Our Secret Desire to be the Characters we Hate

If you read YA (and really, why wouldn't you) you know that lots of folks are concerned about the lack of strong female characters in many of the chart-toppers. They point to characters like Bella Swan from Twilight and Luce from Fallen. These ladies lack any identity outside the men in the lives.



Readers, librarians, and fellow authors are concerned about the messages this type of character is sending to the impressionable teens who read about them. This is such a hot topic that it made me wonder why an author would create a character like this in the first place.

And then it hit me. Because secretly, deep down inside, we all want to be like Bella Swan. Now, I'm not suggesting that we all want to suddenly develop self-esteem issues and sacrifice our personalities for the sake of true love. So let me explain.

Characters like Bella are all written the same. Beautiful girl doesn't realize how pretty she is and is clueless to the male student body ready to sacrifice appendages for a date to Homecoming. We assume that this character is either a) dumber than a box of rocks to not see all of this or b) has one of those so far over-the-top humility acts that it has to be fake.

But this is where the secret, deep down part comes in. Don't we all wish this was how things really were in high school. It sure would be nice to convince myself that the reason my sophomore year was dateless was simply because my overwhelming beauty made all the boys too nervous to ask me out.

I'm not suggesting this is a green light to write a dozen novels with sappy, unaware teenagers. But it does explain why seventeen year old girls and forty year old women stand in line at midnight to see their movies. Because, secretly, we all want to be Bella Swan.

Novel Super Glue

There are those that will tell you that the key to any great novel is a wonderful plot, others will preach character arcs, and still more will say its convincing prose.

I am here to tell you that none of those things are worth a can of beans without consistency!

I want to talk about two kinds of consistency because they are the offenders I am seeing most often in my reading these days. Let me preface this by saying, this is not rocket science.  A trustworthy beta reader can be a huge help in finding these lapses.

The first is detail consistency. Some of this seems pretty straight forward.  If your character goes to the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then you can't give her a gym scene on Friday without explaining why she's there on her off day.  Makes sense right?

So why are so many authors leaving out the why?

Here's an example, in an unnamed book I am reading the opening scene is a doctor trying to stitch up a man's ankle in the emergency room.  This is made difficult because a storm has knocked out power and there are no lights (yes, I know there would be a back-up generator at a hospital, but apparently the author does not).  The author spends a lot (a lot) of time describing the difficulty of putting in these stitches using only the occasional lightning strike to see. We have a crystal clear picture. And then...

Another critical patient comes in and we see a whirl of activity while doctors and nurses hook up central lines, examine wounds, apply bandages and use the shock cart.  During this entire scene no one has any trouble seeing anything.

Now maybe this patient was taken to an area of the hospital where the lights were on. Or maybe they were having a hard time seeing.  The point is, I don't know, because the author didn't tell us.  All the sudden, this detail that was hammered in our head for fifteen pages is just gone.  The glue holding the scene together has dissolved.

The second area I want to touch on is character consistency.  This is a biggie for me.  Failure to keep your characters consistent is an epic fail. I'm not saying your character's can't grow, but I need to see that growth, not assume it.

Here's another nameless example to bring home the point.  Character A has been ordered by his boss to get a valuable object from character B.  Here's what we know about character A: he is shy, always follows the rules (due to his personality and his cultural upbringing), is excessively polite, does not have any home invasion skills (like lock picking) and, most importantly is afraid of character B. Character B is a highly armed, very skilled professional body guard. So what does character A do? Obviously, he breaks into character B's apartment and steals the object.  What? No, why would he do that? The character A we've come to know would simple ask character B for the object, using please as many times as possible.

In this case, the author made a character do something because the plot line called for it, not because it was a probable action for the character. This is a cardinal rule, character trumps plot every time. There are few rules in writing, but this is one of them. If your character is going to do something out of character there must be adequate motivation. 

Failure to be consistent in your writing is like taking the binding off a book.  Pages start falling apart and very shortly you'll find yourself with little more than a hot mess. Or a can of beans. Your choice.

Writing 101: Backstory

And Now...the Back of the Story.

Our characters are fascinating people (or creatures for the fantasy fans out there). They have complex lives full of drama, love, pain, and joy. As the creators of these characters we know all about them and want our readers to love/hate them as much as we do.

So how do we do that? Most importantly, spend the first three chapters of your novel giving the reader a full account of the past twenty years of your character's life so they can fully appreciate the subtle nuances of your character's actions.

Wait, what? We aren't supposed to do that? Well, there goes 15K from my word count. But I promise, knowing what (insert character) wore to Prom her Junior year is going to be really important later on.

OK, so you need some backstory. The real trick is dishing it out at the right time, in the right format, and in the right quantity. That seems pretty straightforward, but if like me you want to know more, here are some helpful tips.

According to Vicki Hinze the one absolute place backstory doesn't belong is in the opening pages. This is your chance to capture a reader's attention, so you need to hit them with the here and now.

I love her advice for how to incorporate the history that your character needs. “Think of bites. You can't eat a roast in one bite. But you can eat a roast by eating a lot of little bites. It's the same thing, for the same reason. So you don't choke.”

Hinze doesn't agree with the idea of cutting all backstory. And neither do I. By picking just the right slice of history to share, you give your reader better understanding of your character's motivations. Hinze agrees that these little nuggets of info “evoke the images and feelings you want the reader to have so that the reader reacts emotionally and logically to the characters the way you want them to react.”

So how do you pick which nuggets to share? Camy Tang has a great checklist to keep you from fluffing your MS with info a reader doesn't need. If you answer these questions honestly, you'll probably come up with a fairly short list of declassified facts.

1. Is your backstory absolutely relevant?
2. Is your backstory short?
3. Is your backstory broken up or inserted all at once?
4. Is there a dire reason for a character to need the information?
5. Is there conflict preventing the information from coming to light?
6. Is the information tied to some type of action?
7. Can you create a situation where someone needs to know the information?
8. Is the backstory given from the point of view of the character with the most to lose?
9. Is the backstory realistically and believably conveyed by the character?

So that covers when and what to include, but the hardest part for me is the how. Nothing is worse than the “As you know, John, we've been friends our whole lives.” Unless John has amnesia this is not going to impress your reader.

Going back to Tang, she suggests beating the information out of your characters. Or something like that. She suggest you “make that person have to fight to get the information. Create conflict that tries to prevent the character from finding out what they need to know. Let the witness be slippery or reluctant. Make obstacles for the character, and the reader will be drawn into his fight to find out the information.”

Kathy Steffen suggests that we expose critical backstory through dialogue. She says, “A veiled reference to something in the past can intrigue a reader.” I say, this sounds good but is probably harder than that. If you make your comment too veiled, the reader might be confused.

JK Rowling is a master at weaving in the little details. When bits of information needed to be shared, she often has the character unable to give all the information. Just as we were about to learn something really juice, Snape would but his greasy nose right into the thick of it. As a reader this gave us just enough to know that something is important, but also enough intrigue to keep us readeing to find out what it is.

I also love shushing my characters. When the big mouth brother is about to tell a tale of past embarrassment, the MC stops him cold with a look of murderous rage. No need to spill all the beans, but the damage is done.

So how do you know if you've done it right? Steffen suggests utilizing a very high-tech device to locate and eliminate unnecessary backstory. The Highlighter. Go back and highlight anything that is background information. If it doesn't happen during the time line of your tale, it's history. Then take a hard look and determine if it is essential information to the reader in order to understand your character's actions. If not, it has to go.

The cold, hard fact is that you have to write your character's history. After all, our past is what shapes our future, and this is true for you as a writer and for your characters. Unfortunately, most of that backstory is for your eyes only. While it does nothing for your word count, backstory will help you to write characters that hold a reader (and hopefully an agent).

Here are the links I used for today's entry.

Do you struggle with backstory? How do you handle it? Share your thoughts with other writers.

Do you have other writing issues you'd like to see covered here? Please let me know.

http://storysensei.blogspot.com/2005/08/how-to-write-backstory-without-putting.html

http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/backstory.html

http://howtowriteshop.loridevoti.com/2010/12/writing-backstory/