Giving the reader some emotion

If it hasn't become obvious to you, I love The Hunger Games. The whole trilogy. Everything. And upon watching the movie for the fourth time or so, something that bothered me finally clicked as to why it did.

In the book, right after Peeta's reaped, Katniss describes in detail how he saved her life by giving her bread and hope. In the movie, there's a brief flash of the two in the rain, but without context of what's actually going on.

Why does this bother me so much? Because in the book, we're given a strong characteristic as to who Peeta is. We see that he's kind and willing to sacrifice for others (his mom beats him because of what he did). Right away, the readers like Peeta, and the situation of the two going into the games gets more complicated.

In the movie, we get none of that. He's just a boy Katniss will have to fight against. Of course, those who read the books know about the bread, but those who haven't don't care. There's no emotion or connection between the two, and it takes a while to see Peeta's goodness come through the movie. And by then, most people will already have their feelings about him sorted.

This made me think of how important it is for us as writers to set up our character's personalities sooner rather than later. We can make the reader love (or hate, depending) the character with even a sentence, and hopefully within a scene. The bland characters, without their good or bad qualities coming through immediately, won't grasp the reader and then they won't care.

Sure, there are characters you can grow to love/hate, but the sooner the connection the reader has to them, the better. The sooner they'll think to themselves One more page, and get sucked in.

What do you do to make a reader instantly have an emotional reaction to your characters?

Avoiding the Stupid Protagonist Syndrome

Have you ever read a book, watched a movie, or seen a TV show in which a character makes a stupid choice? Not a mistake. A mistake would be yelling at your mom when she hasn't done anything because you've had a rough day. That's a mistake we as human beings make, and help our characters become three-dimensional. A stupid choice is if a character puts themselves in a dangerous position for no good reason when they know there's danger.
A comment I often see on Goodreads reviews from low ratings is the reviewer complaining that the main character is "stupid." And they then go on to list the stupid things the character does. I've read some books lately which made me think, "Wow this character is stupid."
So how do we avoid our own protagonist from being stupid? I think that this clip from The Office explains it:

Just ask yourself "Would an idiot do this?" If you look objectively and see that yes, an idiot would do it, then don't have your character do it. Easy peasy. In theory, at least.

Better than an interview

You've probably heard the advice to ask your characters questions. You know, what is your name? What is your quest? What is your favorite color? What I've tended to notice about when I do those, is that sometimes my characters are really open with me. Sometimes, they shy away from a question, or I can tell they're holding back.

So how do you get around these difficult characters? While I was at Writing for Charity, Jennifer Nielson talked about the psychology of character. She worked at a camp for troubled teens, and for them, they had to do fill-in-the-blank statements. So, for example there might be a question like:
I'm happiest when _________
I trust ________
I'm afraid of __________

It's amazing what your characters will tell you with this format that they won't with the interview. Also, you tend to notice patterns crop up. One of my characters feels a longing for love but fears it at the same time. And I never knew. So next time you have a character giving you a hard time, one you want to know better, or just for kicks, come up with these types of questions and see what you get!

The Character Your Character Could Be Like

The following post has spoilers for Once Upon a Time, including the most recent one. Just in case you care and haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

Sadly, there aren't enough characters like Rumpelstiltskin as he's portrayed in ABC's Once Upon a Time.

He's not a moral person. Some would probably even call him evil. But the writers of OUAT know how to develop characters (these are the same people who did Lost after all). I've always been impressed with the characters on the show, but last week's episode blew me away.

You see, Rumple here has a heart. We knew from his previous episode "Desperate Souls" that he can love--he had a son before he did anything to protect. But what about the Rumple we first saw behind bars, jumping around like a madman? With the end of his origins episode, people (or at least I did) assumed that he just became evil after he took on the power of The Dark One. But now we know from this past episode he is quite capable of love, despite all of the bad things he did. Even after the more than twenty-eight years since he lost Belle, he continues to love her. He just thought at the time he loved his power more. 

Rumple isn't a good guy. But he's a rather sympathetic character when knowing his backstory. Usually I only root the the good guy, I've never been the kind to side with the villains. But at this point in the story, I don't see Rumple as a villain anymore, even though he does some awful things.

From what I've learned with Rumple's character is that you need to go deeper with your characters. Are they really all good/bad? (probably not). What made a specific character the way that he is? What about the character will surprise the reader, but still fit with her personality?

This past episode has really made me consider my own characters and develop them further. 

Flash Fiction (blogfest)

Last day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest! This time around it's a flash fiction (>251 words). This is Troy again, from my Monday interview.

Today ended the war. Today the mountains became peaceful.
Today she married him.
I thought they would have fought with me, knowing the truth about him. But they told me to let it go, that we'd find another way. Morcant had proofed the castle so I couldn't penetrate it, with or without magic. I couldn't get to her.
Egan found me in Dunthur City.
"Come back," he said. "There's nothing we can do."
She had the necklace, though, as far as I knew. With the necklace, maybe she'd find me. Or maybe she never discovered the truth. Maybe she'd never remember me.
I'd always remember her, with her aspirations and flowers and determination. I remembered the first time I saw her, the first time we kissed, our last moment together.
I'd never know if she did remember. I'd probably never see her again.
Today she became the Queen of Thesland. And I was forgotten.

Character Dialogue (blogfest)

These two are characters from my current WIP.

F: Ouch.
M: Don't wanna talk about it.
F: She totally just used you.
M: Yeah, well.
F: Do you really like her?
M: Have you seen her? Of course I like her. Every guy at school likes her.
F: So all guys go for the slut look?
M: It's her party outfit. She isn't like that all the time.
F: Mmmhmm. And the fact that she just made out with you to get with that other guy...?
M: Not technically a slut.
F: But still pretty slutty. I saw them leaving together. I guess they thought the party was lame with the whole parental supervision thing.
M: You just met her tonight, you don't even know her.
F: I can't believe you're still defending her. She can't be that pretty.
M: She's Alicia Norman.
F: Oh, right, how stupid of me to forget.
M:...
F: Do you really still like her?
M: Do I still wish we were making out right now? Yeah. Do I like her?...Not really. Not anymore.

Character on the Couch (blogfest)

I know that I usually post Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, but for the I'm Hearing Voices Character Blogfest I'm rearranging my schedule for this week.

For today, I need one character to answer a few questions. It was really hard for me to pick just one character that I wanted to do, because I'm editing one book, writing another, and in the stages of outlining a third.


But I finally decided to interview Troy, the love interest of FORGET ME NOT that is a little mysterious even to me. 


So Troy, take it away.

1. What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret? People I love are my greatest vulnerability. I'm scared to love because of everyone I've lost. Not many people know this, because I keep people at a distance.
2. What do people believe about you that is false? When I was in the castle, people underestimated me. They thought that I didn't have an agenda or a reason to be there, at least not anything deeper than what I told them. 
3. What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? Why? My best friend has forgotten everything about me. But if I asked her before, she'd tell me that I don't trust enough. I didn't trust her until she knew my secrets, and there are only a few more people I have faith in. I've seen too much wrong done to believe in many people.
4. What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? Why? To her, my redeeming quality would be the kindness that I feel toward others, how I want to help everyone I can.
5. What do you want most? What will you do to get it? I want Imogen. I've already done all I'm able to do to get her. I'm relying on my faith in her now.

Well...things have popped up in here that I wasn't expecting. I love interviewing characters!


What types of things have you learned about your characters you weren't expecting?

The One You'd Never Suspect

First, I want to thank Laura Josephsen for giving me the Liebster blog award. I've already gotten this one, and I'm busy right now getting ready to head back up to school (going there today!) so I'm passing on the rest of it. But check out Laura's blog and follow! Thanks again Laura!

My mom and I have really been getting into 24. We never watched it when it was on TV, so we've been renting it. We've gotten through the second season and holy cow is it intense!

Warning: I will now start spoiling 24, and Harry Potter. Just in case anyone still cares.

In the second season, there is a jaw-dropping, oh-my-gosh-did-that-really-happen moment that pointed out something really obvious to me that's used when crafting a story. It's something that's done so much, you don't really even think about it anymore. Or, at least, I'd never thought about it.

First, for background on the story, there has been a discovery of a nuclear bomb planted in LA by a terrorist organizations called Second Wave. The audience is introduced to the Warners. Kate's little sister Marie is getting married that day to Reza Naiyeer, a English man of middle eastern descent that works for their father. Mr. Warner is a financial consultant of some kind. Kate is suspicious of Reza, and has a P.I. investigate him. It turns out, money from Mr. Warner's company went through to Second Wave by Reza. Kate hides this from Marie, wanting to protect her baby sister. But then the federal agency CTU (made up for the show) comes and investigates Reza, who swears he has nothing to do with it. Marie is furious with the agents for suspecting her fiance, and even more mad at Kate for investigating him without her knowledge. Reza comes to the conclusion that Mr. Warner must have sent the money. They are both questioned, brought into CTU, and in the end, Reza realizes it wasn't Mr. Warner who sent the money.

It was Marie.

Turns out, she's the one helping the bad guys plant a nuclear bomb in LA. She's presented as someone who has no idea what's going on, and while not stupid, just not really intelligent. At one point, my mom suggested that Marie might take a gun and find a way to help her fiance escape from questioning. I laughed and asked, "Do you really think that Marie could shoot?"

She can.

Under these observations, I examined Harry Potter and some of those who ended up being the person that caused the madness.
Quirrell: P-poor, st-tuttering Professor Quirrell. He's hardly there, and when he is, he's so weak and pitiful Harry and the readers would never guessed he could attempt to steal the Stone.
Ginny: While Voldemort was behind it the whole time, no one (that I know of, at least) guessed that Ron's sweet, crushing-on-Harry sister could open the Chamber and do something so horrible (even though she didn't mean to).
Peter Pettigrew: All right, so we think he's dead most of the book, and who would blame the rat? But still, no one saw it coming that Wormtail betrayed the Potters. No one thought maybe Sirius killed him because Wormtail was the one who gave the location of their friends. By McGonagall's description, he was a inept little thing who could have never done it, and on top of that, he was fiercely loyal to James and Sirius, always following them around as a school boy.

Catch any similarities here? They all seem (or are) weak. Quirrell let people believe he's more weak than he was with his stuttering and fainting. Ginny was only eleven and naive. And why do you think Peter blamed Sirius? Because with how bold Sirius was, and how unhinged he became after Lily and James' death, people easily believed he betrayed the Potters. Then we have Marie, who drags you through the first few episodes of 24 with a clueless, happy bride-to-be facade.

The person you'd never suspect seems weak, or at least, not threatening. There are times in 24 where you could see in Marie a hint of the mad woman, like when she gets furious at the government agents interrogating her fiance and father, and demanding her sister not be part of the wedding for being suspicious of the fiance. Before, I thought she was just being a brat. Overall, she seemed inept and unable to help terrorists. But boy, did her other side come out!

For whatever reason, the "bad" people or the more outgoing are always suspected. Malfoy, Snape, Sirius, Reza, and Mr. Warner. And in real life, it's oftentimes true that these type of people would be the ones to do it. But in stories, we don't want it to be obvious. We want to surprise them with the Marie. And I think part of that is the disguise of weakness and inability to do the horrible crime.

Now that I look at it, it's obvious that this is what you need to do. Call me slow, but I'm glad I've got it now.

Minor Characters

I started making up my post for my Top Ten minor characters, only I came to a halt after a while because I found myself wanting to repeat a lot of books with my favorite minor characters. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Pride and Prejudice, these were pretty much the only books that my favorite minor characters are in. Perhaps not coincidentally, these books are also a few of my all-time favorites.

It's pretty easy for writers to flesh out the few main people we spend the book with. But for J.K. Rowling to have our hearts torn out at Dobby's death, or Suzanne Collins to have our sympathy reached for Finnick when we hear his past, or Jane Austen to have us anxiously waiting for Mr. Bennet's next humorous line--this is real talent, and what separates a good book from a great one. When every character, no matter how small, is as meaningful and alive as the protagonist and their close sidekicks, mentors, enemies, and love interests, I think that is a huge sign that this book will be memorable.

I wish I had a formula for making a minor character memorable and beloved, but I'm still searching for it myself. One thing I do think about it, though, is that stereotypes for meaningful minor characters (not just the old man on the bus without a name) is not the way to go. Make them as fresh and interesting as the main characters, with something just as unique about them as the protagonist.

That's how you know

As I was writing the other day, the song "That's How You Know" from Enchanted came on my iPod. And in that song, I found a vital truth to writing. If you haven't heard it before, ( might I add if you haven't, see the entire movie right now) or you're having trouble remembering it, here you go:

All right, so this isn't new advice. Show don't tell has been around since the beginning of writing and I don't need to go into why it's so important. But when I listened to this song, it highlights how you need to show people in real life your thoughts and feelings. And great writing reflects back to real life, no matter what the genre. So it was just another tie-back into this basic knowledge of writing and reminded me of how important it truly is.

Names

One thing that I am obsessed over when planning a new story is names. So much goes behind a character's name. I once had to rename a character because the name that I originally gave her was hindering me from delving deeper into her character. Once I changed it, her personality came much more freely to me. It was pretty crazy.

I love finding meanings behind names when I read, and so if possible, I like my characters to have names with hidden meanings as well. It doesn't always work that way, of course. Sometimes a character just is Mary or Justin or Alex, for no particular reason. And minor characters tend to have less of importance to me when it comes to deeper meanings.

When I was younger I used to flip through the name book my parents bought in 1986 for their first child.

I'm pretty sure I used it more than my parents did. They only had four children, I've named dozens of characters with that book. Poor thing, the cover is missing now and the pages have gotten a little crumbly as old pages tend to go.

But as I got older and internet became more popular and my parents let me use it, I've found two sources that are gold in finding new names. The first is babynamesworld.com. It's just a great place to browse, and their searches are crazy good. You can choose the sex, syllables, letters, origin, and meaning all in one. It's great. The second website that I've more recently found is behindthename.com. This goes into more of the historical/mythological/literary/Bibical aspects of some names. It's handy if you want a bigger meaning behind your character's name.

Auditions and Storyboards

Well, I was going to go to Six Flags today, but it's raining here. I'm pretty disappointed, it was going to be my first time going. But this just leaves me time to reflect and blog on a book I've started reading, Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks.

As the title says, this is a guide to writing YA and eventually getting it published. I finished Chapter 5 last night. In Chapter 3, "Meeting Your Characters" Brooks suggested something for discovering your protagonist that I found interesting: hold "auditions" for your protagonist, as if it were for a reality show. Find the one that suits your story. I think for the most part, I'll be doing this for secondary characters, because I feel I often have trouble evolving them when I'm not as focused on their thoughts and motives as I am the character(s) who's story I'm telling. It's pretty easy for me to figure out what a character is like when the story is centered around them. However, one of my protagonists is causing me some trouble. I've started writing this one character's story, but she's not quite right yet. Among other problems with the plot, I'm scrapping that one and starting over. And I think I will begin with auditions for my main girl.

Also, in the last chapter I read, "Building Your Plot" Brooks suggests storyboarding, writing out events on index cards an arranging them. I think that I'm going to use this tool as well. In the past I've had ideas in my head but never really wrote them down in any order. In general, I'm not much of a outline on paper person, I just keep it in my head. But I might as well start practicing different methods to improve.