From Real Life

 For the past several months I've been hosting authors on my own website in a feature called Tell Me Your Story. I ask my guests to let us in on how events in their lives led them to become authors or influenced their writing. I've had some wonderful guests who've told wonderful stories, and as a bonus I've learned that my sources of inspiration are no different from even the most prolific and successful writers out there.

My guest this month is Betty Webb, author of dozens of wonderful novels, including ten Lena Jones noir mysteries and six Gunn Zoo humorous cozies. Betty lets us in on why her characters are so realistic and relatable. She says  "I get my ideas from my exceedingly weird family, who are weird enough to give me tips for character-driven mysteries, but not so weird that they ruined my childhood." She also admits that she bases her characters on her friends and enemies, too. (You can read about her tips and tricks here.)

This has made me consider my own characters. Mine are fashioned after and inspired by real people in my life, as well. You can't make up people in all their glorious inconsistencies and peccadilloes with anywhere near the imagination that God uses.

Of course, after writing several books featuring the same recurring characters, it seems to me that my characters have developed lives of their own, and they drive the action in my stories rather than the action driving them, just like real life.They may have started out as fictional characters, but they don't stay that way.

The great mystery novelist Graham Greene once said, "There comes a time when your character does something you would never have thought of. When that happens, he's alive, and you leave him to it."(I may have used this quote several times before, but what good is it to know a pithy quote unless you can use it fifteen or twenty times?)

A character worth caring about

Rick's post about the universal appeal of stories got me thinking – what makes a good story? One clue could be found in Tom's excellent post of last week and in the words of one person in the comments section:  emotion is "the beating heart of writing".

It's a timely reminder to all writers that no matter how beautiful our words or how thrilling our tale, readers are unlikely to keep reading if they are not emotionally invested. Stories are about characters, even if that character is a dog or horse. Not cardboard cut-out characters, not two-dimensional superheroes, not people who are defined only by an unusual talent or quirk, but characters with all the hopes and dreams and struggles and flaws that people can relate to.

Everyone can relate to this!

Somerset Maugham is credited with the famous saying; "There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are." I usually begin my writing workshops by giving this quote, because I believe everyone writes a novel differently and has to discover what works for them. There are far too many "how to" books out there which claim to lay out the secret steps to a perfect novel, and in my opinion, that way lies formulaic, derivative writing that fails to allow your truly creative self to blossom.

That's not to say there are no skills and tools of the craft to be mastered; a writer should be constantly learning and improving, not only from books and workshops but also by reading great novels. And over time, they will discover the rules that work for them and guide them in the creation of their best work.   In that spirit, having started my workshop with Somerset Maugham's quote, I then tell attendees that for me, there are four key elements to a good story. I am talking about crime novels, but I think the same applies to other genres. These elements are linked together, but over the next four blogs, I am going to try to tease them apart to discuss each in turn.

In keeping with Tom's post, the first element is a character worth caring about. There can be more than one character worth caring about, of course, but at the very least there should be one. It can be the protagonist, the victim, or even the "villain". Worth caring about is not synonymous with likeable. It represents a deeper level of identification and engagement. Something about the character should touch you in a way that makes you care about what happens to them and makes you want to spend three hundred pages with them to find out how they end up. If you have ever watched a TV show or read a book that has no character you cared about, you probably didn't finish the book or watch the next episode.

I've wrestled with how to define what makes a character worth caring about. Although positive traits are part of it – few readers want to spend time with a despicable character– I think caring comes not from being likeable, charming, funny, or brave, but from layers, flaws, conflicting desires, and a personal issue they are struggling with. Readers care about different things and identify with different struggles, but generally the more your character wrestles with a universal challenge like love, loss, loneliness, fear, or anger, the more likely the reader will identify and care about them.

The word worth is an essential part of my phrase. Is the character worthy of the reader's investment? Characters who are shallow, frivolous, silly, boring, or facing a superficial challenge are usually not worth our time (nor do they pique our interest), unless the frivolity is in itself a challenge they recognize and wrestle with as they seek a deeper meaning or commitment. But often when writers try to give their characters a meaningful challenge, they fall into cliches or superficiality themselves. The burnt-out cop, the loser in search of redemption, and the brave young widow(er) in search of a new start have all been done to death, so the writer has to work hard to make that character and their situation unique. Similarly giving a character a quirk like second sight, illness, autism, OCD, or disability is no substitute for making that character real, unique, and full rounded.

These are some of my thoughts about what makes a character intriguing enough to draw us in. It doesn't have to be complex or heavy-handed. I'm sure my dogs in the simple photo have already tugged at a few heartstrings and everyone wants to know what happens to them.

In the beginning

A few weeks ago I blogged about the light summer reading I had compiled for my newest novel, the second in the Amanda Doucette series. The first, entitled FIRE IN THE STARS, is in the hands of the editor, and I expect to get the first edits back in a few weeks. But in the meantime, as is often the case with writers, I am already deeply immersed in the second. FIRE IN THE STARS is set in Newfoundland and deals with foreign refugees and the international trade in hapless, desperate people.

The second, tentative titled THE TRICKSTER'S LULLABY, deals with ISIS, Jihadism, and radicalization– hence the light summer reading. Lest people wonder whether I am turning into an international spy thriller writer, have no fear. I don't know anything about the international espionage world, and I would not even attempt to fake it. I want to write about what I know, or at least what I can learn about and hope to understand. Psychology.

To me, stories begin and end with character. Why do people make the choices they do? What pushes them to the brink? What happens to them and how do they extricate themselves. If we don't care about the character, we won't care about their story, no matter how many breathless car chases there are or how many people they sleep with.

The new novel sits on the table, awaiting inspiration.

So in tackling a new story, my first job is to try to get myself inside the heads of the characters I create. All writers do this, unless they are merely painting by numbers. It's the only way to create vivid, believable characters instead of cookie-cutter, one-dimensional placeholders who move robotically through the plot at the whim of the author. I call my technique "method writing", because it involves slipping into the character's skin, imagining myself in the scene, drawing on all the senses and all my own memories and imagining how the world and the situation looks from this character's point of view. Although most writers are quite empathic and can readily put themselves in another's shoes, I suspect my years as a psychologist help me in this regard. Psychologists get to hear the personal struggles and feelings of all sorts of different people from different walks of life. But more importantly, a good psychologist spends his or her life listening and trying to see the world from another person's point of view in order to figure out how to help them and how to build bridges to them. It becomes second nature to us, to the extent that my children used to accuse me of mind reading.

Last week my fellow Type M-er Sybil posted about the value of acting lessons and improvisation skills in the creation of character. I think she was getting at the same idea. Actors immerse themselves in the character they are to play, so they can live, breathe, and imagine that character's every move. This too is about empathy, literally feeling for another. Improvisation is a tool actors use to discover their character and to probe more deeply into their feelings and needs. Reading her post, I realized I use improvisation on paper too.

At the beginning of a new novel, I don't know my characters very well. I discover them as they encounter each other and the situations I throw at them. Background character sketches can be stilted and static, whereas the characters who confronts  each other on Page 4 have to come alive and react. So my initial scenes with new characters are tentative and exploratory. Sometimes, especially when I'm stuck, I throw two characters into a scene with very little idea what they're going to say or how it's going to turn out. That's the essence of improvisation. In those interactions, the germ of the scene emerges and the story races ahead. Sometimes. Other times the interaction leads to nothing and is ultimately cut from the manuscript. But it is never wasted. Through that aimless wandering, I have learned more about my characters and fine-tuned them into more interesting, layered people worthy of being in the story.

Or I have turfed them out and brought in someone better.

None of that would have happened if I hadn't climbed into their skin and let them loose to explore the story.  What about others? What are your secret techniques for creating character?