Today I read an article by Alicia Rasley, entitled Starting Small and Building Plot.

I chose this article because I often start with plot and come up with character second. This method does not always work out. In my current WIP, I had the plot laid and designed characters to fit, but then the characters took on a life of their own and have since deviated somewhat from the plot. It is an interesting time. =)

This article was less about craft, and more a step-by-step example of building a story skeleton from a single character. Although I have not yet gotten that method to work in my writing, I am intrigued by the idea. I may try my hand with some short stories first to see if plotting from character will mesh with the way I write.

So, okay. I was recently chatting with some fellow authors and the subject of character tags came up.

It has been said that there should never be more than two characters in a conversation, or else the reader will get confused about who is saying what. Of the three of us, one firmly agreed with this “rule”, one firmly disagreed, and one (me) decided to go home and blog about it.

So, here’s an example of a multi-person conversation:

“Pass the salt, please.”
“No, pass it to me.”
“I need it.”
“I asked first.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“It’s my salt and I’m not passing it to anybody.”

How many characters were speaking? At least three (unless one of them has multiple personality disorder) and perhaps as many as six.

Let’s assume there are three: a father and his two sons. Throw in some character tags, and:

“Pass the salt, please,” Timmy said.
“No, pass it to me,” Jimmy said.
“I need it,” Timmy said.
“I asked first,” Jimmy said.
“No, you didn’t,” Timmy said.
“It’s my salt and I’m not passing it to anybody,” Keith said.

Timmy Jimmy Timmy Jimmy Timmy Keith. Boring.

OK, next there are those who say that after the first time you use a character’s name, you can substitute with the pronoun a time or two. So let’s try again.

“Pass the salt, please,” Timmy said.
“No, pass it to me,” Jimmy said.
“I need it,” he said.
“I asked first,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
“It’s my salt and I’m not passing it to anybody,” Keith said.

Well, that was almost as bad as the version with *no* character tags. What if we switch the dialogue tags to action tags?

Jimmy dropped his fork onto the table. “Pass the salt, please.”
“No, pass it to me.” Timmy stuck out his hand.
Jimmy scowled at his brother. “I need it.”
Timmy smirked. “I asked first.”
“No, you didn’t.” Jimmy tugged at Timmy’s hair.
Keith closed his eyes. “It’s my salt and I’m not passing it to anybody.”

Better, in some ways–at least we now know who is doing what–but our fast paced dialogue slowed down a bit underneath all that action. Plus we were a bit heavy-handed with the scowling, smirking, and eye-closing.

There are some authors who suggest making each character speak differently enough that we don’t need a dialogue tag at all.

What if Keith is an uneducated single father, teenage Jimmy is a stereotypical surfer, and little Timmy is a third-grader missing his front two teeth?

“Yo Dad. Pass the salt, dude.”
“No, daddy. Path it to me!”
“Like, I need it.”
“I athked firth.”
“Look, dude, you totally didn’t.”
“This is daddy’s salt, boys, and I ain’t passing nothing to nobody.”

Our characters are still obnoxious, but at least we can tell them apart. Maybe now we can throw in a few of those action tags…

“Yo Dad.” Jimmy held out his hand. “Pass the salt, dude.”
“No, daddy. Path it to me!” Timmy stuck out his hand.
“Like, I need it.”
False innocence imbued Timmy’s gap-toothed smile with mischeif. “I athked firth.”
“Look, dude, you totally didn’t.”
Keith closed his eyes. “It’s daddy’s salt, boys, and I ain’t passing nothing to nobody.”

It’s no Gone With The Wind, but I bet they could have a dinner conversation for a few pages without the need to tack a character name after each bit of dialogue, or to confuse the reader with unclear pronouns (“he” said).

(Of course, I don’t recommend writing three pages about these characters at dinner… better come up with your own better, relevant characters first.)

Also, no multi-character conversations are possible without decent characterization in the first place.

Timmy can’t be eight years old — he must be missing his two front teeth. Jimmy can’t be a teenager — he must be hip deep in the pseudo-surfer lifestyle. Keith can’t just be a single father — he must have singular grammatical constructs of his own.

In fact, I’d venture to say that each and every character should be both unique and distinct.

Not just in case they wander into a dialogue with more than the recommended 2 conversationalists, but also to evoke their history and personality by paying attention to what they say and how they say it.

In other words, make sure your character *is* a character. =)

Yup, still on the characterization rant.

So here’s the deal.

I started out a pantser, morphed into a plotter, and am now determined–for this new book–to take the best of both worlds.

A few definitions:

PANTSER: One who writes by the seat of her pants, with absolutely no forethought to characterization, plot, theme, etc.

PLOTTER: One who settles at the keyboard only after creating extensive character charts, plotted every turning point, matched the hero’s journey to the story theme, etc.

Pantsing (I just made that word up) got me interesting characters and a storyline that went nowhere because the characters had no clear goal to strive for.

Plotting (real word) got me action-packed storylines, and characters who danced to that tune in marionette fashion.

I think the best plan is to mix, so that the plot fits the characters, rather than the other way around. But I also think that it is a good thing to know what the plot *is*, and where it’s going. At that point, the characters can decide how they plan to get there.

And, of course, the author can decide on all sorts of fun obstructions to block the characters from skipping down the yellow brick road of success until the final chapter.

It is my (new) firm belief that you can have whatever plot you want as long as two conditions are satisfied.

1) The characters are logically motivated to take part in such a plot.

2) The characters react in character to every plot event.

This may sound basic, but you’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget, and to sacrifice one for the other.

If Jill’s wet t-shirt contest has nothing to do with the plot, then delete that scene right outta the story, no matter how much characterization it shows.

Don’t have Martha just stare off into the sunset–boring. What kind of woman is she? If he was the keeper of her heart and she can’t imagine life without him, perhaps she faints atop his corpse or rises to take the arrows. Or if Martha’s husband is a rat bastard who cheated on her with her sister, then get her off her knees so she can kick him in the ribs before he dies.

Either way, the plot element stays–unfriendly natives ride up on horses–but Martha’s personality determines how she responds to the situation.

Hopefully, the character keeps finding herself in situations which call for a response of some kind, as opposed to a lot of internal monologuing or sitting around reminiscing about everything that happened before the story started.

Last but not least, the reader needs to know why the character is acting like they do. For example, I’m reading a story right now (no I won’t tell you what it is) that would’ve reached wallbanger status long before now if I weren’t doing market research on a particular publishing line.

WALLBANGER: A book so annoyingly terrible (due to TSTL characters, plot holes bigger than the northern hemisphere, horrific grammar and sentence structure, “reasearch” so laughable that tears come to your eyes, or any other peeve) that you can’t possibly read it to the end, and at some point thrust it from your offended eyes with such force that it collides with the nearest wall.

In this particular story, the heroine almost kills the hero in the very first scene. Not much motivation is given for this act of complete insanity until page 150 or so, and even then the “evidence” of his alleged misdeeds is so flimsy that it collapses the very first moment she bothers to ask him for an explanation.

Let me just say, I’m not a fan of the “there wouldn’t even be a plot if we just sat down and talked it over” storyline.

Why? Two reasons, besides the obvious.

1.) Boring characters. I think they’re both crazy and stupid.

2.) Unbelievable plot. Even if they’re both crazy and stupid, is anyone really *this* crazy and stupid?

As an author, I totally understand how this can happen. We’re so worried about getting from A to Z that sometimes B through Y kind of blurs together.

How can we trap these issues before they get out of hand? Maybe ask ourselves some questions. You know I like to count, so here goes:

1) If all the characters in this scene were spontaneously 100% honest with each other, would there still be any conflict?

2) What kind of person would do/say this particular thing? Is that what kind of person my character is?

3) When writing, pretend you *are* your viewpoint character. What do you notice about the setting and the other characters? How do you react and why?

I’m off to take my own advice… Till next time!

I am starting a new story this week, so characterization is weighing heavily on my mind. Here’s the bit I’m wrestling with:

1) Characters should change (protagonists should *improve*) over the course of the story.
2) Nobody wants to read about characters who are namby pamby, mean, stupid, or otherwise unlikeable.

The difficulty comes in trying to marry those two ideas in order to create a character worth reading about.

In order for a character to better herself over the story arc, she must start out less than perfect. However, the reader doesn’t want to read about her sitting around moping and whining, OR to read about her charging forward willy nilly, with no regard to consequences. (The latter type are often abbreviated TSTL: Too Stupid To Live.)

Not only this, but you must make the reader *care* about your character and that character’s goals right away, ideally from the first place.

This is often difficult without being melodramatic.

Cradling her dying husband in her arms, Martha stared at the whooping natives thundering up the horizon. The first of the arrows sliced through the air. Walt would never make it back to the wagon alive. She–and her unborn child–might die here, too.

When I first heard about people saying their characters were “real” to them, I’ve gotta admit… I thought it was a crock. I mean, come on. How can they be real? They’re *imaginary*. I *invented* them.

But then I heard that in order to write likeable characters, you (the author) must like them, too. This actually made more sense to me. To this way of thinking, it’s less that the characters themselves are real, and more that you’d be friends with them if they *were* real.

So, I started thinking about the very real individuals with whom I am friends. They are likeable enough that I enjoy their company, but they are also flawed, imperfect people–just like my protagonists are supposed to be!

Not that I’m advocating transferring personalities from real life directly to the page–I find that a singularly bad idea. But taking the *idea* of a character, someone with such great qualities and yet one or two head-shaking flaws… Someone who you love to be around, but can’t describe honestly without tacking “bless her heart” onto the end of the statement…

Who, Jill? Jill is an absolute riot. Remember that time she started an impromptu wet t-shirt contest in a Taco Bell parking lot and won fifty bucks from the frat boys in the drive thru lane? Hilarious. A bit impulsive, bless her heart, but absolutely the most fun in any situation.

What I’ve come to realize, is that despite the requisite character arc (which everyone agrees is a misnomer, as there’s no evidence of an arc-shape of any kind, but that’s a rant for another day) the reader wants to identify with the main character, so your protagonist better be somebody worth identifying with, right from page one.

The reader must either think, “I want to be friends with him” or “I want to *be* him”. And it’s up to you to evoke that desire.

Today I read an article by Alicia Rasley entitled Who Cares? Character Values and Conflict.

I chose this article because it seemed to be a unique twist in generating characterization. Rasley says that she chooses five values, such as a conceptual value (such as “honor”), a personal value (such as “family contact”), an experiential value (“being a good quarterback”), an object of value (“an autographed piece of memorabilia”), and a negative value (“a grudge against someone or something’), and then determines the implication of each.

She suggests illustrating each value and then having the story events put them at risk. Risking a math book means nothing. Risking that mint condition, one in one hundred signed Marilyn Monroe autobiography might mean a whole lot to your character. And so on.