how the unique character perspective can shade the interpretation of the scene -- or ways you would be limited by a given perspective -- the choice can be clearer.
Theresa
Money is no contraint for her, because she makes several hundred thousand a year, and she is the daughter of another prominent surgeon.
~ Wes
And from that, Wes built a character wearing an expensively tailored, elegant suit and expensive but understated jewelry, all of which are appropriate to her socioeconomic status.
Gwen took her in a different direction:
She wears no jewelry, and her shoes are flat and suitable for walking. Her hair is dirty blonde and curly, pulled back in a quick bun. Tendrils are escaping from the front. She has blue eyes with slight darkening beneath them.
Where Wes was thinking about the status benefits of the job, Gwen was thinking about its demands. Flat shoes, efficient hair, and dark shadows under the eyes are some of the things a very busy doctor might be expected to have. This is also appropriate for the character, though the result is a different character.
Green Knight started by rejecting the request to describe the character's clothing, and ended up with a character who herself rejects fashion:
I can't describe Dr. Cannon's clothing - I don't have an idea of her character yet, and I don't know what I want to invoke.... Hm. I guess she took the easy way out and went to whereever women buy upmarket fashion and allowed a personal shopper to dress her. She liked the effect and bought the ensemble - her own wardrobe being out of date, and after six months in a dusty camp without running hot and cold water, she can't be bothered to invest the time it takes to keep up with fashion talk.
Again, by focusing on a slightly different aspect of the few known character details -- Dr. Cannon is not just any doctor, but one who donates her time to MSF -- we end up with a value system for this character that has tangible evidence in the way she dresses.
I also want to point out that Dave noticed a physical attribute unique to surgeons:
Her fingers are quick and clever, fitting for a surgeon.
When we started this series of exercises, I mentioned that there are no wrong answers to any of these questions. Now we start to see why. Each writer has a unique perspective -- voice -- which will lead you to create characters in different ways. Does this character play the same role in all version of the Johnny and Drago lunch meeting? Yes. Is the character identical across the board? No. Nor would we want her to be, because your unique voice (and the unique way that voice creates characters and other story elements) is part of what makes your story special and, ultimately, marketable.
So, your viewpoint -- your voice -- will influence your natural tendencies while building a character.
But here's where things get interesting.
Your other characters' viewpoints can also influence interpretation and extrapolation of secondary characters.
You're creating the secondary character, but that secondary character will be viewed through the prism of point of view. How that prism works depends in part on your pov choices. Who is the pov character in this scene? Johnny or Drago? How intimate is the pov -- do you choose a subjective, deep, intimate form of third person, or do you prefer an objective, external, narratorless omniscient?
During the "Paging Dr. Cannon" part of this exercise, some of you touched on how Dr. Cannon would view the students.
She's easy with Johnny, understands him. She can't help responding to his charm, which he turns on full blast; but she notices that he doesn't reveal much about himself.
~ Green Knight
Johnny seems eager, perhaps over eager, but he's charming enough. Drago seems nervous, which she can sympathize with, but he's also too pushy.
~ Jami G.
They looked worried and that’s exactly how she wanted them to feel.
~ Murphy
So you're already primed to deal with the ways these characters see each other. Which leads us to our next exercise.
Take out a blank sheet of paper and divide it in half horizontally and vertically so that it is separated into four quarters. The left half side of the page is for Johnny, and the right is for Drago. The top half is for subjective (deep) pov, and the bottom is for objective (ominiscient) pov.
Like this:
Here's your mission, should you choose to accept it. First, think about your version of Dr. Cannon, the character as you want her to be. Now, in the upper left quadrant, jot down the aspects of her character that Johnny would notice. These are things that are relevant to Johnny, things that he looks for when evaluating a person. Consider also the unique way he will react to these details, and jot that down too.
Now repeat this for Drago in the upper right quadrant. Are there details which both Johnny and Drago would notice, but would interpret differently?
Now we move to the lower part of the page. In the lower left quadrant, note the things that Johnny would NOT notice because they are NOT relevant to his personal worldview. Are any of these details important for the reader's understanding of the action?
Now repeat this for Drago, lower right quadrant. He'll ignore certain things, too, and these things might be different from the things Johnny ignores.
Sometimes it's difficult to choose the viewpoint character for a particular scene. By understanding how the unique character perspective can shade the interpretation of the scene -- or ways you would be limited by a given perspective -- the choice can be clearer.
Theresa
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Paging Dr. Cannon
We've taken a look deep inside Drago and Johnny, our primary characters, and have constructed some complex characters with a lot going on inside and outside. We've constructed backstories, analyzed emotional needs, examined needs in conflict, and predicted behavior based on all these factors.
Do you want to do this for every single character in your story?
You can if you want to, and it might (might!) make your story richer. It sure would be a lot of fun, too, because let's face it, this stuff is fun.
But it would be awfully time-consuming to have to build every character in this complex and nuanced manner. For characters that play minor roles, that appear only in one or two scenes, there are other ways to make them vivid without writing dozens of pages of backstory and filling in detailed charts and questionnaires.
Think about this. You're attending a business function with a friend, say an awards dinner. The friend knows everyone, but you don't know anyone but your friend. You walk in, and your friend introduces you to someone right away, before you've even taken the lay of the land.
Immediately, you will begin to take in information about this new person to help you understand what kind of person he or she is. Clothing, hairstyle, smile, mannerisms, how loudly or softly they speak, even word choices -- thousands of cues that all mount up to create an impression of character. Some of these cues are large and some are small, but each plays a role in helpin gyo to understand what kind of person you've just met.
Here's what you don't get with your new acquaintance: details of their childhood, parents, siblings, education, and all the other backstory; goals, dreams, plans and other details related to external motivation; emotional weaknesses, core needs, emotional strengths, secrets, obsessions, and other things related to the deeper psyche; and, indeed, anything not appropriate for chat at a business cocktail party or dinner.
Yet you can still draw some conclusions about this character, can't you? He's bossy. She's needy. He's a really warm-hearted guy. She's the class clown. His conversation is limited. And you can use those conclusions to begin to predict character behavior. You begin to understand how that particular character would behave in a different setting even though you might not know every detail of their childhoods.
You do it all by staying in the present and analyzing only the information available at this moment and in these circumstances.
And now you're going to do it for Dr. Cannon. She's our pal, the interviewer surgeon on staff at a prestigious city hospital and involved in MSF. That's all we know about her so far.
Now, keeping in mind that every detail you choose must be evocative of a consistent character type, I want you to:
-- Pick out Dr. Cannon's clothing.
-- Give her a physical description.
-- Describe the meal she orders and how she orders it.
-- Describe her manner of interacting with Johnny and Drago.
That's it. In essence, you will build a character by analyzing her appearance and behavior in a given setting. Go!
Theresa
Do you want to do this for every single character in your story?
You can if you want to, and it might (might!) make your story richer. It sure would be a lot of fun, too, because let's face it, this stuff is fun.
But it would be awfully time-consuming to have to build every character in this complex and nuanced manner. For characters that play minor roles, that appear only in one or two scenes, there are other ways to make them vivid without writing dozens of pages of backstory and filling in detailed charts and questionnaires.
Think about this. You're attending a business function with a friend, say an awards dinner. The friend knows everyone, but you don't know anyone but your friend. You walk in, and your friend introduces you to someone right away, before you've even taken the lay of the land.
Immediately, you will begin to take in information about this new person to help you understand what kind of person he or she is. Clothing, hairstyle, smile, mannerisms, how loudly or softly they speak, even word choices -- thousands of cues that all mount up to create an impression of character. Some of these cues are large and some are small, but each plays a role in helpin gyo to understand what kind of person you've just met.
Here's what you don't get with your new acquaintance: details of their childhood, parents, siblings, education, and all the other backstory; goals, dreams, plans and other details related to external motivation; emotional weaknesses, core needs, emotional strengths, secrets, obsessions, and other things related to the deeper psyche; and, indeed, anything not appropriate for chat at a business cocktail party or dinner.
Yet you can still draw some conclusions about this character, can't you? He's bossy. She's needy. He's a really warm-hearted guy. She's the class clown. His conversation is limited. And you can use those conclusions to begin to predict character behavior. You begin to understand how that particular character would behave in a different setting even though you might not know every detail of their childhoods.
You do it all by staying in the present and analyzing only the information available at this moment and in these circumstances.
And now you're going to do it for Dr. Cannon. She's our pal, the interviewer surgeon on staff at a prestigious city hospital and involved in MSF. That's all we know about her so far.
Now, keeping in mind that every detail you choose must be evocative of a consistent character type, I want you to:
-- Pick out Dr. Cannon's clothing.
-- Give her a physical description.
-- Describe the meal she orders and how she orders it.
-- Describe her manner of interacting with Johnny and Drago.
That's it. In essence, you will build a character by analyzing her appearance and behavior in a given setting. Go!
Theresa
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Foiled by Drago
In our last post, we created Drago and put him in direct competition with Johnny for a medical school scholarship. I gave you a simple exercise and series of questions designed to help you understand how to exploit "core conflicts" -- conflicts that arise from clashes between people's core beliefs and needs. We also had an external conflict in the competition for the scholarship.
As the comment thread shows, most of you had a relatively easy time putting Drago and Johnny into a position where these core conflicts would have an impact on the progress of the meeting. None of you hunted for common ground between Johnny and Drago -- same major, same age, same career goals, perhaps some other similarities that might form at least some basis for a casual friendship. All of you focused on their differences and on the way their differences create conflict. These differences are the soul of drama. Conflict can be created by two people who want the same thing (a scholarship), but that conflict becomes dramatic when the people involved challenge each other on some deeper level.
I did this on purpose. I created Drago specifically so that he would challenge Johnny and Johnny would challenge him for more than just a scholarship. And now I would like to take a moment to explain how I did that.
One Simple(ish) Method for Creating Foils
Step One.
Identify the character's core emotional need.
Johnny has a core emotional need for status. We already knew this, and knew some of his other competing needs. But I chose to focus on status when creating Drago.
Step Two.
Figure out what would threaten that core belief.
This is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Imagine something that would take away any possibility of satisfying that core emotional need. Johnny's need for status is expressed through material things. Taking away those material things in another character would call up the emotions for Johnny. See, it's not that Johnny actually wants all the latest gadgets and the shiniest car. He wants what these things represent. (Yes, he might actually want many of these things for themselves, but this doesn't explain why he always buys his new iPhone on the first day of release.) Taking away any possibility of gathering all these status symbols is good, but taking away both their physical presence and the desire for them is even better.
In the comments, some of you have mentioned that you know a guy just like Johnny. Have you ever had conversations with them about what other people own? In my experience, these conversations have three levels:
- envy (He has more than me, therefore he will be better than me until I get it, too.)
- confusion (I don't understand why he thinks this one is better. What am I missing? Do I have to get one of these things now, too, even though I don't understand it?)
- dismissal (They got nuthin. Ha! I win!)
In all those cases, Johnny is comparing what he has to what others have. This is how he relates to people. Remove the possibility of object comparison, and you remove his habitual means for relating to people.
So right away, I knew we wanted a character with nothing. But mere poverty would not suffice, because Johnny would dismiss them easily. After all, in the world according to Johnny, money can be made, even if you're a kid. Babysitting, lawnmowing, paper routes, even lemonade stands. So we needed a character for whom none of this would have been possible. And that impossibility would have been so absolute that even Johnny would see it.
I considered a scholarship student who grew up in foster care. I think we can all agree that foster children rarely grow up with silver spoons. Maybe he moved around a lot, so things like a paper route would have been out of the question. And there would have been some tragedy in his past that would have triggered the foster care situation, so this might have awakened some sympathy in people who met him.
But I changed my mind because of step three.
Step Three.
Make it big.
We talk alot about "big" books, but it's not always easy to explain what we mean. So let's look at an example. Remember, we're evaluating these scenarios in terms of how they challenge Johnny's core emotional beliefs.
Scenario 1: Character's parents are both doctors. He grew up in a wealthy suburb. Went to the best private schools. Drives a BMW convertible. He was raised to believe in service, the old "those to whom much is given, from much is expected" thing. He spends the lunch with Dr. Cannon discussing his volunteer work at the hospitals where his parents work. The discussion of volunteerism might challenge Johnny a little, but Johnny would still evaluate this character in terms of what he owns. There's little meaningful challenge here, so it's a fairly small conflict.
Also, it's worth noting that we're talking about a character with a fairly typical upper-middle class upbringing. There's nothing shocking, nothing to rouse our sympathies, and nothing to make it bold or unique.
Scenario 2: Our foster care student. This guy had little stability as he was growing up, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. We know that Johnny has some stability needs that tie into his status need. Johnny would feel uncomfortable around him on some level, but ultimately he would be able to resolve it. "The guy grew up with nothing and no possibility of getting anything. But it's different now. He got a free ride to a state school for his bachelor's degree. All the foster kids get that. It's guaranteed (stable)." And then, having resolved the stability question at least in part, Johnny would start thinking in terms of whether the free public school was "better" than the high-priced private school he attended.
This character's upbringing is less typical than the doctors' kid. There might be something shocking in his past that led to the need for foster care. Foster care can rouse people's sympathies, and so it's a bigger situation than that of our first student.
Scenario 3: Drago.
I don't think we need to revisit the ways in which Drago challenges Johnny's core beliefs. He does, and we've explored various ways that this might play out.
Let's look instead at the relative bigness of his situation.
Genocide is less common than foster care, which is less common than a middle-class upbringing.
Civil war is more destructive to a person's environment/stability/material accumulation than foster care, which is more destructive than a middle-class upbringing.
Civil war, genocide, being rescued by the UN, being an international refugee -- these are all played on a bigger world stage, where foster care is statewide, and a middle-class upbringing is local.
We could go on. I'll leave it to you to find other means for comparison, and post your ideas in the comments.
But here's your real assignment for this post. People have a fairly limited number of core emotional needs. Some common ones are needs for approval, power, or independence. Choose one of these, or choose another core need if you prefer. And then think of two ways (one smaller, one bigger) that this need could be challenged through a character foil.
Yeah, it's a harder assignment, but it's a fun one. Have at it!
Theresa
As the comment thread shows, most of you had a relatively easy time putting Drago and Johnny into a position where these core conflicts would have an impact on the progress of the meeting. None of you hunted for common ground between Johnny and Drago -- same major, same age, same career goals, perhaps some other similarities that might form at least some basis for a casual friendship. All of you focused on their differences and on the way their differences create conflict. These differences are the soul of drama. Conflict can be created by two people who want the same thing (a scholarship), but that conflict becomes dramatic when the people involved challenge each other on some deeper level.
I did this on purpose. I created Drago specifically so that he would challenge Johnny and Johnny would challenge him for more than just a scholarship. And now I would like to take a moment to explain how I did that.
One Simple(ish) Method for Creating Foils
Step One.
Identify the character's core emotional need.
Johnny has a core emotional need for status. We already knew this, and knew some of his other competing needs. But I chose to focus on status when creating Drago.
Step Two.
Figure out what would threaten that core belief.
This is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Imagine something that would take away any possibility of satisfying that core emotional need. Johnny's need for status is expressed through material things. Taking away those material things in another character would call up the emotions for Johnny. See, it's not that Johnny actually wants all the latest gadgets and the shiniest car. He wants what these things represent. (Yes, he might actually want many of these things for themselves, but this doesn't explain why he always buys his new iPhone on the first day of release.) Taking away any possibility of gathering all these status symbols is good, but taking away both their physical presence and the desire for them is even better.
In the comments, some of you have mentioned that you know a guy just like Johnny. Have you ever had conversations with them about what other people own? In my experience, these conversations have three levels:
- envy (He has more than me, therefore he will be better than me until I get it, too.)
- confusion (I don't understand why he thinks this one is better. What am I missing? Do I have to get one of these things now, too, even though I don't understand it?)
- dismissal (They got nuthin. Ha! I win!)
In all those cases, Johnny is comparing what he has to what others have. This is how he relates to people. Remove the possibility of object comparison, and you remove his habitual means for relating to people.
So right away, I knew we wanted a character with nothing. But mere poverty would not suffice, because Johnny would dismiss them easily. After all, in the world according to Johnny, money can be made, even if you're a kid. Babysitting, lawnmowing, paper routes, even lemonade stands. So we needed a character for whom none of this would have been possible. And that impossibility would have been so absolute that even Johnny would see it.
I considered a scholarship student who grew up in foster care. I think we can all agree that foster children rarely grow up with silver spoons. Maybe he moved around a lot, so things like a paper route would have been out of the question. And there would have been some tragedy in his past that would have triggered the foster care situation, so this might have awakened some sympathy in people who met him.
But I changed my mind because of step three.
Step Three.
Make it big.
We talk alot about "big" books, but it's not always easy to explain what we mean. So let's look at an example. Remember, we're evaluating these scenarios in terms of how they challenge Johnny's core emotional beliefs.
Scenario 1: Character's parents are both doctors. He grew up in a wealthy suburb. Went to the best private schools. Drives a BMW convertible. He was raised to believe in service, the old "those to whom much is given, from much is expected" thing. He spends the lunch with Dr. Cannon discussing his volunteer work at the hospitals where his parents work. The discussion of volunteerism might challenge Johnny a little, but Johnny would still evaluate this character in terms of what he owns. There's little meaningful challenge here, so it's a fairly small conflict.
Also, it's worth noting that we're talking about a character with a fairly typical upper-middle class upbringing. There's nothing shocking, nothing to rouse our sympathies, and nothing to make it bold or unique.
Scenario 2: Our foster care student. This guy had little stability as he was growing up, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. We know that Johnny has some stability needs that tie into his status need. Johnny would feel uncomfortable around him on some level, but ultimately he would be able to resolve it. "The guy grew up with nothing and no possibility of getting anything. But it's different now. He got a free ride to a state school for his bachelor's degree. All the foster kids get that. It's guaranteed (stable)." And then, having resolved the stability question at least in part, Johnny would start thinking in terms of whether the free public school was "better" than the high-priced private school he attended.
This character's upbringing is less typical than the doctors' kid. There might be something shocking in his past that led to the need for foster care. Foster care can rouse people's sympathies, and so it's a bigger situation than that of our first student.
Scenario 3: Drago.
I don't think we need to revisit the ways in which Drago challenges Johnny's core beliefs. He does, and we've explored various ways that this might play out.
Let's look instead at the relative bigness of his situation.
Genocide is less common than foster care, which is less common than a middle-class upbringing.
Civil war is more destructive to a person's environment/stability/material accumulation than foster care, which is more destructive than a middle-class upbringing.
Civil war, genocide, being rescued by the UN, being an international refugee -- these are all played on a bigger world stage, where foster care is statewide, and a middle-class upbringing is local.
We could go on. I'll leave it to you to find other means for comparison, and post your ideas in the comments.
But here's your real assignment for this post. People have a fairly limited number of core emotional needs. Some common ones are needs for approval, power, or independence. Choose one of these, or choose another core need if you prefer. And then think of two ways (one smaller, one bigger) that this need could be challenged through a character foil.
Yeah, it's a harder assignment, but it's a fun one. Have at it!
Theresa
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Core Conflicts
Let's start by reviewing the way we've worked over poor Johnny the status-seeking pre-med student. (He would object to being called "poor Johnny." He deserves better than to be manipulated and exposed by a bunch of starving artists. Really, who the hell do we think we are? lol)
We started with a few key pieces of external behavior and worked inward to get to his core emotional need.
We used that core emotional need to predict simple, controllable behavior.
We used that core emotional need and companion needs to demonstrate how seemingly contradictory behavior can be consistent with that character.
We examined self-image as a facet of emotional need and as a predictor of behavior.
We looked at how Johnny's desire to hide pieces of his personality might influence behavior in a common social situation with zero conflict.
And this has all been leading up to this post. Now we'll look at how to exploit core conflicts.
Meet Drago
What we haven't done yet is create a second character with an external goal which puts him in direct conflict with Johnny. Remember, the pretty party girl was not a developed character. We let you all stand in for her and imagine how you would respond to Johnny. We didn't give her her own set of needs and goals. This is why we need Drago now.
Drago is a survivor. He grew up in a region of Europe torn apart by civil war. The wars left his remote village intact for the first few years -- his village is so remote, in fact, that the communist government never could figure out how to get electricity to them. They didn't import much of anything, but they did a little bartering with neighboring villages. As a child, Drago sometimes walked the three hours through the mountains to the next village with a load of homemade cheese in a pack on his back. He enjoyed the return trip more because he could spend his time in anticipation of his village's excitement to see what he managed to get in trade for the cheese.
One day when Drago was making this trip, rebel soldiers came to his village, collected all the men and boys, and slaughtered them. Then they moved on to the next village and did the same. Drago survived only because he was on a mountain path that the soldiers didn't know about. Drago, his mother, and all the other surviving women and girls were taken in by the UN, moved to a refugee camp in another part of Europe, and eventually were settled in the US.
Drago's self-image is "survivor," and his core emotional need is justice. He wants to be a doctor because he wants to right the wrongs committed by bad men, brutal soldiers. He has watched his mother struggle to adapt to her new environment. She may have been the best cheese-maker in the mountains, but her lack of exposure to modern living has made it impossible for her to even find work as a cleaning woman. This has also made Drago hyper-protective.
Drago, Meet Johnny
Drago got a scholarship to college, and he needs a scholarship if he's going to go to med school. He and Johnny have both applied for a prestigious internship that would pay their tuition and expenses. In addition to these benefits, the intern would be allowed to work during school breaks under the mentorship of a famous surgeon at an internationally-renowned NYC hospital. This surgeon is heavily involved in Doctors Without Borders.
The selection committee uses a precise calculus to determine the winner of the internship/scholarship. In the event of a tied score, the selection committee interviews the two candidates, and they have lunch together with the famous surgeon. (Let's give her a name. Dr. Cannon. Assume she's a placeholder character much like the pretty girl at the party. You may stand in for her if you want to.)
Johnny and Draco are meeting each other and Dr. Cannon at this lunch for the first time. The lunch is at a white-tablecloth place. Hushed music. Heavy silverware. Well-trained waiters.
They have an external conflict. Obviously. They're competing for a scholarship.
But here is your assignment. Just by being in the room together, even without the external conflict, these two will be projecting needs, values, goals, and hiding aspects of their shadow selves. Your job is to think through how they interact on this level. Consider:
-- What do they see in each other that makes each of them feel uncomfortable about themselves?
-- How do they each handle that discomfort?
-- What do they see in each other that makes each of them feel good about themselves?
-- How to they each handle those positive feelings?
-- How does the environment impact their interaction? What does it highlight about their interpersonal conflict? What do they order for their meals, and why?
-- Finally, how do they try to control their self-image to each other and to Dr. Cannon?
AFTER you've considered these questions, write the scene. But do think about the core conflicts first. Don't settle for what is easy and obvious. Dig deeper. Think it through. You might find some surprises along the way.
There are no wrong answers to an exercise like this. No two writers will handle the same core conflicts in exactly the same way. Your interpretation of character and behavior is part of what gives you a unique voice.
Theresa
By the way, Drago's story is real, except that he did not survive. Author Kate Rothwell a/k/a Summer Devon works with the women who did survive that day. Look here for photos of the sock booties they make and sell. Look here for details on ordering their handiwork. They make great holiday gifts. Just sayin.
We started with a few key pieces of external behavior and worked inward to get to his core emotional need.
We used that core emotional need to predict simple, controllable behavior.
We used that core emotional need and companion needs to demonstrate how seemingly contradictory behavior can be consistent with that character.
We examined self-image as a facet of emotional need and as a predictor of behavior.
We looked at how Johnny's desire to hide pieces of his personality might influence behavior in a common social situation with zero conflict.
And this has all been leading up to this post. Now we'll look at how to exploit core conflicts.
Meet Drago
What we haven't done yet is create a second character with an external goal which puts him in direct conflict with Johnny. Remember, the pretty party girl was not a developed character. We let you all stand in for her and imagine how you would respond to Johnny. We didn't give her her own set of needs and goals. This is why we need Drago now.
Drago is a survivor. He grew up in a region of Europe torn apart by civil war. The wars left his remote village intact for the first few years -- his village is so remote, in fact, that the communist government never could figure out how to get electricity to them. They didn't import much of anything, but they did a little bartering with neighboring villages. As a child, Drago sometimes walked the three hours through the mountains to the next village with a load of homemade cheese in a pack on his back. He enjoyed the return trip more because he could spend his time in anticipation of his village's excitement to see what he managed to get in trade for the cheese.
One day when Drago was making this trip, rebel soldiers came to his village, collected all the men and boys, and slaughtered them. Then they moved on to the next village and did the same. Drago survived only because he was on a mountain path that the soldiers didn't know about. Drago, his mother, and all the other surviving women and girls were taken in by the UN, moved to a refugee camp in another part of Europe, and eventually were settled in the US.
Drago's self-image is "survivor," and his core emotional need is justice. He wants to be a doctor because he wants to right the wrongs committed by bad men, brutal soldiers. He has watched his mother struggle to adapt to her new environment. She may have been the best cheese-maker in the mountains, but her lack of exposure to modern living has made it impossible for her to even find work as a cleaning woman. This has also made Drago hyper-protective.
Drago, Meet Johnny
Drago got a scholarship to college, and he needs a scholarship if he's going to go to med school. He and Johnny have both applied for a prestigious internship that would pay their tuition and expenses. In addition to these benefits, the intern would be allowed to work during school breaks under the mentorship of a famous surgeon at an internationally-renowned NYC hospital. This surgeon is heavily involved in Doctors Without Borders.
The selection committee uses a precise calculus to determine the winner of the internship/scholarship. In the event of a tied score, the selection committee interviews the two candidates, and they have lunch together with the famous surgeon. (Let's give her a name. Dr. Cannon. Assume she's a placeholder character much like the pretty girl at the party. You may stand in for her if you want to.)
Johnny and Draco are meeting each other and Dr. Cannon at this lunch for the first time. The lunch is at a white-tablecloth place. Hushed music. Heavy silverware. Well-trained waiters.
They have an external conflict. Obviously. They're competing for a scholarship.
But here is your assignment. Just by being in the room together, even without the external conflict, these two will be projecting needs, values, goals, and hiding aspects of their shadow selves. Your job is to think through how they interact on this level. Consider:
-- What do they see in each other that makes each of them feel uncomfortable about themselves?
-- How do they each handle that discomfort?
-- What do they see in each other that makes each of them feel good about themselves?
-- How to they each handle those positive feelings?
-- How does the environment impact their interaction? What does it highlight about their interpersonal conflict? What do they order for their meals, and why?
-- Finally, how do they try to control their self-image to each other and to Dr. Cannon?
AFTER you've considered these questions, write the scene. But do think about the core conflicts first. Don't settle for what is easy and obvious. Dig deeper. Think it through. You might find some surprises along the way.
There are no wrong answers to an exercise like this. No two writers will handle the same core conflicts in exactly the same way. Your interpretation of character and behavior is part of what gives you a unique voice.
Theresa
By the way, Drago's story is real, except that he did not survive. Author Kate Rothwell a/k/a Summer Devon works with the women who did survive that day. Look here for photos of the sock booties they make and sell. Look here for details on ordering their handiwork. They make great holiday gifts. Just sayin.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Johnny, Dressed in Layers
You're at a cocktail party. A young man walks up to you and introduces himself.
"Hi, I'm Johnny. I'm a status-seeking pre-med student with a low tolerance for financial instability and a moderate tolerance for emotional instability. Can I get you a drink?"
Yeah, that ought to woo the women.
We very rarely craft our self-images to project our emotional needs (even though the end result might betray those needs). But we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how we hope to be, the image we wish to project, and what we want others to think of us.
It's something more than simple self-image. It's a combination of self-image and projected image, with a healthy dose of hiding just to keep things interesting.
If you're at all familiar with astrology, you might already have some basis for understanding this concept. (We're going to file this under "things I learned in creative writing school.") When an astrologer casts a natal chart, the first three placements identified are the sun sign, the moon sign, and the rising sign.
The sun sign is a person's core personality, the foundational traits which will always make up part of their character in some way. These traits can be magnified or diminished by other factors, but they're still pretty constant. When we say things like, "Geminis have quick minds," or, "Capricorns are good with money," we're usually referencing a sun sign trait. And when we read our horoscopes in the newspaper, we're reading for our sun signs.
When creating a character, the "sun sign" part of it will be things like long-term goals, backstory, immutable traits, socioeconomic position, career path, and the other enduring, big-picture factors that can be used to define the basics of who that character is. When a character defines himself or herself, these traits will factor strongly on the list. Example: Betty Draper is an upper-middle class housewife who worked briefly as a model before stepping in to her expected role of wife and mother. She has three children, a husband, and one married brother. She enjoys riding horses and uses and English saddle. Men are strongly attracted to her, and she places a lot of value on appearances.
The rising sign is the person's external or public personality. Think of this like a layer of external traits on top of the core personality, much like a layer of clothing over the body. Just as line and color and texture of a dress can influence the way the body looks, the traits of the rising sign can make a character "look" a certain way. Rising sign traits are often the first things we notice about people, even though they are often not the most important.
When creating a character, the "rising sign" part of it will be how others see the character. It's a mixture of projected image and actual impact on others. Part of thinking through this part of the character requires us to understand where a character tries but fails to create certain impressions. Example: Betty Draper is well-spoken but she doesn't have much to say. Her person and her home are meticulously well-maintained, but she does little of the actual maintenance work herself, though she does think she struggles to maintain a "perfect" facade. People think she's naive, pampered, and lucky, but when they get to know her better, they feel sorry for her. The impact she has on people, therefore, depends somewhat on how well they know her.
The moon sign in a natal chart indicates the hidden or shadow side of ourselves. This is the part of ourselves we hope people won't notice, the part we try to leave out of our public personalities. This doesn't make this part of us less real or valid. It also doesn't mean it's an automatic negative. But it does mean that we might not be quite as accepting of these parts of ourselves. The moon sign, in some ways, points to where we will struggle.
In creating a character, the "moon sign" often relates to our deep emotional needs and how we try to obscure them. These are the parts of ourselves we don't want others to notice. Is the character insecure? Hot-tempered? Afraid of her own basement? These might be seen as flaws, but they don't have to be outright bad traits. Think also of the ways a character indulges in self-sabotage (the dieter who hides candy in her sock drawer), takes a good trait too far (is he a saver or a miser?), or tries to obscure his upbringing or cultural background (the white suburban kid who dreadlocks his hair and tells you it's iree). Finally, think of the traits people will know only when they know us well. Everyone might know the man on the corner who is the high school football coach, who has outfitted his garage like a boxing ring, who drives a Hummer and wears the blackest sunglesses and the toughest leather coats. How many people also know that he grows and breeds show violets with his wife? How might he explain this when it becomes known, and what does it say about his self-image?
How does this relate to Johnny? We've already defined some of his core externals (pre-med, good student, etc.) and some of his shadow-self needs (status, and the ways status manifest for him). But there's more to it than this. How does Johnny want people to see him?
Johnny won't talk openly about seeing the world as a hierarchy and wanting to be as close to the top of the heap as possible. He will talk about money (which frequently masks another emotional need) and his elevated tastes. He might joke about being high maintenance. (This would be a joke to him, because we can diminish the dark part of ourselves by laughing about it.) He might use one obvious aspect of his shadow self to try to deflect attention away from the truth. Example: He might talk about his love of a good meal in a fine restaurant in terms of the food and flavors and choices, but in fact he thinks most steaks taste pretty much the same and he chose this restaurant because it's the "best" in town. There's a chance he won't admit even to himself that he would be just as happy with a Big Mac. We frequently turn a blind eye to our own shadow selves.
But this doesn't mean we can escape them. Johnny will dress and walk and talk a certain way to cultivate a certain image. Whether this effort yields success, and at what point people begin to see through it to his deeper self, is part of what makes people -- and fiction -- interesting.
So. You're a beautiful young girl at a cocktail party. You see a man, Johnny, across the room. Tell me--
1) What he is wearing.
2) What he does when you make eye contact with him.
3) How long it takes him to approach you.
4) How he approaches you.
5) What he says when he finally reaches you.
(Because, when it comes right down to it, lists of traits are nowhere near as interesting as watching a person with those traits in action. This is storytelling.)
Theresa
"Hi, I'm Johnny. I'm a status-seeking pre-med student with a low tolerance for financial instability and a moderate tolerance for emotional instability. Can I get you a drink?"
Yeah, that ought to woo the women.
We very rarely craft our self-images to project our emotional needs (even though the end result might betray those needs). But we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how we hope to be, the image we wish to project, and what we want others to think of us.
It's something more than simple self-image. It's a combination of self-image and projected image, with a healthy dose of hiding just to keep things interesting.
If you're at all familiar with astrology, you might already have some basis for understanding this concept. (We're going to file this under "things I learned in creative writing school.") When an astrologer casts a natal chart, the first three placements identified are the sun sign, the moon sign, and the rising sign.
The sun sign is a person's core personality, the foundational traits which will always make up part of their character in some way. These traits can be magnified or diminished by other factors, but they're still pretty constant. When we say things like, "Geminis have quick minds," or, "Capricorns are good with money," we're usually referencing a sun sign trait. And when we read our horoscopes in the newspaper, we're reading for our sun signs.
When creating a character, the "sun sign" part of it will be things like long-term goals, backstory, immutable traits, socioeconomic position, career path, and the other enduring, big-picture factors that can be used to define the basics of who that character is. When a character defines himself or herself, these traits will factor strongly on the list. Example: Betty Draper is an upper-middle class housewife who worked briefly as a model before stepping in to her expected role of wife and mother. She has three children, a husband, and one married brother. She enjoys riding horses and uses and English saddle. Men are strongly attracted to her, and she places a lot of value on appearances.
The rising sign is the person's external or public personality. Think of this like a layer of external traits on top of the core personality, much like a layer of clothing over the body. Just as line and color and texture of a dress can influence the way the body looks, the traits of the rising sign can make a character "look" a certain way. Rising sign traits are often the first things we notice about people, even though they are often not the most important.
When creating a character, the "rising sign" part of it will be how others see the character. It's a mixture of projected image and actual impact on others. Part of thinking through this part of the character requires us to understand where a character tries but fails to create certain impressions. Example: Betty Draper is well-spoken but she doesn't have much to say. Her person and her home are meticulously well-maintained, but she does little of the actual maintenance work herself, though she does think she struggles to maintain a "perfect" facade. People think she's naive, pampered, and lucky, but when they get to know her better, they feel sorry for her. The impact she has on people, therefore, depends somewhat on how well they know her.
The moon sign in a natal chart indicates the hidden or shadow side of ourselves. This is the part of ourselves we hope people won't notice, the part we try to leave out of our public personalities. This doesn't make this part of us less real or valid. It also doesn't mean it's an automatic negative. But it does mean that we might not be quite as accepting of these parts of ourselves. The moon sign, in some ways, points to where we will struggle.
In creating a character, the "moon sign" often relates to our deep emotional needs and how we try to obscure them. These are the parts of ourselves we don't want others to notice. Is the character insecure? Hot-tempered? Afraid of her own basement? These might be seen as flaws, but they don't have to be outright bad traits. Think also of the ways a character indulges in self-sabotage (the dieter who hides candy in her sock drawer), takes a good trait too far (is he a saver or a miser?), or tries to obscure his upbringing or cultural background (the white suburban kid who dreadlocks his hair and tells you it's iree). Finally, think of the traits people will know only when they know us well. Everyone might know the man on the corner who is the high school football coach, who has outfitted his garage like a boxing ring, who drives a Hummer and wears the blackest sunglesses and the toughest leather coats. How many people also know that he grows and breeds show violets with his wife? How might he explain this when it becomes known, and what does it say about his self-image?
How does this relate to Johnny? We've already defined some of his core externals (pre-med, good student, etc.) and some of his shadow-self needs (status, and the ways status manifest for him). But there's more to it than this. How does Johnny want people to see him?
Johnny won't talk openly about seeing the world as a hierarchy and wanting to be as close to the top of the heap as possible. He will talk about money (which frequently masks another emotional need) and his elevated tastes. He might joke about being high maintenance. (This would be a joke to him, because we can diminish the dark part of ourselves by laughing about it.) He might use one obvious aspect of his shadow self to try to deflect attention away from the truth. Example: He might talk about his love of a good meal in a fine restaurant in terms of the food and flavors and choices, but in fact he thinks most steaks taste pretty much the same and he chose this restaurant because it's the "best" in town. There's a chance he won't admit even to himself that he would be just as happy with a Big Mac. We frequently turn a blind eye to our own shadow selves.
But this doesn't mean we can escape them. Johnny will dress and walk and talk a certain way to cultivate a certain image. Whether this effort yields success, and at what point people begin to see through it to his deeper self, is part of what makes people -- and fiction -- interesting.
So. You're a beautiful young girl at a cocktail party. You see a man, Johnny, across the room. Tell me--
1) What he is wearing.
2) What he does when you make eye contact with him.
3) How long it takes him to approach you.
4) How he approaches you.
5) What he says when he finally reaches you.
(Because, when it comes right down to it, lists of traits are nowhere near as interesting as watching a person with those traits in action. This is storytelling.)
Theresa
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Deepening Your Characters
There are a number of methods for deepening your characters, but today we'll look at just one: Identification of dominant needs.
Typically, genre fiction writers think in terms of goals and motivations. "Johnny wants to ace his finals because it will help him get into med school."
Goal = good grades.
Motivation = acceptance into med school
This is fine, and you can build a sturdy plot this way, but you might end up with slightly flat characters. We don't know anything about Johnny's core characteristics at this point. You might be thinking that we can extrapolate certain characteristics from the core facts, but can we? Johnny might want to ace his finals, but he might also want to watch the ball game. Is it safe to assume he has the self-discipline and focus necessary to study simply because he "wants" good grades? Or is it possible that is competing desires might be stronger? The truth is that although a person's goals do say something about that person, they might not say enough to be accurate predictors of behavior.
The way to get around this is by digging deeper into the motivation to find the dominant emotional needs. You're probably already doing this on some level. If you find yourself asking "Why?" frequently when examining your characters, you're trying to dig past the wants and into the needs. But this can also lead to flat and even circular reasoning. If you've spent much time in writers' brainstorming groups, you've probably run into conversations something like this:
Why does Johnny want to go to med school?
To become a doctor.
Why does Johnny want to be a doctor?
He wants a stable job with good pay and benefits.
Why does he want this kind of job?
Uh, doesn't everyone? Beats the hell out of living under a bridge.
We're getting nowhere because we're focusing on externals. It may be true that people want good pay in general, but that doesn't tell us much about Johnny in specific. As a character he may be an expression of universal human tendencies, but that doesn't mean he can be generic. So how do we get past this generic or universal external desire and into the gears of Johnny's unique mechanism?
Try taking the external goal away, and see where it gets you. Johnny wants to go to medical school so he can become a doctor and have a good job. What if somehow Johnny is precluded from attending medical school? Is he still the same character, or do the changed externals change his personality, too? Or, to put it another way,
Why does he choose medicine over some other stable profession, like law or big business?
When he was a kid, he heard someone say, "Don't be a plain Mister Jones when you can be a Doctor Jones." It stuck with him.
Aha! Now we're getting somewhere. The money might be a good rationale for this profession, but there's also a deeper emotional need at play. Johnny wants status. Money is an external symbol of that status, but other things are, too. How else would Johnny express his need for status? Clothing, housing, designer luggage, expensive haircuts -- all these status symbols might be deeply important to Johnny.
Johnny might be the kind of guy with an expensive car, too, but it's not because he's a risk-taker. He doesn't speed. He pauses at intersections and lets people get a good look at him in the driver's seat. And unlike the guy who buys the exact same car out of some need for attention, Johnny won't squeal his wheels when the light turns green.
I want to pause a moment and consider what we've just done. We started with an external fact or goal, worked inward to the core emotional need, and are now turning it around to work back out. We're examining that emotional need for other ways it might express itself in Johnny's life. Johnny buys that car because of what it says about his status. By identifying the core need expressed by his car, we can also figure out how he drives it.
By doing this inside-out analysis, we might also identify some self-contradictory behavior. Let's think about Johnny's lady for a moment. Notice that when Johnny first started explaining why he'd chosen medical school, he referenced stability as a goal. If his core emotional need was for stability, he might choose his spouse early in life and then make darn sure their marriage was a contented one.
But if his dominant need is for status rather than stability, and stability is merely the need he's willing to cop to in public, then will Johnny marry young? Maybe not. Not unless he manages to snag a supermodel or the sorority president. And even if he does land a girl like that, he might also go for some side action as an expression of status. Because that's the rumor: high-status males get more nookie.
So now what we have is a status-seeking male who claims to value stability (and who might, in fact, value it to some extent, especially in financial matters) who undermines the stability of his personal life by joining the girl-of-the-week club and/or cheating on his wife.
We can complicate this further. If his need for financial stability is greater than his tolerance for personal instability, Johnny might avoid cheating because he doesn't want to lose his house in a divorce. So instead taking his side nookie to a nightclub, he'll go to the same club on date night with his spouse and flirt with the waitresses, but he'll only dance with his wife. Now he's satisfying multiple emotional needs: He has the status-symbol wife on his arm, the status-enhancing flirtation, and the stability of a public display of loyalty to his wife. Plus, at the end of the night, there's little risk that his wife will take half of everything.
So, now we understand that mining a character's emotional needs can help us understand why they do the things they do. They might even help us predict how a character will behave in a given situation. Next time, we'll look at how a writer can use all this to exploit conflicts.
Any questions? If not, I have one for you. Does Johnny study for his finals or watch the game with his friends?
Theresa
Typically, genre fiction writers think in terms of goals and motivations. "Johnny wants to ace his finals because it will help him get into med school."
Goal = good grades.
Motivation = acceptance into med school
This is fine, and you can build a sturdy plot this way, but you might end up with slightly flat characters. We don't know anything about Johnny's core characteristics at this point. You might be thinking that we can extrapolate certain characteristics from the core facts, but can we? Johnny might want to ace his finals, but he might also want to watch the ball game. Is it safe to assume he has the self-discipline and focus necessary to study simply because he "wants" good grades? Or is it possible that is competing desires might be stronger? The truth is that although a person's goals do say something about that person, they might not say enough to be accurate predictors of behavior.
The way to get around this is by digging deeper into the motivation to find the dominant emotional needs. You're probably already doing this on some level. If you find yourself asking "Why?" frequently when examining your characters, you're trying to dig past the wants and into the needs. But this can also lead to flat and even circular reasoning. If you've spent much time in writers' brainstorming groups, you've probably run into conversations something like this:
Why does Johnny want to go to med school?
To become a doctor.
Why does Johnny want to be a doctor?
He wants a stable job with good pay and benefits.
Why does he want this kind of job?
Uh, doesn't everyone? Beats the hell out of living under a bridge.
We're getting nowhere because we're focusing on externals. It may be true that people want good pay in general, but that doesn't tell us much about Johnny in specific. As a character he may be an expression of universal human tendencies, but that doesn't mean he can be generic. So how do we get past this generic or universal external desire and into the gears of Johnny's unique mechanism?
Try taking the external goal away, and see where it gets you. Johnny wants to go to medical school so he can become a doctor and have a good job. What if somehow Johnny is precluded from attending medical school? Is he still the same character, or do the changed externals change his personality, too? Or, to put it another way,
Why does he choose medicine over some other stable profession, like law or big business?
When he was a kid, he heard someone say, "Don't be a plain Mister Jones when you can be a Doctor Jones." It stuck with him.
Aha! Now we're getting somewhere. The money might be a good rationale for this profession, but there's also a deeper emotional need at play. Johnny wants status. Money is an external symbol of that status, but other things are, too. How else would Johnny express his need for status? Clothing, housing, designer luggage, expensive haircuts -- all these status symbols might be deeply important to Johnny.
Johnny might be the kind of guy with an expensive car, too, but it's not because he's a risk-taker. He doesn't speed. He pauses at intersections and lets people get a good look at him in the driver's seat. And unlike the guy who buys the exact same car out of some need for attention, Johnny won't squeal his wheels when the light turns green.
I want to pause a moment and consider what we've just done. We started with an external fact or goal, worked inward to the core emotional need, and are now turning it around to work back out. We're examining that emotional need for other ways it might express itself in Johnny's life. Johnny buys that car because of what it says about his status. By identifying the core need expressed by his car, we can also figure out how he drives it.
By doing this inside-out analysis, we might also identify some self-contradictory behavior. Let's think about Johnny's lady for a moment. Notice that when Johnny first started explaining why he'd chosen medical school, he referenced stability as a goal. If his core emotional need was for stability, he might choose his spouse early in life and then make darn sure their marriage was a contented one.
But if his dominant need is for status rather than stability, and stability is merely the need he's willing to cop to in public, then will Johnny marry young? Maybe not. Not unless he manages to snag a supermodel or the sorority president. And even if he does land a girl like that, he might also go for some side action as an expression of status. Because that's the rumor: high-status males get more nookie.
So now what we have is a status-seeking male who claims to value stability (and who might, in fact, value it to some extent, especially in financial matters) who undermines the stability of his personal life by joining the girl-of-the-week club and/or cheating on his wife.
We can complicate this further. If his need for financial stability is greater than his tolerance for personal instability, Johnny might avoid cheating because he doesn't want to lose his house in a divorce. So instead taking his side nookie to a nightclub, he'll go to the same club on date night with his spouse and flirt with the waitresses, but he'll only dance with his wife. Now he's satisfying multiple emotional needs: He has the status-symbol wife on his arm, the status-enhancing flirtation, and the stability of a public display of loyalty to his wife. Plus, at the end of the night, there's little risk that his wife will take half of everything.
So, now we understand that mining a character's emotional needs can help us understand why they do the things they do. They might even help us predict how a character will behave in a given situation. Next time, we'll look at how a writer can use all this to exploit conflicts.
Any questions? If not, I have one for you. Does Johnny study for his finals or watch the game with his friends?
Theresa
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