Tag Archives: Characters

April 22, 2014 · 11:13 pm

You write WHAT?!?

For years I never told people my secret. I kept it between myself and my laptop. No one knew, suspected, or had any inkling what I did with my free time. Then one day, quite by accident,  I let it slip. The look I got from the person I told was comical and just this side of insulting.

“You write WHAT?!?” I was asked.

“Romance,” I replied.

“Why would you write that kind of book? You’re happily married and successful.”

I asked what that was supposed to mean and what connection it had to the kind of book I liked to write. The response floored me. “Romance books aren’t very interesting. I mean, the plot is always the same. Nothing new ever happens. They’re not very stimulating.”

Okay, did I say just this side of insulting? 

Romantic fiction has gotten a bum rap for a number of years, yet the sales statistics are staggering. Over 1.5 billion – that’s billion with a capital B – dollars in revenue in 2012. Compare that to its next highest competitor of mystery sales at just over 7 hundred million, and you can safely say romance sells. So why the bad rep? Why do people – professional writers included – feel that romance novels are the second class citizens of fiction?

You can probably get ten different reasons if you ask ten different people, but I’ll tell you the ones I’ve personally been told by friends and acquaintances.

“I don’t like books that have a lot of explicit sex in them.”

“The basic story line is always the same. The ending, predictable.”

“If I’m gonna buy a book,  I want to read about more than just  the two people in  the story.”

“I don’t like mushy writing.”

These are actually things that have been said to me when I asked. I’d like to address them individually.

“I don’t like books that have a lot of explicit sex in them.” This is so stereotypical that I’m pissed off I even have to address it. Romance novels come in all degrees of heat.  Everything from inspirational novels, where the two “love interests” don’t even kiss, to erotica, and everything in between. Some romance novelists are known for their heat level, jacking it up high and then cooling it down, just to fan it again. This is a normal romance roller coaster. The characters don’t hop into the sack on page one ( well, some authors in erotica do that). Their relationship grows in the novel until it reaches a point where the author either lets them act on their sexual attraction, or finds ways to keep them apart – interested – yet apart. It’s not all sesexsex on every page. That would be a boringly clinical book if it were, with nothing vested in the characters. You might as well read a sex manual.

“The basic story line is always the same. The ending predictable.”  Part of this statement has a smidge of truth – the last sentence. Almost all romance novels end the same way – with the heroine and hero discovering that they want to spend the rest of their days together. Marriage is usually the end product, but not always. The first part of the sentence is just flat out wrong. The basic story line of every romance novel is not the same. Sure, you have two main characters whom you’re rooting will fall in love, but how they get there, how they go on that journey, is different from book to book, character to character. Just like every person in real life is unique, every character in a novel is as well. Every person’s journey is unique, just like every character’s is. Nothing in life is predictable and neither are romance novels.

“If I’m gonna buy a book,  I want to read about more than just  the two people in  the story.”  This statement is surely made by a person who does not read romance. Yes, all romance books have two love interests. But just like in real life, there are people surrounding those main characters. Parents, siblings, friends, bosses, enemies and co-workers. Unless your story takes place on a deserted island and the main characters are shipwrecked, you’re gonna have more than two people in the story. Those secondary characters have their own story lines as well, again just like in real life. How they all intersect, intertwine and effect one another is the basis of sound story telling.

“I don’t like mushy writing.” Well, neither do I. Nor do I read it. What I read is dialogue that sounds natural, as if the two people were speaking in my own living room to one another. What I read is a plot that has a beginning, middle and resolution that satisfies me as the reader. I don’t read flowery sentences and purple prose, or any kind of drivel that makes no sense and makes my groan. I read well written, well plotted, superbly spoken works of talented writers. That these books have as their main premise a romance in them is frosting on the cake as far as I’m concerned.

Romance readers know what they want in a good story and romance writers strive to give them that with each and every book they pen. Numbers don’t lie and romance novels are here to stay.

Thank goodness for that.

 

 

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April 17, 2014 · 9:10 am

Individual Speech Patterns

Did you ever read a scene between two characters and not know who was speaking because they both sounded the same on the page? I have and it’s very disconcerting. Now, you can use speaker attributes,or tags, such as he said, or she asked, to denote who is speaking and this is a fine, tried and true method to delineate who is saying what. But no two people speak the same way, even members in the same family. They may use similar words or expressions, but the way they say the words is different. People are unique. Your characters should be, too.

I have a friend who always thinks before answering a question. There’s never any knee-jerking in any response she gives. And she uses a modicum of words to answer that question. I have another friend who – like me – always knee-jerks, never thinks and speaks in a rapid fire fashion using up more words in the dictionary than most people know the meaning to. If I were to write a dialogue between the two I would never need to write a speaker attribution. You would know who is speaking just by the way I’ve written the dialogue. Your characters should be recognizable as well. If you have done your job correctly, and have laid the foundation throughout the story of how they speak – slow or fast, their tone – loud or soft – and the way they use words, your readers should be able to identify them during a dialogue scene.

Certain frequently used phrases, slang and dialect are all individual tags to indicate who is speaking as well.  Think of this statement: “I don’ know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies!” If you are a Gone With the Wind fan, you recognize this as a sentence from Scarlet’s maid Prissy when Melanie goes into labor. Prissy is a slave. Poor, black and uneducated. If GWTW took place in the Regency period, you might expect the maid to be white, poor and uneducated, and her speech would sound something like this: “Oy dow’t know nuffin ‘bowt birthing babes!” Both sound uneducated. Take the same sentence and write it from Scarlet’s voice and it might sound like this: “But I don’t know anything about delivery babies!” Sounds different, doesn’t it? The well educated lady’s maid in England may  sound like this: “I’m sorry, but I am not acquainted with the necessary knowledge to assist a baby  into the world.” Sounds even more unique.

Where your story takes place, the locale or setting, will give you an indication of how the characters speak as well. The common ones are Y’all for the south, Mate for our neighbors to the north and Australia, Eh? for the upper midsection of the country, bloody and brilliant for our English friends. You can come up with many more individual phrases and words used in various sections of our world. If you have a Brit in your book, make him say common Brit phrases, and then try to have the Americans tell him the way they say the same word. That would surely denote who is speaking from who.

I am nosey. I’ve said this too any times now to try and deny it if asked. In my nosiness states I listen to how strangers speak. In a restaurant, at the mall, on airplanes. I enjoy hearing people talk because it is all fodder for my imagination and story telling. The next time you are somewhere pubic, listen to a few people have a dialogue. Note the speed – or lack of it – in the way they talk, the words they use – many or sparse – and any geographical dialect sounding words they say. See if you can translate that to whatever story you are currently working on. Write a couple of pages of dialogue without speaker attributes and have someone read it. Someone your trust and like. See if they can follow who is speaking without the tags. If they can, you have done a great job. If they can’t, figure out why not and how you can fix it. And I’ll bet you can fix it by doing any of the ways I’ve mentioned.

 

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April 16, 2014 · 9:14 am

Characters into real People, Part 3

Flaws, habits and idiosyncratic mannerisms. When you see these words do you immediately think of them as negative descriptions? You can, but you shouldn’t, because these are all facets of normal human behavior. And normal human behavior is what you want your characters to exhibit on the page. Unless of course you’re writing about lycans, vampires, or aliens from outer space that don’t exhibit normal human behavior.  And even then, I’m sure those subspecies have their own foibles, et al, indicative of their own, well, species.

Every person is unique, as is every character you develop. One dimensional characters are not fun to read, they are boring. Very boring. Ever notice that in every fairy tale from Sleeping Beauty to Cinderella to Snow White we never get to know the handsome prince who saves our girl from witches, evil stepmothers, and evil stepmothers who are witches? That’s because the storytellers didn’t want the guys’s true natures made known, because they’re perfect. Boringly perfect. Rich – they’re all Princes, after all, of huge kingdoms – handsome – because non attractive guys could never get a girl – and brave – they all slay dragons and fight evil daily. Nothing ever happens after the words And they lived happily ever after. You never hear about the fact that Cinderella now had to cater to her Prince and clean his castle, substituting one kind of indentured servitude for another; or that Snow White’s guy actually liked apples and didn’t want any other fruit brought into the palace – much to her chagrin. Apple pies, apple tarts,  apple butter yadayadyada. She couldn’t get away from them. And don’t get me stared on Sleeping Beauty’s guy and his unnatural predilection for dragons. No, these guys were all one dimensional. They basically had no substance, no occupation, other than to save our princess,  so we never heard about them after they did. ( My apologies to the Grimm Brothers who are probably rolling over in their five hundred year old graves right about now.)

So far I’ve talked about dialogue and speech patterns to try and  make your characters sound believable.  Today, I’ll talk about how to show they’re believable, and this is through they’re behavior.

We all know people who have little habits that drive us crazy. Tooth picking, throat clearing, feet tapping, you name it. I have terrible habits of talking with my hands ( raised in an Irish/Sicilian household- go figure) and for interrupting people. The first is okay. The second is absolutely annoying to people and I know that in my heart and mind, but I’m damned if I can do anything about it. What can your characters do to distinguish themselves, habit-wise, when you write about them? It doesn’t have to an annoying habit, like mine. It can be that your heroine bites her bottom lip when she is nervous, or your alpha male hero dislikes – really dislikes – being told what to do, and flares his nostrils when he is pissed. ( Sounds a little dragon-like, doesn’t it??)

By flaws I don’t mean one eye is smaller than the other ( like me!) but character flaws. Little bits of behavior, thoughts, and actions that tell you this person is not perfect. Far from it. For instance, your heroine is basically a nice person and always volunteers to help others, but just this once she really wishes you wouldn’t ask her to drive the meals on wheels car just because you have a hot date and she doesn’t. Two flaws here by the way : a little jealousy ( she has a date, your character does not) and a little pettiness.

Idiosyncratic mannerisms are little actions  particular to your individual characters that no one else in your story does. Again, I’ll use myself as an example. I check my watch. Often. Sometimes, every minute. This used to really annoy my father-in-law because he said it made it look like I had to be somewhere else and was just biding my time, and also that it was just plain rude. I totally agreed so I stopped wearing a watch. Now I check my phone. Often. Sometimes, every minute. My idiosyncrasy is time. I am consumed with it. No one else in my sphere is time obsessed like I am. I own that one.  Does your character snort when he laughs? Does she play with her hair, unconsciously, all the time? These mannerisms can be used to define your character and give them depth.

And if a character has depth, they are believable, and believable characters come across as Real People.

 

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April 15, 2014 · 9:17 am

How do you turn your characters into Real People, Part 2

Part of my website is called Tawk 2 Me. The word Tawk we all know should be spelled as Talk. The reason it isn’t here is because of my Brooklyn accent. I haven’t lived in New York in over 30 years, nor in Brooklyn for close to 42 . But I still speak as if I just got off the local Flatbush train. I don’t pronounce “R’s” at the end of works, substituting  “A’s” for them and my nasal, drifting cadence tells you immediately when you meet me that I am a Brooklyn girl. On the occasions when I go back to NY for a day or so, the accent reverts to a primordial twang and it grows even thicka ( thicker!) See: I even do it when I write!

Long before there was callerID people knew it was me on the other end of the phone the moment I said, “h’llo.”

This is a long winded way of saying one of the best ways to make your characters seem like real people is through:

  • dialogue
  • word choice
  • pronunciation

Where are these two people from?:

Guy 1 “Yo.”

Guy 2 “Yo”

Guy 1 “Where you been at?”

Guy2 “My ol’lady. Been busy. Bangin’ all day.”

Guy 1 “Go scratch.”

Guy 2 “True.”

Okay, I could go on with these two goons, but I think you get the idea from the dialogue, that these are two are not exactly Rhodes Scholars speaking about esoteric world events. They actually sound like guys I grew up with, so if you said they live in NYC or Brooklyn to be specific, you would be correct.

So here’s the same dialogue from a different part of the country:

Guy 1. “Hey.”

Guy 2. “Hey, back.”

Guy 1 “Where y’all been?”

Guy 2 “With my girl. We’ve been getting busy b’tween the sheets, know what I’m sayin’?”

Guy1 “No way, bro”

Guy 2 “Way.”

See the difference? Same speech, different words. They sound different and read differently. When I see this I immediately think midwest – south because of the “y’all.” I can hear the twang and drawl.

Word choice and word placement are two ways to make your character sound real and read as real.

When you read  a Regency romance you will never hear a character say a line like this: “Yo, bitch, what time we gotta be there? ” Instead, the line would probably read like this: “My dear, what time are we expected to arrive?” Same meaning, different time period and word choice.

Dialogue is a powerful way to present your characters.  Here’s a great little tool to use when plotting ( sorry, pantsers) your storyboarding and your characters. Check out the language and communication page: CHARACTER CHART.

Part three is next. I love this topic because I love my characters and the people they are!

 

 

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April 14, 2014 · 8:24 am

How do you turn your characters into Real PEOPLE?

This sounds like a really dumb question, but consider this: think about the last book you began to read and then put down because you couldn’t get into it, couldn’t relate to the plot or the characters. If it was the characters, I would bet it was because they didn’t come across as believable. Or normal, if you will. They might have been caricatures, the kind of characters that are written as  overblown personalities: too dramatic, too boring, just not real people. Think of caricature drawings. They hint at looking like the real person, but in reality they are distortions. No reader will invest in  characters who are not fully developed on the page or who are so over written as to not be believable. And I don’t mean just the descriptions of blue eyed, brown haired, endomorph, long legged. What I’m referring to are characters who are really shells. No substance underneath. I heard this description of a character once and it fits perfectly here: she’s like an expensive car without an engine; beautiful on the  outside, but  hollow. Nice to look at, but that’s all.

So how do you make your characters into believable beings?

One way for me is to show consistency. If you say someone has been afflicted by nerves their entire life, show them being nervous, even at the slightest thing. Show them acting and reacting to events that take place in your story. Someone who has a morbid fear of snakes is not going to run into the herpetology exhibit at the zoo with anticipation and glee on their face. That’s just not believable with what we’ve been told about the character. If I tell you my hero is a brave warrior, and then show him running away from a cat, well, that just doesn’t fit. His reactions don’t match his description. Consistency in thoughts and actions is a key factor toward developing believable characters.

Now if the person suffering from Ophidiophobia  is placed in a situation where she has to save a loved one from – you got it – snakes, then you have to at least hint at the fact that this person would do anything for a loved one, be it  run into a burning building to save them, or jump into a snake den to pull the loved one to safety, despite their phobia. Consistency works in thoughts AND deeds.

We all have fears, foibles, and character traits that make us unique. No one – NO ONE – is perfect. If you write a character that has no flaws – even slight ones – the reader will probably be turned off. I know: who doesn’t want a perfect guy, right? But let’s face it, perfection is not all it’s cracked up to be.  A little temper, a little selfishness when used correctly, a little messiness – you figure it out – all makes the character seem more like a real person and not just someone you put on a page and have things happen to. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a little sumthin’ sumthin’ that doesn’t need improving or commenting on. This one is tightfisted and has the first penny ever earned. This one claims to care nothing about looks, but will only date guys she considers a 9 or 10. I can be shallow, I know, but it’s true. Think of your friends, loved ones, and even people you don’t like. I can guarantee there’s something you’d like to change or fix about them. Use that trait in one of your characters and don’t fix it! Believe me, it’s fun to do.

This is a very near and dear topic to me so I’ll be spending a few blogs on it.

Until next time, though, re-evaluate your character(s). Look for  flaws and if he doesn’t have any – give him some. Make sure whatever you write is consistent throughout the work, too. And if it’s not, make sure you foreshadow, or hint, that this is the reason why it’s not.

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April 12, 2014 · 7:47 am

Are your characters motivated?

We all know that fiction is propelled by conflict. Two people  who just sit on the page enamored with one another is a very boring story that no one will read. Throw in a little conflict and it makes the story move forward. The same can  be said for motivation. What makes your characters do what they do? What end game are they interested in? What’s the goal? What lead them to this thinking?

In a phrase: what motivates them?

My favorite adult fiction book of all time is Gone With the Wind I know: it’s dated, hard to read in some parts because of the way the dialect is written, and sometimes you just want to slap Scarlet O’Hara like she slapped poor Prissy.  Scarlet is a conniving, lying, spoiled  vixen of a woman. But you want to root for her because everything she does, everything she becomes, is motivated by two central truths in her life- she loves Ashley Wilkes and she loves Tara. She will do whatever she has to in order to accomplish her goal of having both. And she does. Her motivation is to prove to Ashley that he really loves her and not  Melly. When the war destroys her family and her home, she is motivated beyond reason to help Tara rise again to the splendor it was pre-war. She marries men she does not love for their money and for the security they bring to her. She cares for Melly when she is sick and dying only because she wants to be close to Ashley. She really is a bitch in every sense of the word, but still, you root for her because she fights for what she wants, and to hell with everyone and everything else.

That’s motivation in it’s sincerest form.

What motivates your characters? Is it a desire to save the family homestead despite not having the visible means to do it? Is it revenge on the person  your character thinks did them wrong? Is it greed? Lust? Love? Whatever your characters want you need to be clear about it, because the reader wants what they want FOR them, and wants to see them overcome obstacles to get it.

There’s no motivation in a boy meets girl-boy gets girl story. Now, a boy meets girl-boys loses girl- boy gets girl in the end story is the stuff of romantic dreams. This is what romance readers want. They want to know what motivates the two characters to fall in love. What obstacles must they overcome to wind up together? Are their motivations at cross purposes and it looks like they’ll never make it? All this drives the story and what drives the character is their motivation.

What motivation do you give your characters? Is it strong enough to sustain an entire novel about it? If not, how could you make it stronger? Sit back and re-evaluate what you want for you characters and what they want. It should be the same thing. Your goal is deciding how to effectively help them attain that goal without losing sight of their motivation.

 

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